ART on view and Ramu River masks, which are perhaps the most recognizable artistic creations of the region. There are surprising numbers of these masks in Australian collections, 100 most created by competent carvers and the greatest by master carvers. Five masterpieces from the National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby have been generously loaned to the exhibition. A highlight of these is the brag mask with the personal name of Gweim (fi g. 5), which is a national treasure of Papua New Guinea. Gweim is a powerful mask, capable of infl icting sickness and death. It was traded from Gapun Village to Mendam Village to provide assistance in avenging a death and was later seized in well-known and notorious circumstances by government offi cials during raids in the early 1970s to prevent the illicit trade in New Guinea art. Masking traditions using brag continue today; however, their functions have changed over the past century. A macabre instance recorded by Fr. Joseph Schmidt in 1923 noted the role then played by brag masks after a successful headhunting foray to honor and celebrate the opening of a new ceremonial house: Brag masks came down from the houses. They were richly decorated and shook as they surrounded the head. The spirit mask slurped at the blood about the head and then shoved it to the next mask. Blood dripped from the mouths of the masks.4 It was not until 1924 that the Australian Civil Administration established a headquarters for the Sepik District, from which patrols were undertaken to bring the tribal communities under government control and stamp out headhunting, which had long been an ever-present part of the cultural fabric of many Sepik communities. One of the fi rst patrol offi cers, commonly known as kiaps,5 was George Wilfred Lambert “Kassa” Townsend (1896–1962), a Brisbane-born kiap with a fair but tough reputation, though he was known to have personally dispensed capital punishment. Art collected by Townsend during these early years is also included in Myth & Magic, notable examples being malu boards and an ancient samban suspension hook (fi g. 6), which may have been collected during a patrol of the Blackwater River in June 1926 to investigate a headhunting massacre.6 Within the exhibition will be other signifi cant objects collected by the kiaps from the communities they worked with in this remote “frontier.” The diffi culties these young men faced as outsiders trying to impose au-
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