I was sitting in my office one Thursday morning when a young man stormed in. His frantic expression assured me that something was gravely wrong. I moved my coffee mug and told the young man to sit down, identify himself, and explain his story. He took a deep breath, replied ³Hanson,² and began releasing his burden. He began by telling me that his cousin had bought a mask from a museum in Germany two weeks ago and brought it back here to New York for safe keeping. His voice was slowly lowering in pitch, as he continued to discharge his dilemma.
I sat there taking notes, not really taking him seriously, when all of a sudden he mentioned a ghost. My ears perked up and I looked at him straight in his eyes and said, ³Where is this mask now?² I was always a sucker for the supernatural. This sounded immediately like a case. The young man got up and quickly returned with a huge structure held in between both of his arms. He carefully placed the mask on my desk and cried, ³My cousin has died and I fear for my life. Return this to its rightful owners.² He stormed out of my office. I quickly got up and tried to get a phone number, but he had vanished in thin air. This is where I begin my case.
I began writing in my journal, analyzing the mask by taking it apart, and writing specific details on its physical uniqueness. And so I began:
The mask stands tall at about three feet. Its shape is conical, with a diameter of about a foot and a half. This is large enough to fit onto the upper torso of a lean male. There are two masks affixed to the conical construction. The cone is composed of fibers tightly knit together, with decorative fringes at the bottom.
The first unique feature to capture the viewers attention is the location of two face masks, which are on top of each other. Nowhere else in the world is a mask composed of two vertically aligned face masks. The second feature to capture the viewers attention is the fashion by which the wearer must enter the mask. To enter the mask the holder must enter from below. There are three holes on the lower half of the mask. The first hole is located on the bottom. It is large enough to accommodate a personıs upper chest. On the sides are two opposing holes large enough to fit a personıs arms through. The mask requires more than two people to put it on. To wear the mask, the holder must first enter both arms and follow with the head and then upper torso. The fashion by which the mask is put on resembles the manner by which a T-shirt is slipped into.
The face on the bottom is round in shape. It has two holes for eyes, about the size of a silver dollar, which allow the wearer to see through. Unlike the masks of some African tribes, the eyes are not slits but rather perfectly circular. The protruding nose is hooked at the tip with huge nostrils, allowing the wearer to breath outside air into the mask. The mouth is closed and is an upward curved cut, suggesting a faint smile. The bottom of each ear is aligned with the bottom of its respective eye. Both sides of the face are perfectly symmetrical. The left ear matches the right earıs aligned height.
The bottom maskıs design is simple. There are four equally placed dots on the face forming an implied trapezoid. The bottom two dots are openly placed at the cheeks near the mouth, while the top two dots are closely positioned near the end of the forehead. The spiral-like lines on the face caress the shape of the eyes, nose, and dots. There is a black mark on the chin suggesting a Vandyke.
The top mask is not hollow, but is a long oval. Itıs slender shape implies the face of an ancestor, similar to African ancestral masks. The most evident feature to capture the viewersı attention are the quarter inch holes for eyes, which are outlined by a thick black circle. Inside the circle, there is a spiral that disappears into a small receding hole. The design gives the eyes a long staring expression, which is hypnotic and watchful. The nose is hooked at the tip with large nostrils. The mouth is closed with a curved slit suggesting a slight smile. The forehead is adorned with one-inch dots, forming an implied trapezoid shape. On the right side of the face, the bottom dot is placed below a cheekbone, while the top dot is placed near the foreheadıs hairline. On the left side of the face, the top dot is placed far below the hairline, while the bottom dot is positioned near the left eye.
Like the bottom mask, the top mask has thin spiral-like lines, which caress the major features of the face. Also, there is a mark on the chin, which like the bottom mask, suggests a Vandyke. A unique feature that sets the top mask apart from the bottom mask is the forehead design. The top of forehead has a dark color that imitates a long paint drip, which runs down in between the eyes and onto the nose. The design is elaborate, decorated with small sea shells, and its color contrasts the white face.
Another feature that sets this mask apart from the bottom mask is the ears. The ears on the top mask are more detailed and pronounced. There are even earrings hanging from both ears. The ears match the color of the forehead.
It was two in the morning and my eyes were heavy as boulders. I slowly started to sink in my chair, sleep finally took over my body. Dark people captured me in a hut. The hut was aligned with several masks and what seemed to be human skulls. I tried to run towards the door, only to find myself held back by two men. As I squirmed to break free, an older man grabbed my chin and began talking in a strange language. His plumage was hypnotic and eyes piercing. He continued to speak in a foreign language and his eyes grew with anger. I was hypnotized by his presence. He raised his hand holding a club and swiftly struck my left temple. I fell to the floor consumed by darkness.
I awoke to find myself in my desk, front of the mask. The mask was comforting, but at the same time the dream led me to suspect the mask was the cause of my nightmare. I quickly flipped to a clean page on my journal and labeled it, ³Claim.² Without any thought, I wrote every insight I obtained by staring at the two-faced mask. I began by using the dream as a guide. I wrote:
My hunches led me to believe that the mask was used for tribal dance ceremonies.
At first glance, my attention shifted to view both masks vertically aligned. This was something very new to me. I had never seen this type of mask in my previous studies of primitive cultural masking. The fact that the mask stands tall at over three feet led me to suspect that this mask is used in some type of dance ceremony. A huge structure like this would not be practical during a hunt or fishing expedition. As a war costume, the wearer is rendered helpless and an easy target. The mask is too big to provide stealth. Also, the big size does not allow a person to swing a club or throw a spear successfully. This leaves celebration as the only use for the mask.
The mask expresses a joyous mood through the clown-like faces and warm smiles. The designs resemble the make-up of a clown from the western world. The smiles cast from these masks express happiness and joy. A hunt is not joyous, a celebration is. This further supports the dance ceremony theory.
The second feature to catch my attention is the two pegs that jut out from the sides of the bottom mask. I believe the two pegs serve as stabilizing devices. During a dance, the mask wearer is involved in many movements. Some movements are soft and others jerky. Some dances also require the dancers to bow down or lean back. The two pegs provide the wearer a grip on the mask allowing for stabilization, during these movements.
The final clue, which leads to my claim, is the top mask has an elongated face. The elongated face represents an ancestor spirit. In many primitive cultures, the ancestor spirits are always present in ceremonies. Symbolically, this mask is a representation of an ancestor who is watching over during a dance ceremony.
With these insightful clues in mind, I immediately planned a trip to a library. I hid the mask underneath some sheets in my trunck and then hopped into my car. The case was leading to its resolution.
I finally arrived at the library after a well-deserved meal. Fridays usually have more people, but strangely the parking lots were almost empty. I walked in and asked the librarian what section had primitive art. She wrote down the section and floor and handed me the card. I arrived at the third floor and surprisingly enough; the section was on my left. I searched for about thirty minutes and finally the mask appeared in an art book. I pulled out my journal and began writing notes.
The mask is from New Guinea, an island above Australiaıs northeastern border. The natives call this type of mask a Tumban. The tribes along the Sepik river use this mask as a dance costume during ceremonies and rituals. They represent ancestor spirits, birds, pigs, and crocodiles (Maksic 28). My assumptions were correct. The elongated face indeed represents ancestor spirits. As I read on I became more eager to find the function of this mask.
In the book, Primitive Art of New Guinea, author Sava Maksic sums up the maskıs function as follows:
These costumes traditionally have at least two masks, which may be made of wood, woven fibers or a combination of both. The dancer looks through the eye holes of the bottom mask and extends his arms through the bottom openings on each side of the costume, marked here by tufts of wild grass. The top mask is intended to give the costume an imposing or frightening appearance. (Maksic 28)
Finally, Sava Maksic describes the role the Tumban has in Sepik River Cultures:
The costumes were used to encourage young men during initiation rites, to give warriors courage before battle, and to enliven other ceremonies. In the old days, they were sometimes used in an effort to scare off a raiding party from an unfriendly village. Now they sometimes frighten the local children, but the adults consider them benevolent spirits. (Maksic 29)
The diet of the Sepik River tribes consisted of sago palm pulp, fish, pigs, and yams. The last item is mostly celebrated with a festival called Yena. In this celebration, masks are made to help grow yams and continue their abundance. In, Yena: Art and Ceremony in Sepik Society, author Ross Bowden states, ³they [yams] are nevertheless the most highly valued cultivated food.² (Bowden 3) Yams are an important part of Sepik river cultures, because they provide subsistence.
During these ceremonies the masks are believed to contain ancestral spirits. The natives highly value and take these masks into great consideration. The masks, especially the Tumban also have their own separate ceremonies before their use. Once such mask ceremony is described by, author Ralph Linton, in which the masks are ritually burned:
When they [masks] have served their purpose, they are discarded and allowed to rot, but the larger masks, being sacred, are ritualistically burned, at which time the spirits represented by them are thanked for having participated in the ceremonies and are promised that they will be invited back again. (Linton 98)
As I read this, I began to think back on my dream and the death of Hansonıs cousin. The mask I held in my trunk wanted to go back to its owner. I now knew what caused Hansonıs cousinıs death and why Hanson was so frantic. The trapped ancestral spirit was giving us a message. I still could not figure why I had dreamt about being clubbed and those human skulls on walls of a hut. So I read on.
The New Guinean tribes were vengeful people who delighted in savage homicide. Headhunting was their alternative to satisfy the revenge for the death of a fellow tribesman by an enemy clan. They prized the skulls of captured enemies. Skulls were hung on the walls of the menıs secret huts. Some skulls were even decorated. Headhunting was not the only revenge performed on enemies, cannibalism was also practiced. Cannibalism was like adding insult to injury, in the sense that after the prized head was cut from the body, the body was then cut into pieces and cooked to further humiliate the enemy. Ross Bowden describes how Woylow, a captured criminal was punished:
The men and women prepared to cook Woylow. Naniyas of Awnow clan took a stone adze and killed him. The men then cut him up and cooked him. All of the men then ate pieces of his flesh in hope of acquiring some of Woylowıs phenomenal strength(ow). They stored the left-overs in bamboo containers. The men later gave these to their children to eat so that they would grow up as strong as Woylow. This practice is called kilawa kilap. (Bowden 24-25)
After reading this, I quickly put the book down and headed towards my car. The mask was now in the passengers seat. I immediately took this as a sign from the ancestral spirits who wanted its return. That same day I booked a flight towards New Guinea. The case was finally solved.
Works Cited
Bowden, Ross (1983). Yena: Art and Ceremony in a Sepik Society Oxford England: Pitt
Rivers Museum.
Linton, Ralph (1946). Arts of the South Seas New York: Plantin Press.
Maksic, Sava (1973). Primitive Art of New Guinea: Sepik River Basin Worcestor,
Massachusetts: Davis.
Other References
Corbin, George A. Native Arts of North America, Africa, and the South Pacific
New York: Harper & Row, 1988.
Gewertz, Deborah B. Sepik River Societies Yale University, 1983.
LeenHardt, Maurice. Folk Art of Oceania New York: Tudor, 1950.
Newton, Douglas. Crocodile and Cassowary New York: Museum of Primitive
Art, 1971.
Schmitz, Carl A. Oceanic Art: Myth, Man, and Image in the South Seas Harry N.
Abrams: New York.