M0012662: Two ceremonial masks from Amhrym, New Hebrides

Previous title, replaced August 2022: Ceremonial mask, bark on frame, Amhrym, New Hebrides./Previous title, replaced August 2022: Ceremonial mask used in the Malagas memorial festival - carved wood with opercum eyes.

Photograph of two ceremonial masks from the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). One is an ancestral mask painted on bark on a wooden frame with fibre hair and beard. It was purchased at auction by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1934 and given accession number A221930. It is now held by the Science Museum (object number A221930). The other mask is a carved wooden male face with operculum eyes set in open sockets and a fibre headdress. It was acquired by the Museum at an unknown point and accessioned in 1952 (accession number R30/1952). The items featured in the "Medicine of the Aboriginal Peoples in the British Commonwealth" exhibition which opened at the Museum in July 1952

August 1952

1 photograph glass plate negative; 12 x 16.5 cm

Wellcome Collection holds the accession registers which provide entries for the items: R30/1952 and A221930. It also holds the exhibition catalogue.

Copyright is held by Wellcome Collection

Catalogue data comes from a combination of entries in the original glass plate registers, metadata created when the glass plates were digitised in the early 2000s and enhancements made by the cataloguer in 2022.

This item is fragile. Email library@wellcomecollection.org to request access to the physical item.