container
- Museum number
- Oc1990,09.557
- Description
-
Container, roughly made from cane, in which pandanus nuts are dried and stored; soot encrusted; hole left in mid-container for inserting and removing nuts.
- Production date
- 20thC
- Dimensions
-
Length: 66 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- Pandanus nut container (‘amil kos kon’ in the Wahgi language), purchased from Wi Ol (literally, Tall Wi) of the Komblo sub-group Kulka Aluakup. Wi made the container himself two or three years ago (it’s only men who make such containers: Wahgi men always express mirth at the notion that women might undertake such men’s work). Making such a container entails taking ‘koso’ vine split into multiple segments still joined at one end, and then cross-plaited with ‘waiang’ vine. The pandanus nuts are pushed in, and the hole blocked with ‘nangen’ leaves. Such containers are stored in the house roof where smoke from the fire protects them from insect damage but encrusts them with soot. 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:217.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1990
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Oc1990,09.557
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 217 (field collection number)