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African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting
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Mask (Mawa)
Torres Strait, Saibai Island, 19th century
Wood, paint, hair, fiber; H: 27 in. (69 cm)
Provenance: Melbourne Aquarium, Melbourne, Australia, before 1900; F. Cooper Smith, Melbourne, ca. 1930; Roberta Nochimson, New York, 1972; [Lance Entwistle, London, 1973], Barbier-Mueller collection, since 1973
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In the Torres Strait Islands, between Australia and New Guinea, a distinctive series of masking traditions developed, with artists typically fashioning masks from turtle shell. The people of Saibai Island, just off the coast of New Guinea, however, developed a unique tradition of wood masks whose imagery is closely related to the turtle-shell masks of the eastern region of the strait. In both areas, masks almost universally took the form of human faces with lozenge-shaped eyes, prominent noses, artificially extended earlobes, grinning mouths, and lifelike coiffures and beards made from human hair.
One of the contexts in which masks in the Torres Strait were widely used was in increase rites–ceremonies performed to guarantee bountiful harvests or the abundance of fish and game. This appears to be case on Saibai, where the wood masks were reportedly worn by dancers during rituals intended to promote the fertility of crops, particularly certain types of fruit. See turtle shell masks from the Torres Strait in the Met's collection: 1978.412.1510, 1978.412.729.
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