Title
Rimbu (ceremonial headdress)
mid 20th century
collected 1964
Artist
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Details
- Other Title
- Ceremonial hat
- Place where the work was made
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Kagua-Erave District
→
Southern Highlands Province
→
Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- Kewa people
- Dates
- mid 20th century
collected 1964 - Media category
- Mixed media
- Materials used
- coil-woven rattan, plant fibre, red and blue pigments, white clay
- Dimensions
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75.0 x 48.5 x 30.0 cm
:
0 - Whole, 75 cm (29 1/2")
0 - Whole, 48.5 cm (19 1/8")
0 - Whole, 30 cm (11 13/16")
- Credit
- Purchased 1977
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 247.1977
- Copyright
- © Kewa people, under the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Museums Association's (PIMA) Code of Ethics
- Artist information
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Kewa people
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
'Rimbu' was a powerful spirit cult practiced by several groups across the southern highlands, in particular the Kewa and Anganen people. It is thought to have arrived in the Mendi Valley in the early 1900s. Ritual knowledge was bought and sold by powerful men and different forms of 'rimbu' were celebrated. The cult involved constructing spirit houses, playing bamboo flutes ('the talk of the spirits'), reciting sacred words and sacrificing and eating pigs. 'Rimbu' was held to increase the health and fertility of people, pigs and gardens, and engaged a wide pantheon of spirits. It was an exclusively male endeavour with women and children excluded.
[Exhibition text for 'Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands', AGNSW, 2014]
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Exhibition history
Shown in 2 exhibitions
Aboriginal and Melanesian art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 Oct 1974 -
Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 May 2014–10 Aug 2014
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Bibliography
Referenced in 2 publications
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Tony Tuckson, Aboriginal and Melanesian art, Sydney, 1973, 28 (illus.), 49. cat.no. H9
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Natalie Wilson (Editor), Plumes and pearlshells: art of the New Guinea highlands, Sydney, 2014, 99 (colour illus.), 161. cat.no. 43
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