Malagan display and mask

Malagan display and mask. New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea. c. 20th century C.E. Wood, pigment, fiber, and shell.

• This figure was made for malangan, a cycle of rituals of the people of the north coast of New Ireland, an island in Papua New Guinea. Malangan express many complex religious and philosophical ideas. They are principally concerned with honoring and dismissing the dead, but they also act as affirmation of the identity of clan groups, and negotiate the transmission of rights to land. ​
• Malangan sculptures were made to be used on a single occasion and then destroyed. They are symbolic of many important subjects, including identity, kinship, gender, death, and the spirit world.
• The figure also alludes to the identity of that clan group; talks elements from an animal which represents the clan. 
• It was one a group of carvings made to be displayed at a particular malangan ritual. It is made of wood, vegetable fiber, pigment and shell (turbo petholatus opercula).
• Malanggan masks are commonly used at funeral rites, which both bid farewell to the dead and celebrate the vibrancy of the living.