IDNO

P.999.ACH1

Description

On Catalogue Card: “Model of mask worn at Meket-Sarik. cf. VI, p.276, fig. 57.” [typed text]; “(Initiation Ceremony)” [manuscript in pencil].

Place

Oceania Australasia; Europe British Isles; Australia; United Kingdom; Torres Strait; Mer; England; Cambridge; Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology

Cultural Affliation

Torres Strait Islander

Named Person

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

Haddon, Alfred Cort

Date

?1898; ?1905

Collection Name

Mounted Haddon CollectionTorres Strait Island Expedition

Source

Haddon, Alfred Cort (Dr)

Format

Print Black & White Mounted

Primary Documentation

Other Information

Bibliographical Reference: See Head-hunters; black, white, and brown
by Haddon, Alfred C. (Alfred Cort), 1901. (London Methuen), pp.59-60, with the following entry:
"Soon after starting I heard about an ancient fighting custom associated with Ziriain Zogo, at a place called Meket. There was a turtle-shell mask, which no woman was allowed to see, that was kept in a hole in the rock. I asked Pasi to sketch the mask for me in the sand ; then I asked another man to do so. Of course I did not let either look at the other man's representation until they had finished. As I found they differed, I made further inquiries, and found that an old man named Wano, who lived closed by, knew all about the ceremony; so he was fetched, and he drew a diagram on the sand. By dint of much questioning and pantomimic action, I found out some- thing about the ceremony and the character of the mask. This consisted of a turtle-shell face, with pearl-shell eyes surmounted by a turtle-shell crescent about three feet across, decorated on each horn with a black-tipped feather of the white Torres Straits pigeon and two seed rattles. Attached to the chin of the mask was a rope about six feet long, to which a large number of human lower jaw bones were tied. Before I left Murray Island Wano made a rough wooden model of the mask for me.
After a fight a number of men would come here with bows and arrows and clubs, especially with the former. The men formed a circle and danced with appropriate shooting gestures; two men painted red and wearing dance-petticoats danced in crouch- ing attitudes in the centre, and all sang a weird song. One of the central dancers would wear the mask and would carry in his right hand a club, and in his left a bleeding, decapitated human head. The other man supported the rope of human jawbones." [JD 02/03/2022]