Context (CMS Context)
Exhibited: On display as part of the billum tree installation in Assembling Bodies: Art, Science & Imagination, Andrews Gallery 10 March 2009 - 6 November 2010.
Event Date 12/10/2015
Author: Rachel Hand

Context (CMS Context)
Professor Dame Marilyn Stathern, William Wyseman Professor of Anthropology, 1993- 2008, Cambridge University, conducted fieldwork in the New Guinea Highlands and in Port Moresby from the 1960s onward.
Sent to the donor by Tikupa, (c. 1995- 1999)
[See Maureen MacKenzie, 1991, Androgynous objects: String bags and gender in Central New Guinea, Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers Ltd.]
"Good billums are expensive (20- 50 Kina in 1995 before inflation i.e., £10- £25 sterling). All these were paid for in some manner or other, even when 'given' (i.e., through return gifts): these are not the kind of things one receive without making recompense. They are regarded as quintessentially 'Papua New Guinean'." [From notes by Prof. Marilyn Strathern, 18/8/2003]

Event Date 12/10/2015
Author: maa

Description (CMS Description)
This is a rather clumsy effort with a great mix of colours and re-spun wools. It must have been made by someone not recognised as very skilful. Sent to me by Tipuka. Could have been a girl's practice bilum. [From notes by Prof. Marilyn Strathern, 18/8/2003]
Event Date 12/10/2015
Author: maa