Kanak Mask, Northern Grande Terre, New Caledonia

Merton D. Simpson, New York
The Purchase Gallery, Purchase, New York
Edwin and Cherie Silver, Los Angeles, acquired from the above on October 25, 1975

With its bulbous nose, bulging eyes and polychromatic red and white highlights, this superb mask embodies the classical style of mask made in northern Grande Terre during the nineteenth century. The mask is carved from a single piece of wood which extends in a tapering form above the forehead and below the mouth, the upper section concealed beneath the headdress. The facial features are concentrated at the center of the vertical axis defined by the bulging forehead, low brow, and the most striking feature: an exceptionally broad nose which fills almost the entire width of the face. The mouth of the present mask is depicted with the characteristic rictus grin of the northern style, in which both lips and teeth are invariably indicated. As the wearer would look through the mouth, one occasionally sees masks in which it appears that some of the teeth were deliberately broken to improve the wearer’s vision, as appears to be the case here. An interesting feature of the mask is that the tapering upper section is pierced with a centrally place hole which is threaded with a suspension cord fashioned from strips of cloth. Kasarhérou states that a single hole such as this in the upper portion of the mask "appears to have allowed the [complete] costume to be suspended by its strongest and densest part, the wooden face […] this invisible characteristic is not found on more recent masks, where the section above the face is of rectangular form" (Kasarhérou and Boulay, Kanak. L’art est un parole, 2013, p. 234). The woven fibre headdress (covered in the upper part by cloth) which conceals this rare feature is itself a rare survival. A mask with very similar features, formerly in the collection of Pierre Loti (Julien Viaud) is now held by the musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris (inv. no. 71.1950.30.201; on long-term loan to the musée Hèbre de Saint-Clément, Rochefort).

As Kasarhérou notes, the concept of how Kanak masks were used, "developed by Maurice Leenhardt and expanded by Jean Guiart, has not come into question as the result of the latest studies, which tend rather to refine the details of [their] approach" (Kasarhérou and Boulay, Kanak. L’art est un parole, 2013, p. 232). In Mythologie du masque en Nouvelle-Calédonie, Jean Guiart demonstrated that in northern Grande Terre masks were closely associated with leadership and chiefdom, with the mask serving as a "plastic symbol that, together with the symbols of word and deed, publicly expressed the existence of the chiefdom" (Guiart, Mythologie du masque en Nouvelle-Calédonie, 1966, p. 150). The supernatural power of the mask as a symbol of social and political authority meant that it was also used in establishing the authority of new chief, as Alban Bensa has noted: "in the Cèmuhî area [northeast Grande Terre] the mask is tied to the owners of the land, and is transferred to the newcomer chosen by them to become chief" (Boulay, ed., De jade et de nacre, 1990, p. 150).

As an important part of this association with the power of chiefdom, the masks of northern Grande Terre were always closely associated with the mythology and symbolism of the land of the dead. Masks played a significant role during mourning rituals for deceased chiefs, where they would appear as the images of the departed who had returned to the land of the living. The human hair which is attached to the sides of this mask would have been cut from the heads of male mourners. After having carried out the mortuary rites, the mourners were not allowed to cut their hair before the ceremony closing the period of mourning took place, an event which might occur several years after the death. Leenhardt observed that masks such as this, attached to the names of divinities which related to the land of the dead, were a "personification of the mystery of life" (Leenhardt, 'Le masque calédonien', Bulletin du musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro, 1933, p. 19).