CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Mask
Tapuanu, 01.01.1900 - 31.12.1911
About the object
The atolls of the Mortlock Islands are the only place in Micronesia where masks were made. They depict the benevolent spirit Tapuanu, who protects the precious breadfruit crop from typhoons. During the year they were kept safely in the men's house to be brought out once a year and incorporated into a ritual dance. The rigid, reduced form of the face mask is underlined by the monochrome painting in black and white. In the case of the Freiburg specimen, the white limestone chalk coating has flaked off to a large extent, also missing is the round extension to the side as a normal appurtenance of such masks, which represents the topknot of the Micronesian male hairstyle. The object was collected by Lieutenant Captain Paul Werber from Freiburg, 1st Officer in the Imperial Navy who sailed the South Seas for a total of two years on the S.M.S. Cormoran and donated about 100 objects from various regions of Oceania to the museum.
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This mask type, carved from the wood of the breadfruit tree, is a special feature of the small atolls of the Mortlock Islands. They are located in the Caroline archipelago and belong to the Federated States of Micronesia. This is the only place to have a mask tradition, whereas it is almost completely absent in other parts of Micronesia and Polynesia. The elongated, almost triangular shape of the face with a narrow mouth and eye slits clearly emphasises the curved brows and especially the long nose, which together form a T-shape. Mouth, beard and eyebrows as well as the border of the mask have been painted with dark soot pigment. In contrast to this, the rest of the face was originally painted with white lime pigment, which now, however, has almost entirely off. The facemask represents the ancestral spirit Tapuanu. It was owned by the men's secret society souta-puanu and was kept in its meetinghouse. Once a year, from March to April, ceremonies took place on the beach, where men wore the masks and danced, embodying the spirit Tapuanu. Thus invoked, his performances were intended to avert the danger of tropical storms, which threatened people and cultivated land, and to have a positive influence on the growth and harvest of breadfruit, the local staple food. Author: Heike Gerlach, Translation: Timothy Connell