IDNO

T.68631.MFL

Description

Three men inside a men’s house (haus tamberan). Two of them are wearing shorts and sitting on a ?log/?slit-gong while the third is standing to their left, wearing a laplap and shirt. The men’s house has a roof made from thatched sago-palm leaves on a frame tied together with cane vines. All three men are looking at the camera. Hanging on the post beside where the two men are sitting are two masks of spirits painted in yellow, red-ochre, black and white paint. The colour of these masks closely resembles the nokwi and minja figures of Kwoma speaking villages such as Bangus, Waskuk, Tongwinjam, Urambanj, Mino. These villages are located to the west of Ambunti government station, Upper Sepik. This particular photograph may have been taken in Maio, a Kwoma speaking village. For ethnographic records concerning Kwoma art forms see Bowden, Ross (1983), Kwoma: art and ceremony [Andrew Moutu 19/02/04].

Place

Oceania Melanesia; Papua New Guinea; East Sepik; Near Ambunti; ?Maio

Cultural Affliation

Kwoma

Named Person

Photographer

None

Collector / Expedition

?Summer Institute of Linguistics

Date

10 June 1967

Collection Name

Macfarlane Collection

Source

Macfarlane, Alan

Format

Transparency

Primary Documentation

Other Information

T.67481 to T.68999 and T.74937 to T.74998 were found in the box now numbered C494/.
T.68624 to T.68639 were found in the plastic slide sheet now numbered C494/59/.

These photographs were probably taken during a field research trip by researchers from the Summer Institute of Linguistics. Among the members of the expedition are Patricia K Townsend, William H Townsend and T Wayne Dye. An initial report on the research is given by Dye, Townsend and Townsend (1968) [Mark Elliott 04/03/04].

This catalogue record has been updated with the support of the Getty Grant Program One. [Mark Elliott 27/02/04].