eharo

Yesterday we went to the storage facility of the W.A. Museum to view and photograph the eharo mask I had donated to the museum in 1963. Silly me, I was only 22 years old and when I brought the packaged mask to my parents' house I was told to get rid of it...so I gave it to the museum. I know why mother wanted it out of the house. It is quite a large piece, around 1.2 metres high and needed a very large house to display it adequately. The anthropologist tells me that it is very valuable. I should have kept it and sold it to the New York Met.



The mask (eharo) was a traditional mask associated with Hevehe dance cycle in the Orokolo area of the Gulf Province of Papua. These dance cycles ran for years and at the end the masks were destroyed and the cycle started again. Missionaries disapproved of these pagan ceremonies and by about 1932 they were no longer practised. In 1962-63 I was head teacher of Arehava Primary School near Orokolo and I contracted with one of the last mask-makers still living to make me an eharo. I think the price negotiated was either ten pounds or thirty pounds.....probably the former. It was beautifully crafted with wicker work and bark covering, painted with lime and ochres. The mask maker demanded that I shoot lots of sulphur crested cockatoos for the yellow feather trimming. When the mask was finished it was delivered in a traditional sing-sing.

We have other pics of my/our time in Papua New Guinea.