179
New Guinea Mask


- Country: Indonesia
- Source:
- Size (cm): 43
- Material: Wood, buffalo horn, shells, buffalo hair, fabric
Melanesia, Indonesia, Western New Guinea (Papua). A carved wooden mask with a fierce face: shell eyes, bared teeth, buffalo-horn horns and a mane of buffalo hair, with fabric ties.
Masks in New Guinea embody ancestral and nature spirits and appear at initiations, funerals and other ceremonies, where the masked dancer becomes the spirit itself.