Death mask "kaka-paraga"
Artur Rösler, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany
Description
wood, middle brown patina, painted with red, black and white pigment, helmet-shaped mask with triangular chin and hat-like top, nose and brows forming a T-shaped zone, flanked by small see holes, incised mouth with zigzag contour, the facial plane painted with asymmetrical ornaments, herringbone pattern at the back of the head, slightly dam., minor missing parts (nose, chin), cracks (above all backside), rep. (a narrow piece of wood supplemented at the back of the head, spread with mass);
exceptionally rare mask type !
Within Oceania a helmet mask which is entirely carved of wood can only be found on the Witu Islands. These masks are exceedingly rare in western collections. It should have been a torture to wear the tube-shaped tight masks. The archetype were light-weighted, nearly cylindrical masks of tree bast.
According to Anthony JP Meyer they portray important ancestral beings and were used to initiate young boys, and personify the ancestors during cult ceremonies. According to Ingrid Heermann they were used during funerary ceremonies, the wearers of the masks were called “namo” (Baessler-Archiv, Bd. XIX, 1971, p. 59). The ornamental paintings (curved lines) were connected with mourning and tears. For the western beholder the masks create an expression of great seriousness, closeness and concentration. According to Tibor Bodrogi there is a close stylistical nearness between the death masks and the “tumbuan” mask type from the Siassi-Islands, while certain decorative motifs refer to the Kilengi area and to the Tami-Islands.
The Witu Islands (formerly called the “French Islands”) are a volcanic group of eight islands located in the Bismarck Sea of New Britain in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The isles were discovered by Abel Tasman in June 1643. In the time from 1885 until 1899 the Witu Islands belonged to the German Protecorate and from 1885 until 1914 they were part of the German-New Guinea Colonies. In 1914 the islands were captured by Australian troops and were under australian rule since that time. In 1975 they became part of the independant state of Papua New Guinea.
Victor (Mordechai) Goldschmidt (1853-1933) was a metallurgical engineer, who felt deeply involved with mineralogy throughout his whole life. He is the author of the standard work “Atlas der Krystallformen”. He was married with Leontine Porges, Edle von Portheim, from Prague. In 1894/95 the couple made a trip around the world where they discovered their passion for ethnographical art and brought with them a great number of ethnographic objects, which formed the base of the later collections of the Museum of Ethnology, called “Portheim-Stiftung” in Heidelberg, which they founded in 1916/1919. For his personal collection it is proved that Goldschmidt for years even bought objects from Johann Friedrich Gustav Umlauff (1833-1889) in Hamburg and from William O. Oldmann (1879-1949) in London.
Artur Rösler studied geology at the University of Heidelberg. Lateron her was director of the Institute of Geology and Palaeontology at the Bergakademie Clausthal.
Due to relationships that go back to Victor Goldschmidt, we can assume that this mask once has been in the possession of Goldschmidt.