FIG. 15: Mask, chubwan. Pentecost Island, Penama Province, Vanuatu. C14 dated to AD 1448–1635. Wood. National Gallery of Australia, purchased 2011. 2011.1284. Photo: National Gallery of Australia. The “smiling” wooden masks of Pentecost Island are exceptionally rare and, of the small number known to exist, all have a domed forehead and a bulbous nose with a pierced septum. Chubwan’s pronounced cheeks and wide, toothless grin are suggestive of benevolent laughter, tempered with an aspect of the grotesque. It is believed that such masks were worn at events based on the association of men and yams, but the masking tradition that they belonged to ceased long ago and very little is known about their true purpose. A contemporary version of the chubwan masking tradition has been revived in the Sa’a communities of southern Pentecost in the past twenty years. A similar mask in the collection of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre is recorded as being used in a ceremony or ritual performance called tebatna lobung. Regardless of the chubwan’s earlier enigmatic function, the artist has created a face that can frighten and intimidate. The deeply undercut brows and the ridge of the lower lip would become pronounced under the light of torch fire. As Felix Speiser, a visitor to the area in 1910, noted: “Such a face, seen in the semi-darkness of the forest by the light of flickering torches, must have had a frightful enough effect.” The mask’s large nose reveals the long-neglected practice of nasal piercing, or it may be a comical depiction of people from adjacent islands who continued the practice into the early twentieth century. The National Gallery of Australia’s chubwan is exceedingly early for a work from Melanesia—a radiocarbon test indicates a substantial age of between some 400 and 550 years old. Such a date means the mask is perhaps the oldest known wooden artwork from Vanuatu. 91
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