FEATHER MOSAICS
111
time. This clearly shows that the feather mosaics
were considered precious assemblages that were
carefully preserved and maintained, unlike dance
costumes that were disassembled after use.
The making of a single mosaic panel required
the collection of more than a thousand different
bird feathers. Composing feather
mosaics was the work of specialist
craftsmen who also had
the ritual and technical skills
that ensured the effi ciency and
physical stability of the fi nished
object. The assembly of the
mosaic, however, was a group
effort, as several people were
needed to stabilize the wooden
support, arrange the feathers,
and tie the bast strip that needed
to be kept under tension until
the last row had been placed.
These assemblages, while of
fragile materials, were intended
to last and, when not in use,
were carefully wrapped in sago
leaves.
Most feather mosaics were directly
composed on the wooden
support. One panel mosaic in
the collection of the Australian
Museum and another in the
Vatican Museum have a drawing
beneath the mosaic which may have helped
with the organization of the feathers (fi g. 10).
The well-published but heavily restored Berlin
mosaic VI 38609 has a line drawing of the fi gure
on the back of the board. It is likely that for
complex mosaics, line drawings were used on the
support itself or as a visual aid on another panel.
INDIGENOUS TERMINOLOGY
Most likely referring to Thurnwald’s notes, in
Kunst vom Sepik Heinz Kelm mentions two indigenous
names for feather mosaics: the term
bang, used more generally on the Keram River,
and moarang, as used in the village of Kambaramba
(Kelm 1968, 29). The Vatican panel
shaped mosaics from Panyiten are described
as molon. Both moarang and molon could relate
to the term morong that is still used nowadays
on the Sepik to describe things that have been
made from recycled canoe boards (Cox 2016).
As mentioned before, the width and thickness
of the panel-shaped mosaics are similar to old
canoe walls. In the Lindenmuseum inventory,
panel-shaped mosaics are described as Federmosaik
(feather mosaic) or Tanzschild (dance
shield), whereas the two paddle
shaped mosaics are inventoried
as Tanzschild (bang)
(dance shield (bang)). It is a
possibility that the term bang
was reserved for the paddle
shaped mosaics. Keram
people use the term bang
to designate “long way/distance.”
In relation to feather
mosaics, this could relate to
the ability of feathers to bridge
the divide between the human
and spiritual realms. Nowadays,
Keram people use the
more prosaic term angop wai
(feather shield) when speaking
of their forefathers, feather
mosaics (Colombo 2016).
CULTURAL CONTEXT
Thurnwald fi rst mentions
feather mosaics in his report
of 1917 (Thurnwald 1917:
170), where he describes them
as Federschilde (feather shields/panels) and discusses
them in the general context of shields.
Nevertheless, he clearly refers to them as ceremonial
objects. He attributes their function as
memory aids standing at the crossroad where
diverging images have formed. He further describes
them as histograms that contain entire
stories and myths (Thurnwald cited from Kelm
1968: 28–29, translation by the author). A handwritten
note on the inventory card from the Munich
panel-shaped mosaic 16-36-150 (fi g. 25)
relates to oral information that was provided
by Thurnwald on his visit on October 19, 1917.
According to this previously unpublished note,
the feather mosaics were used in the second and
third initiation ceremonies of young men.
The only in situ photograph of panel-shaped
mosaics was made by Father Kirschbaum in
the men’s house of Geketen (fi g. 26). It shows