Unknown
(Papua New Guinea)
- Title
- Timbuwarra
- Other titles:
- Southern Highlands spirit figure
- Place of origin
-
Pangia →
Southern Highlands Province →
Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- Wiru people
- Year
- circa 1960s
collected 1971 - Media categories
- Ceremonial object, Weaving, Sculpture
- Materials used
- woven vegetable fibre, cane, red and blue pigments
- Dimensions
-
97.0 x 114.0cm (irreg.)
- Credit
- Gift of Margaret Tuckson 2005
- Accession number
- 18.2005
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
Flat woven anthropomorphic figures - timbuwarra - from the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea were kept in spirit houses, conical-roofed structures built some distance from the village, and apparently were associated with fertility and spirits. In ceremony they were carried or were pinned to the tall red wig worn by men. This practice was locally described as "female pinned by a penis to the wig."
Collector Stanley Moriarty refers to it as a female figure representing a dead wife intended for relatives and friends to pay their respects to.
- Bibliography (2)
-
'Kultfiguren aus Flechtwerk im zentralen Hochland von PNG' by Heinz Christian Dosedla, pg. 86-98., Abhandlungen und Berichte des Staatlichen Museums fur Volkerkunde Dresden [Band 41] 1984, 1984. General reference to 'timbuwarra' and 'yupin' plaited fibre figures.
'Kunst und Kunstler im zentralen Hochland von Papua-Neuguinea' by Heinz Christian Dosedla, pg. 87-119., Tribus Sep 1978, Sep 1978. General reference to 'timbuwarra' plaited fibre figures, pg. 94-95. Article in German.
