tralian Museum, Wauchope letter 27.5.1936).
At the time, Wauchope deplored the presence
in the villages of the many missionaries, who
forbade the locals to continue to produce traditional
108
crafts (Australian Museum, Wauchope
letter 29.8.1938). It seems that by the 1930s the
traditional motivation to produce feather mosaics
had come to an end, as Keram River cultures
changed due to increasingly sustained contact
with outsiders under the Australian Civil Administration.
SHAPES AND TYPES
The 151 surviving feather mosaics in museums
in Europe and Australia can be divided into two
categories: panel-shaped and paddle-shaped mosaics.
The panel-shaped ones vary in height from
42 to 152 cm, with an average height of 120 cm.
Their width varies between 13 and 52 cm, but
the majority are in the range of 20 to 30 cm. It
is quite likely that these boards were cut from
old canoe walls. Most are of squarish shape and
some are narrower toward the top. Quite a few
of these panels have a suspension hole on top
or notches that allow them to be attached to a
support with cane loops.
Panel-shaped feather mosaics frequently depict
the faces of spirits. According to Kambot
elders, they represent spirits such as Deman (fi g.
9) or Konyim (fi g. 10) (Cox 2016). Various panels
are decorated with depictions of animals,
such as cockatoos, crowned pigeons, cassowaries,
fi shes, snakes, and marsupials. Figures 16a
and 16b show two photographs of exceptional
feather mosaic panels, most likely taken outside
a missionary station before 1922, showing
feather mosaic panels. None of these panels can
be traced to existing museum collections. The
rectangular panel in the center of fi gure 16b
shows the war spirit Mumbwan, whose mask
is attached to canoe prows during raids. Some
of the fi gures wear a nose ornament made from
shell that identifi es them as important ancestors,
particularly the ancestor Mopul, who is often
depicted with a nose ornament (Dennett 2018).
Feather mosaics are closely related to sago
spathe paintings, which were being produced
at the same time. Today, Kambot elders believe
that sago spathe paintings replaced the feather
mosaics after their production ceased (Cox
2016). From the records of the Berlin and Vatican
museums, we know that panel-shaped mosaics
were collected in the villages of Geketen,
Kambot, Panyiten, and Kambaramba.
Paddle-shaped mosaics are composed of a
round staff that terminates in a fl attened lenticular
blade. Except for the last 10 cm of the blade,
the front of the blade and the entire handle are
decorated with feather mosaics. Their length
ranges between 83 and 198 cm, and one-third
of known examples are between 140 and 160
cm. Most paddle-shaped mosaics have purely
geometric motifs, though a few have one or two
spirit faces woven into the overall design (fi gs.
20 and 21). No animal depictions are present
on this mosaic type. Thurnwald collected paddle
shaped mosaics in the villages of Angarep,
Gorogopa, Gabumonum, Tuyburum, Tyamboto,
Garep, and Kambaramba.
TECHNICAL ASPECTS
The restoration project of the mosaic panel MVB
4016 from the Burgdorf collection (fi g. 11) at
the Haute-Ecole Arc in Neuchâtel was a unique
opportunity to study the technical aspects of
these artworks in more detail (Michellod 2015).
The wooden panels used for the mosaics were
sometimes charred on the surface in order to
make them less vulnerable to insects. Just one
panel mosaic could require up to a thousand
feathers from a variety of local birds. Thurnwald
describes the use of feathers from the black cockatoo,
the kingfi sher, and the crane (Thurnwald
1917: 170). Aside from non-identifi able dark
brown feathers, the Burgdorf mosaic contains
down and wing feathers of the sulphur-crested
cockatoo (Cacatua galerita), black-dotted blue
feathers of the Victoria crowned pigeon (Goura
victoria), brown and blue feathers from the blue
bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea rudolphi), as well
as blue, red, and green feathers from the Eclectus
parrot (Eclectus roratus) (Michellod 2015: 25–
32). Four recently restored mosaic panels from
the Vatican collection similarly contain feathers
of the sulphur-crested cockatoo, Eclectus parrot,
and Victoria crowned pigeon, but also from the
northern dwarf cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus
or bennetti), an unspecifi ed species of
hawk (Accipiter), the purple swamphen (Porphyrio
porphyrio), the common and Stephan’s
FEATURE