Collection
Unknown
(Papua New Guinea)
- Title
- Timbu wara
- Other titles:
- Timbuwara
Timbura
Female figure - Timbawara
Timbuwarra
Timbuwar - Place of origin
-
Pangia →
Southern Highlands Province →
Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- Wiru people
- Year
- collected 1967
- Media categories
- Ceremonial object, Weaving
- Materials used
- coil-woven rattan and plant fibre, carved wood, red and yellow ochres, white and blue pigments, 2-ply plant fibre string, sedge grass, iron nails
- Dimensions
-
133.0 x 86.0 x 8.5cm
- Credit
- Gift of Stan Moriarty 1977
- Accession number
- 580.1979
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
Flat woven anthropomorphic figures - known as timbu wara - 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.
- Bibliography (1)
-
Chris Boylan and Greta North, The world of tribal arts, 'Highlands Art of New Guinea', pg. 73-83, San Francisco, Winter 1997, 83 (colour illus.). fig.no. 25
