Kanak Mask, Central or Southern Grand Terre, New Caledonia

Édouard Nicolas Antoine Marie Imhaus (1856-1928), Baker City, Oregon, probably collected in situ between 1882-1885
The Free Museum, Portland City Hall, Portland, acquired from the above on October 26, 1912
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Portland, acquired upon closure of the above, circa 1959
Robert W. Campbell, Corvallis, Oregon, and Tully, New York, acquired at auction circa 1964 (deaccessioned by the above)
George Terasaki, New York, by July 1973
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above on September 24, 1973

This expressive mask is a fine example of the style prevalent in central and southern Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. The style is at once distinct from and derived from the masks of northern Grande Terre, a style exemplified by the following lot. Among the clear indicators of the southern style are the use of a relatively flat and wide piece of wood and a sculptural language that tends towards the depiction of angular features in low relief. Also characteristic is the form of the mouth, made here as an open rectangle; masks in the southern style seldom depict lips or teeth. The wearer would look through this aperture, the eyes of the mask itself never being pierced for sight. The deep, dark surface, almost oily in appearance, was created with a powder made from burnt and crushed candle nuts (Aleurites moluccanna); (Boulay, La grande case des Kanaks, 1984, p. 86).

The purpose of southern masks varies from their northern counterparts. Kasarhérou notes that they "were never used in funerary rites" (Kasarhérou, Le masque Kanak, Marseilles, 1993, p. 53), southern masks having largely lost the social significance and religious function they had in northern Grande Terre. Kasarhérou has observed that southern masks "are often called 'war masks' in 19th century descriptions" (ibid., p. 54), and the present mask was indeed so described. Although such descriptions may reflect certain prejudices prevalent at the time of collection, it is possible that "like other symbols of chiefdom, such as the monstrance axe, the mask could have been taken to war without actively participating in combat, for which purpose it was ill-adapted" (ibid., p. 55). He goes on to note that "in the south the mask seems to be linked to the magic of invisibility and double-vision used in war. For example, in Houaïlou, it appears to have been associated with the magic which enabled one to see the movements of the enemy through the mountains" (ibid.).

In all likelihood, this mask was collected in situ by Édouard Nicolas Imhaus between the years 1882 to 1885, whilst he worked for the Compagnie calédonienne des Nouvelles-Hébrides in Nouméa in southern Grande Terre. By 1890 he had returned to Paris, where he published Les Nouvelles-Hébrides, an account of his time in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and New Caledonia. The book contains little ethnographic detail and no mention of objects Imhaus which collected, although his obituary notes that he "pioneered in the South Seas […] and collected many things." (The Oregon Journal, August 14, 1928, unpaginated).

Imhaus arrived in the United States in 1896. By 1900 he was manager of a French owned mine in Flagstaff, eastern Oregon, an area which had experienced a gold rush. He was to remain in Oregon for the rest of his life. In 1912 he sold his "collection of arms and curios of the New Hebrides" to the city of Portland, which put the items on view in the city’s public museum. Imhaus’ collection was dispersed at auction after the museum closed; other objects he collected in New Caledonia are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the American Museum of Natural History, New York.