Carved and painted helmet mask of a face. The mask is made of carved wood with basketry framework forming the top of the head. The face is carved with elaborate designs and painted black, white and orange. There are perforations for the mouth, nostrils and eyes. The ears are elongated with slits in them. The top of the head is half covered with black yarn and half with wooden pins, the halves are divided by a strip of red fabric. [AB [OPS Move] 16/9/2016]

Collection type: Object
Description: Carved and painted helmet mask of a face. The mask is made of carved wood with basketry framework forming the top of the head. The face is carved with elaborate designs and painted black, white and orange. There are perforations for the mouth, nostrils and eyes. The ears are elongated with slits in them. The top of the head is half covered with black yarn and half with wooden pins, the halves are divided by a strip of red fabric. [AB [OPS Move] 16/9/2016]
Geographical reference: Papua New Guinea
Oceania > Melanesia > Papua New Guinea; New Ireland Bismarck Archipelago
Person: Field collector H.A. Tufnell; Field collector Henry Archibald Tufnell; Field collector Sir William MacGregor; PRM source Henry Anson
Date / Period: Date made: Before 1899
Date collected: By 1899
Acquisition information: Donated: 1899
Materials and processes: Material Wood Plant, Material Pigment, Material Wool Yarn Animal, Material Textile, Material Plant Fibre, Process Carved, Process Painted
Dimensions: Width: max 340 mm, Height: max 590 mm, Depth: max 86 mm
Object numbers: Accession number: 1899.62.408 Other numbers: 74
Research and responses: This is probably a tatanua mask. The following account is taken from Michael Gunn's caption to the reproduction of another tatanua mask from the PRM (1899.62.405) as figure 7 in Transformations: The Art of Recycling, by Jeremy Coote, Chris Morton, and Julia Nicholson (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, 2000): 'Such crested masks are known as tatanua. According to early accounts, they were representations of the spirit or soul (tanua) of dead people. Today this idea is rejected by New Irelanders, who say that tatanua masks are representations, portraits even, of living individuals. As with many art forms around the world, it seems tatanua were designed to portray the locally conceived criteria of human, in this case, manly beauty. So this mask, like the other tatanua preserved in museum collections, is characterized by an elaborate coiffure, a wide, projecting nose, pierced and distended earlobes, side whiskers, a big mouth, and sound teeth. The tatanua were worn in public dances in which groups or lines of men were disguised by the masks and garlands of leaves and foliage reaching to their knees.' [JC 23 3 2001]

Search terms: Mask, Religion

Search

Further items to explore