wig;
ceremonial equipment
- Museum number
- Oc1990,09.518
- Description
-
Man's wig, shoulder-length, made from a cane frame covered in barkcloth onto which burrs, then human hair, have been pressed, the surface then being smeared with melted gum; bottom of the wig fringed with orchid fibre, tufts of marsupial fur and pieces of green snail shell.
- Production date
- 20thC
- Dimensions
-
Height: 48 centimetres (excluding pendant shell)
- Curator's comments
- Long ceremonial headdress (‘peng kokn’ in the Wahgi language) commissioned from Anamb of the Komblo sub-group Milyand. Such headdresses are otherwise made only in the final stages of the once-generational Pig Festival; their making and signficance is described in O’Hanlon’s article ‘Unstable images and second skins’ (MAN vol. 27, no.3, September 1992). Anamb, Komblo’s most prominent diviner, healer, and general ritual handyman, is a skilled maker of such headdresses of which this example is a relatively traditional version whose frame is covered not with modern fabric but with barkcloth to which human hair has been attached with burrs. For an account of the making of the collection of which this is part see ‘Paradise: portraying the New Guinea Highlands’ by Michael O’Hanlon (British Museum Press, 1993).
Field collection no:679.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1990
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1990,09.518
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 679 (field collection number)