ART on view FIG. 4 (above): Mai mask. East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. 19th or early 20th century. Collected by Captain Haug, c. 1909. Wood, shell, fi ber, ochre. H: 53.5 cm. Australia Museum, E 18176. Photo: Stuart Humphreys. Carved without the use of metal tools, this mai was published in Art in Australia magazine in 1924. The short accompanying editorial was perhaps the fi rst introduction for many Australians to suggest that Pacifi c art was a form of artistic stimulus and a visual resource worthy of serious study. FIG. 6 (right): Suspension hook. East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. 19th century. Collected by George Wilfred Lambert Townsend, possibly in 1926. Wood, ochre, fi ber, smoke-encrusted patina. H: 120 cm. University of Queensland Museum of Anthropology, 23784. This suspension hook is one of the relatively few objects to have been collected by Townsend during his time as a patrol offi cer there. It is believed to have been acquired during a trip to the Blackwater River to investigate headhunting activity there. 98 FIG. 5 (above): Brag mask known as Gweim. Gapun Village, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. 19th century. Wood, ochre, cane, shell. H: 104 cm. Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, MPNr E.16415. This mask has a prominent place in the history of New Guinea art. Created in Gapun Village, it had a fearsome reputation for its ability to bring sickness and death. It was traded to Mendam Village to provide assistance in avenging a death. In 1972, it was part of a large shipment of art that was confi scated at Madang airport under the National Cultural Property (Preservation) Ordinance of 1965. It became part of the collection of the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery and was a part of the resulting exhibition, The Seized Collections, which heightened PNG government awareness of the loss of cultural property and resulted in stricter controls. This may in part have been due to the then-PNG prime minister, Michael Somare, being from Gapun and thus unable to view the mask because he was not of a suffi cient level of initiation.
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