102
Feather Mosaics
from the Keram River
Exceptional Sepik Assemblage Art
Throughout New Guinea,
bird feathers have long played an important part
in dance costumes and personal adornment, and
they continue to do so. In the East Sepik Province,
feathered dance costumes of extraordinary
complexity and height were recorded in the early
twentieth century in villages on the Keram and
Ramu Rivers, the Murik Lagoon, and Hansa
Bay (fi gs. 2 and 4). A different ceremonial use of
feather mosaic arrays on wooden supports existed
in villages along the Keram River and are
the subject of this study. Very little contextual
information was recorded when these assemblages
were collected between 1913 and 1936,
but recent research indicates that panel-shaped
feather mosaics were arranged into large-scale
assemblages inside the men’s ceremonial houses
for the initiation ceremonies of young men.
As highly charged and powerful objects, they
bridged the world of the living with that of the
ancestors, a visual aid to access complex myths
and stories that would provide the spiritual
foundation for every young man’s education.
While clearly related, the exact function of paddle
shaped feather mosaics collected in the same
region still eludes us.
EARLY COLLECTORS
In the years 1912 and 1913, the German Kaiserin
Augusta-Fluss-Expedition, headed by the
geologist Artur Stollé (1872–1934), extensively
explored and surveyed the Sepik River and
its tributaries (fi g. 3). Anthropologist Richard
Thurnwald (1869–1954) joined the expedition
in January of 1913 and was assigned the
Töpferfl uss, known today as the Keram River,
where he set up camp between the villages of
Bunaram (Bano) and Ramunga (Arome) (fi g. 5).
By Valentin Boissonnas
FIG. 1 (left): Detail of fi g. 9
(following page).
FIG. 2 (above): Masked and
decorated dancers from
the western coastal Sepik
area. Photo by Fr. Franz
Kirschbaum.
Historical Photo Archive,
Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum –
Cultures of the World, Cologne,
inv. 3352D.
FIG. 3 (right): The lower
Sepik and the Keram River
with some of the villages
mentioned in the text of
this article. Feather mosaics
were also recorded as being
collected in the villages of
Angarep, Gabumonum,
Garep, Tyburum, and
Tyamboto, but their
locations are no longer
known.
Cartography © V. Boissonnas.
FEATURE