figure
- Museum number
- Oc1895,0316.1
- Description
-
Effigy of a deceased individual, rambaramp, made of human skull, cane, clay, vegetable fibre, and boar's tusk. Skull mounted on body consisting of cane frame covered with leaf strips and clay. Skull overmodelled from brow down, lips, nose and ears formed of clay (right ear missing); face painted orange with vertical blue lines. At shoulders, clay is moulded into outward-looking faces (left is less distinct), and thick bunches of vegetable fibre project from cane tubes, which they are secured to with string and clay. Right arm is painted black, the left orange, and both have painted on black and white armlets, left is adorned with single boar's tusk armlet; hands are formed of protruding leaf strips. Body is coloured orange, with black and blue vertical lines painted on; raised clay belly button; bunch of vegetable fibre secured with twisted fibre bindings forms penis, testicles are covered with leaf strips, clay and paint. Left leg is black, right is orange; ankles are painted with triangular patterning in black and white.
- Production date
- 1850-1893 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 34.20 centimetres (horizontal crate)
-
Height: 152 centimetres
-
Width: 165.20 centimetres (horizontal crate)
-
Width: 41 centimetres
-
Depth: 54.50 centimetres (horizontal crate)
- Curator's comments
- Registration slip:
'Presented by Fred Skeffington Esqre’
16th March 1895
New Hebrides
Figure god formed of a framework of cane and reed plastered over with clay: erect. From the shoulders project two ends of the framework in a vertical direction ornamented with tufts of brown dried grass. The clay is dyed red, and ornamented on the cheeks with chevron - like stripes of bright blue: on the breast with vertical stripes of blue & black; and on the arms & legs with broad bands of black, picked out here and there with geometrical design in black & white. The back ornamented with black & white vertical stripes on right arm, armlet of boar's tusk: on head network cap adorned with white fowl feathers. Feet missing. Head made of a skull.
H. 51
[drawing, including cap]
Aniwa {? Malekula}
(12m N.E of Tanna)
{"certainly from S. Malekula"
A.C Haddon and Layard Oct. 1927.}
(see J.R.A.I. 1928)'
Prehistory and Europe Correspondence pre-1896 Sk-Sz box: Letter from Fred Skeffington of 72 Victoria Road, Kilburn, NW London to A.W. Franks, dated 20th April 1895, mentioning the figure, and his wife's wish that it be put on display. A copy of this correspondence is also held in the AOA department.
British Museum Register (of previously unregistered material/Queries) 1982:
'178 [since crossed out]: Pith figure of a man with a bone skull & blue & orange painted facial decoration & wearing a shell armlet on his left arm.
At 1895 registration the figure had a cap decorated with feathers, which was not associated with the figure at 1982 registration, and which does not appear to have been re-registered separately.
Made after death with the individual's skull, the construction and design of the effigy reveal the person's membership of secret societies, and the various grades and ranks attained. The figure would be displayed at the men's house, and then on a specially constructed doorway during funeral ceremonies. The nature of the ceremony, including the gong rhythms and the plants planted on the dancing grounds, also related to a person's grade status.
See Deacon, A.B., (1934) 'Malekula : the vanishing people in the New Hebrides'. London: Routledge.
Use of Reckitt's blue (laundry product) in painted designs .
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1895,0316.1
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: Oc1982Q1.178
