Further Media
Producer unknown to us
Melanesia, Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea, New Ireland (Niu Ailan)
About 19th century
Wood, fiber fleece made of coconut mesocarb, jacquard fabric, operculum of the sea snail (Turbo petholatus), pigments
Donated by Friedrich Hagenauer, missionary of the Moravian Church in Victoria, Australia, in 1899.
Inv. no. 68355
The tatanua dance is an important element of the malanggan, the ceremonial commemoration of the dead. Special houses are built for the tatanua masks and the malanggan carvings, in which they are displayed and stored prior to the dance.
The masks are carved from the soft wood of the scholar tree (Alstonia scholaris) and have a helmet-like structure made of various materials over a rattan frame covered with bark bast fabric. The mask covers the entire head and neck of the wearer. Because of their eye-catching top-of-the-head design, the tatanua masks are also referred to as hood or helmet masks.
After the end of the commemorations of the dead, most of the malanggan carvings have fulfilled their purpose and are left to decay. Tatanua masks, on the other hand, serve their dancers for a long time.
Friedrich Hagenauer, long-time missionary of the Moravian Church in Victoria/Australia, bought this mask on one of his roundtrips to the islands off Australia and donated it to the Herrnhut museum along with numerous other ethnographic objects from the Pacific in 1899. Under “Item 2” of the shipment’s inventory list, he wrote, “…an artificial mask sold to me by a young chief of the Solomon Islands on a South Sea island in 1887!” Since it is a tatanua mask, which was involved in the malanggan commemoration ceremonies in northern New Ireland, it is unlikely that it originated in the Solomon Islands. Extensive trade relations between the islanders of New Ireland and the Solomon Islands existed even before the arrival of the Europeans and were often described by Hagenauer himself. Unfortunately, the history of the mask’s place of origin cannot be traced back further.
Since 1977, the tatanua mask has not been part the collection’s display and has been stored in the various depot rooms of the local museum, sometimes under inadequate climatic conditions. An exhibition in a planned special show five years ago could not take place due to its desolate state of preservation. With the generous support of the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, the tatanua mask, which is unique in the Herrnhut collection, has now been restored.