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For the Tami Islands mask-maker, carefully chosen materials manipulated with utmost skill have resulted in a highly dramatic, lightweight fibre-covered mask (4). The fibre has been placed and shaped without folds or darts, and a fine seam connects the two pieces of fibre down the centre of the face and the back of the head. A rounded mass of fern material secured with plant fibre caps the face and the nose is made of wood. Elongated earlobes, a characteristic element of Tami personal adornment, have been constructed separately of wrapped fibre and attached. Two pieces of coconut bast fibre carefully placed on the bias around a rattan frame creates a smooth surface for painting distinctive designs and strongly outlining the eyes and mouth. Tagomasks such as this example, which was collected before 1900, represented a primordial spirit or ancestor, 2 and were individually named and associated with a particular family group, whose men and women painted their faces with the same motifs on ceremonial occasions. 3

The ease of wearing the tagomask was in marked contrast to the weighty cloak of leaves and coconut fibre that completely concealed the dancers’ bodies when they paraded or danced. 4 In the 19th century, the presence of the tagospirits was credited with bringing peace to villages during their stay of a year or more, but they could also be menacing. During their forays into the centre of a village, they imposed food restrictions, demanded food, threw pebbles at the villagers and frightened away women and children. While the missionary Georg Bamler recorded these activities as early as 1911, their meaning has not been revealed. Tago appeared only every decade, so the departure of the spirits returning to their dwelling place in nature was an emotional occasion, marked by remembrances of deceased relatives who had also seen the tago perform. 5 For John Friede, “...tago are one of the most desirable fibre masks of New Guinea.” Old and traditionally used tagomasks are so rare that he purchased this piece sight-unseen. In contrast to the rarity of tagomasks, the string bag or bilum is one of the most universally worn and ubiquitous of New Guinea objects. Made from two-ply bast fibre cord, bilumare constructed in a single-element looping technique. Women, the primary creators, use a wide variety of looping techniques, often several variations are found in a single bag. The resulting knotless bag with long handles can hold a single small item or expand to carry

large and heavy loads such as sweet potatoes. Babies are carried in a bilumcradled close against their mother’s bodies and the bilumis symbolically referred to as the woman’s womb. Sacred bilumbags may contain the bones of deceased ancestors. Bilumare judged by their pleasing aesthetic attributes, fine technical construction and utility. 6 Different localised methods of manufacture have developed in different areas of New Guinea, to the extent that the bilumhas become a signifier of regional identity. However, its value extends beyond that of a functional object, as it plays an important role in ceremonial life. According to Maureen MacKenzie, “The feathers on a man’s bilumenhance his physical appearance, proclaim his masculine skills as a hunter and provider, mark the level of initiation a man has reached, and extend his metaphorical connection between the bilumand motherhood beyond the female and the biological”. 7

For the Mountain Ok people, the string bag, embellished with bird’s feathers, is an marker of male initiation and status. The tiyaapl men bilum(6) richly adorned with the dark shiny plumes of the cassowary, is the most prestigious of all. It is decorated and worn only by the few men who achieve the final grade of initiation. While hunting, a man will collect feathers in preparation for his upcoming initiation. The aggressive male cassowary is a difficult prey for hunters, although as a mate it is charged with nurturing the eggs through incubation. In Telefol mythology, the cassowary is identified with Afek, the Primal Mother, “… as people believe that the Afekgave birth to everything upon which the continuation of the Telefol world depends, the cassowary bilumis by corollary associated with extraordinary potent powers”. 8

Unlike the women, who create their bags in communal gatherings, the men work within the confines of the man’s house, restricting access to technical skills through a formal hierarchical system. The elder men guard the knowledge to transform the unadorned bilum,provided to them by a female relative, into their prized tiyaap men. The construction starts with bunches of three to four feathers being adeptly threaded through the top of each loop of a finely interlaced bilum. These are then bound in position with an unspun bast fibre. An entire side of the bag is covered and expertly shaped. The central ‘tail’ is composed of large clusters of 20 to 25 plumes bound to a pliable cane, in two successive rows of

60HALI ISSUE 151
3.Map of New

Guinea showing

the sources of the

works of art

illustrated

4.Tamitagomask,

Morobe Province,

Huon Gulf, Tami

Islands, New

Guinea, 19th

century. Height

66cm (2'2"). Jolika

Collection of New

Guinea Art, Fine

Arts Museums of

San Francisco,

L05.1.91

4

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