Biwat Sacred Flute Stopper, Yuat River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

Biwat Sacred Flute Stopper, Yuat River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guineawusear mundugumor Wood, vegetable fiberHeight 25 1/4in (64cm) Provenance Collected on the La Korrigane Expedition (1934-1936)Musée de l'Homme, Paris (Inventory no. 'D.39.3.523' written in white underneath the left foot)French Private CollectionGalerie Anthony Meyer, ParisNew York Private Collection, acquired in 2005Footnotes: Biwat Flute Stopper from the La Korrigane Expedition Christian Coiffier, Honorary Attaché at the National Museum of Natural HistoryParis, October 24, 2024 Thanks to the field research carried out by the American ethnologist Margaret Mead, anthropologists in the 1930s became aware of the existence of a people in Oceania and the type of sculpture they created. Mead labeled these people and their society Mundugumor (Mead, 1935). This name endured until the end of the twentieth century. Today, the people from this region are commonly known as Biwat. The first flute stoppers from this region were collected in the early twentieth century (Howarth, 2015: 117). In the period between the two world wars, a private French expedition, supported by Georges-Henri Rivière, deputy director of the future Musée de l'Homme in Paris, spent more than two years (March 1934 to June 1936) on the yacht La Korrigane circumnavigating the globe. For a year and a half they visited various Pacific Islands. The expedition brought back to Paris more than 2,500 ethnographic objects, about 6,000 photographs, and numerous films from these islands. Two couples from the aristocracy and industrial bourgeoisie, Etienne and Monique de Ganay and Charles and Régine van den Broek d'Obrenan, along with one of their friends, Jean Ratisbonne, organized the expedition. The yacht, La Korrigane, was armed with a crew of eight men. After visiting a number of the Solomon Islands, the travelers arrived in the Port of Rabaul, Papua New Guinea on August 13, 1935. The members of the expedition were very eager to collect objects from New Guinea, a country that, at the time, had still not been fully explored. The day after their arrival, the organizers went to Burns Philp store along with Mr. Webb, the manager of the local bank, to see ethnographic objects. At Burns Philp they bought around thirty objects. Among these were two Mundugumor (Biwat) flute stoppers that are recorded in their collection records with numbers 1129 and 1130. These two acquisitions proceeded the other flute stoppers acquired on their expedition. After shopping at Burns Philp's, the expedition members went to a dinner at Judge Phillips' house. Régine van den Broek d'Obrenan, a fine artist, immortalized their evening in Rabaul with a small painting showing La Korrigane at anchor in front of the surrounding volcanoes (see fig. n°1). A few weeks later, La Korrigane sailed up the Sepik River. During a stopover in the village of Angoram, the members of the expedition were offered two Mundugumor flute stoppers by Ernest Wauchope (Coiffier, 2015: 106) who was returning from a collecting mission in the villages along the Yuat River. A photo by Charles van den Broek of Obrena, often-published, shows a man dressed in white--Ernest Wauchope--unloading his collection from a canoe with the help of some local guides. Several pieces of this impressive collection of sculptures are now housed at the Australian Museum in Sydney (Coiffier, 2015). Four flute stoppers were brought back by the La Korrigane expedition. Field sheet n°1130, made by Monique de Ganay, shows the flute stopper being offered here and verifies that it did, indeed, come from the first purchase made in the Burns Philp store in Rabaul. The second flute stopper (n°1129 on the field collection list), purchased at the same time as the first, has a small zoomorphic figure on the back of his neck sculpted in the extension of the shoulders. Members of the expedition also purchased a batch of vegetal paintings, also from the Biwat region, from Burns Philp. We carried out a lengthy investigation into these paintings, which are now kept at the Musée du quai Branly (Coiffier, 2002, 2014). We were able to show that these paintings had been collected in 1932 by Margaret Mead and Réo Fortune during their two-month stay in the village of Kinakatem in Biwat country. The two ethnologists had commissioned a certain Robert Overall to ship their collected objects to the United States. But it seems the latter did not properly fulfill his mission and instead sold a number of the objects to the Burns Philp store. It is, therefore, quite possible that the two flute stoppers purchased from Rabaul also came from Margaret Mead's collection. Furthermore, if we refer to an inventory/list of objects collected and sent to the American Museum of Natural History in New York by Margaret Mead, we find mention of a dozen flute stoppers. It is likely that two of them were among Margaret Mead's objects diverted by Robert Overall; namely, those two flute stoppers that were bought by the members of the French expedition at Burns Philp in Rabaul. Without having visited a single Mundugumor village, the members of the Korrigane expedition were able to bring back four flute stoppers from this region. On the return of La Korrigane to France, the four flute stoppers were deposited at the Musée de l'Homme. The two flute stoppers from Rabaul were then registered under the numbers D.39.3.522 (field inv.: 1129) and D.39.3.523 (field inv.: 1130). The information written on these sheets is laconic: 'Sepik. Sacred statuette of a standing man, purchased from Burns Philp in Rabaul, August 1935 by the La Korrigane expedition' A clarification is made to the second: 'painted red'. Following the death of Charles van den Broek d'Obrenan in Tahiti in March 1956, two thirds of the collection of the objects brought back were put up for sale at public auction in 1961 at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris (Rheims and Rheims 1961). Three of the flute stoppers were part of this sale with catalogue numbers 111, 112, and 113. Two of the flute stoppers are identifiable, No. 112 by its photo published in the catalogue (Plate V) and No. 113 by its description indicating the figure on the back. The latter, wearing a headdress made of plant elements and red and yellow feathers, was later found in the collection of J.J. Klejman collection, and then in the collection of Jay C. Leff. There remains the third (n°111), which is probably the flute stopper presented here. Though the flute stopper still retains wicker bracelets around his arms, the cord of plant fiber that was once tied around his nasal septum has disappeared. An outgrowth that follows the contour of the chin is pierced with holes which made it possible to insert vegetable cords or human hair braided into dreadlocks, constituting a kind of beard (Peltier et al, 2016: fig.154). Sections of shells and macramé pendants paired with feathers were sometimes attached. The ears, also pierced with several holes, made it possible to hang sections of shells or tortoiseshell loops. (Piercing the ears of young children was once an important ritual among the Biwat.) The elongation of the skull above the face made it possible to place numerous crowns made of shells sewn onto nets, along with those made of human hair and braids made of various plants. The majority of flute stoppers known today seem to have been dispossessed of all their 'decorations.' It would be interesting to know the reason for this. There is a lot of information that seems to confirm that the shortest skull flute stoppers are the oldest. The top of the skull of these objects has an outgrowth which made it possible to attach cassowary feathers, a bird associated with war in many Sepik Valley societies. According to the For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing