NEWGUINEAART

TRIBAL WEAVINGS

5

5.Sawos skull

reliquary, Torembi

village complex,

middle Sepik River,

East Sepik

Province, New

Guinea, 19th-20th

century or earlier.

Height 59.5cm

(1'11 1 ⁄ 2 "). Jolika

Collection of New

Guinea Art, Marcia

and John Friede 6.Mountain Ok

string bag, tiyaapl

men, Upper Sepik

River, Telefol

region, Sandaum

Province, New

Guinea, 20th

century. Height

53.5cm (1'9").

Jolika Collection of

New Guinea Art,

Fine Arts Museums

of San Francisco,

L05.1.429 7. Kapriman

female (didagur)

mask, early 20th

century, Kapriman

village area,

middle Sepik River

between the

Karawari

(Korewori) and

Blackwater Rivers,

East Sepik

Province, New

Guinea. Height

66cm (2'2"). Jolika

Collection of New

Guinea Art, Fine

Arts Museums of

San Francisco,

L05.1.187

62HALI ISSUE 151
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NEWGUINEAART

13 or 15 clusters. Once the tail is completed, a man may add the personal touch of a brightly coloured feather, such as the red lory and bird of paradise feathers seen on this bag. The Telefol refer to the tail of their cassowary bilumas unam (woman’s grass skirt). This underscores the cosmological significance of the bilumas it is seen as the “embodiment of the essential characteristics of both men and women.” 9

A didaguror female spirit mask (7) from Kapriman village has been completely shaped and split-rod coiled from the stem of a climbing vine (lygodium). Paint emphasises the concentric circles of vine comprising the eyes, as well as the intricate openwork patterns of the mouth and lower jaw that some scholars liken to spider’s webs. The nose is pronounced and small ears appear at each side of the head. As with the Sawos mask with compound eyes, the mask maker has woven the object in sections to build the dramatic angled features of the head. Masks were made by men and stored in the ceremonial men’s house until they were worn with full body costumes for ceremonies including initiation. 10 This mask was collected with its long-nosed male pair, also now in the Jolika Collection. They are considered to be brothers and sisters and would have had proper names of their owner’s clans. 11 Didagurancestral spirits that resided in water or hollows of trees could be manifest in the masks. 12 According to Dirk Smidt, “Art functions in context of a succession of feasts and ceremonies. The principal theme in the feasts is the indissoluble unity of life and death, and the renewal of life”. 13

A powerful and enigmatic Sawos reliquary figure (5), consisting of an overmodelled skull attached to a body of twined cane strips, bears an affinity to sparely decorated but striking figurative wooden sculptures created by Sawos carvers. The head is large in relation to the body, the arms are slightly bent and engaged. The belly appears fecund-shaped in a distinctive two-strand twining of cane with vertical weft threads. A band of basketry is attached to the skull in place of a lower jaw, providing the substructure for modelling the lower face and chin. Arms of plaited cane strips and breasts of coiled cane were made separately and then attached to the loosely twined body. When acquired, accompanied by two masks, the figure was displayed in a shrine in the ceremonial house of one of the Torembi hamlets north of the Sepik River.

John Friede remarks that, “this basketry reliquary, with her mask attendants, retains its mystery and power even in this secular age. A rare insight is gained into the inner sanctum of Sepik spirituality, a place known before only by the highest level of initiated elders.” For the Asmat living in west Papua the jipaeritual, for which the elaborate spirit mask costume known as Doroe orDekewar (8) is made, is one of the most sacred. The Asmat believe that the dead do not immediately leave the earth and while they linger there is the potential for danger. 14 The ceremony takes place every few years to commemorate the important persons who have passed away since the previous feast. During the jipaeceremony masked dancers representing the dead enter the village from the forest or river for a final visit to their descendants. As the dancers travel from home to home, they are treated with the highest respect. A dance commences at sunset with the masked performers imitating the gait of the cassowary. At sunrise a mock fight occurs as the village men attack the performers with sticks and chase them into the men’s house or back into the forest, symbolically expelling them into the world of the dead. Great importance is attached to the role of the mask wearer – not only does he play the part of the deceased, but he takes on the dead person’s responsibilities and adopts any orphaned children. 15

The creation of the spirit mask is surrounded with as much ritual as the jipaeceremony itself. The process begins with strips of mulberry being collected and brought into the confines of the men’s house. A member of the yeu(initiated male) community twists the mulberry into a fine cord and presents it to the mask’s sponsor. 16 The mid-section and shoulders are then constructed of rattan in a single-rod coiled basketry technique. The mulberry cord is attached to the rattan waistband and the mask is gradually built up, using a delicate single-element looping technique, which completes the chest and headpiece. The mask is then painted with red ochre and lime and the important appendages are added, including the wooden eye lozenges and the feathered stick protruding from the back of the head. This particularly elaborate example has feathers running along the shoulders, ear ornaments and a coix seed and feather pendant on the waistband.

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