New Guinea Highlands FIG. 13 (left): Ceremonial axe. Wahgi people, Minj, Jiwaka Province, Papua New Guinea. Early 1900s. Grey-green stone, wood handle, carved wood blade, woven split-vine binding. H: 63 cm. Collected by “Sepik Robbie” in 1940. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Gift of Stan Moriarty 1978, 311.1978/ M192. Photo: AGNSW/Jenni Carter. © Wahgi people, under the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Museums Association’s (PIMA) Code of Ethics. FIG. 14 (left): Stan Moriarty’s highlands art collection on show in his Sydney home, mid 1960s. Photo: Stan Moriarty. © Stanley Gordon Moriarty Archive. FIG. 15 (bottom): Tony Tuckson, former Art Gallery of New South Wales deputy director, and Stan Moriarty (right) with carved figures from Abelam haus tamberan (spirit house), Sydney, 1960s. Photo: Margaret Tuckson. AGNSW Archive. 83 Goroka Show in 1966, is estimated to include more than 50,000 cassowary feathers. Revered and feared throughout the highlands, cassowaries are animals of immense symbolic significance and, together with pigs and pearlshells, were used as prestige items in ceremonial gift exchange. Two human hair wigs from the Ipili and Huli peoples of the southern highlands incorporate the fluorescent blue breast shield of the Superb Bird of Paradise (Lophorina superba) into their design, reflecting the importance of the bizarre shape-shifting courtship displays and distinctive calls of these magnificent birds in the dances and songs of many highlands cultures. An appreciation and ensuing appropriation by highlanders of introduced Western materials is also evident in a number of works that have incorporated manufactured textiles, glass, plastics, and metals into their construction. A metal 7UP soft-drink can is employed in a rimbu cult headdress made by the Kewa people of the southern highlands. Red cotton trade cloth replaces barkcloth in the kaaihwaarya (mourning necklace) of the Baruya people of the eastern highlands. Red, yellow, and blue trade store pigments—replacing or complementing natural ochers and mineral pigments—are rubbed and painted onto an array of objects to enhance their brilliance, including the splendid collection of shields collected by Moriarty from across the highlands region. Natural and manufactured pigments were also used extensively to apply ceremonial designs onto faces and bodies. Color, in particular red, has both a symbolic and aesthetic function in all highlands cultures. Among the Baruya of the eastern highlands, nambuchuwaka, a bright red clay from the country of the Tsimbari tribe, is
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