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Yam harvest ceremony spirit mask (baba), East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea
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| Artist |
Abelam peoples |
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| Title |
Yam harvest ceremony spirit mask (baba), East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea |
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| Description |
A Yam harvest ceremony spirit mask (baba) in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis |
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| Date | 1980s | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Collection |
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| Accession number |
87.305.61 |
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| Object history | “Yams are an important food source for many indigenous tribes of Papua New Guinea. The Abelam peoples hold elaborate yam harvest ceremonies and festivals, during which yams are displayed and accessorized with colorful masks. Larger masks, like this one, are worn by men during dances associated with the planting and harvesting of yams and during male initiation rites. Both types of masks resemble clan-specific pig-like spirits called baba. They act as mediators between the realms of the dead and the living, and between the time-space of now and the ancestral past. During male initiation rites, young men must defeat the baba in order to conquer the powers of the "other side." When placed on yams the masks create an aesthetic identification between the yam spirits, other spirits (such as pig spirits), and the men who grew the yams. The baba's dance costume appears much differently in ceremony than seen on display. The masks are repainted for each performance, according to the gender assigned to them. The mask is further adorned with headbands and sometimes other jewelry. The dancer wears a collar of leaves and large inedible orange fruits and the body is covered with a dense wrap of leaf strips.” The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, IMCPL Digital Collections | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| References | Artifact description: Artifacts at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, Indianapolis Marion County Public Library, IMCPL Digital Collections | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Source/Photographer | Wendy Kaveney | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by The Children's Museum of Indianapolis as part of an ongoing cooperative project. The artifact represented in the image is part of the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.
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This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Attribution: The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
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| Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| current | 14:54, 2 May 2011 | | 514 × 768 (106 KB) | LoriLee | {{Artwork |artist= Abelam peoples |title= Yam harvest ceremony spirit mask (baba), East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea |description= A Yam harvest ceremony spirit mask (baba) in the permanent collection of [[w:The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis|The |
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