OF THE PRACTICE OF PRESERVING THE WHOLE OR PART 

 OF THE HUMAN HEAD. 



This practice is widely spread, and perhaps among savages more re- 

 markable in the breach than in the observance. It is and has been 

 particularly notorious in regions west (Borneo) and southwest (Aus- 

 tralia) of the south central Melanesiau region, where this inquiry into 

 the .subject of masks may be said to make its starting point. The in- 

 habitants of this archipelago are well known to indulge in it, and such 

 a preparation is figured by Turner in an article 1 on masks, etc., from 

 mar New Guinea, and bears a curious resemblance to the celebrated 

 specimen from Mexico figured by Waldeck, Squier, and Brocklehurst. 

 lu Blanche Bay, Matupi Island, Captain Strauch 2 reports skulls as 

 painted, supplied with artificial hair, and used in the dance. This is 

 distinctly related to the mask-idea. According to Schmeltz 3 the death 

 mask of the Shaman is placed iu his late residence above the place 

 where he was wont to sit, while those of enemies are preserved as tro- 

 phies. 



The Museum Godeffroy possesses seven crania and nine human masks 

 painted and adorned much like those described by Turner and Strauch, 

 and which were obtained in the interior of New Britain at Barawa and 

 Raluana, near Matapu. Schmeltz figures two of them (1. c, t. iii, figs. 

 3, 4). In one of these the nasal alae are bored and teeth of discus in- 

 serted. Another mask, exactly imitating those with a part of the skull 

 for a foundation, is wholly made of a kind of putty or paste and came 

 from New Britain. (L. c, p. 435.) 



In Hermit Island, north of New Guinea, the dead were formerly 

 burned, the skull, ornamented with flowers, was hung in a tree, the 

 lower jaw reserved as a neck ornament or hung up in the house. 

 (Schmeltz, 1. c, p. 458.) 



In the New Hebrides, at the island of Mallicollo, the skeletons of the 

 dead are exhumed and the fleshy parts imitated by the application to 

 the bones of vegetable fiber or material, presumably cemented ; these 

 pseudo mummies are placed in the sacred houses or temples. A skull 

 so treated is in the Museum Godeffroy. These people also alter the 

 shape of the cranium by pressure iu infancy as did some of the people 

 of the western coast of both North and South America. (Peru, Mexico, 

 Oregon, British Columbia.) 



• Journal of Auat. ami Physiol, xiv, p. 475 et seq., plate xxx, 1880. 

 3 Schadel masken von Neu Britannien, Zeitschr. f. Ethn. xii, 1880, p. 404, pi. xvii. 

 °Cf. Ethn. abth. Mua. Godeffroy, Hamburg, 1881, p. 20, t. v, f. 1 ; p. 435, 2, 1 ; p. 

 4:-?. t. xxiii, xxxv. 



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