Striking Abalam baba helmet mask with a painted palm spathe face. (AMN)

Baba (babakumbu) helmet masks are the only type of yam ceremony mask that is actually worn by a man and danced and the dancers play an essential role in the yam exchange ceremony,the most important ritual in Abelam village life.

These large basketry helmet masks, which represent dangerous bush spirits, are worn above a long skirt of sago palm leaves that reaches the ground and completely hides the dancer. The masks are usually fully woven out of rattan, but this beautiful example has a face painted onto palm spathe set into the helmet. This is probably a kwoma influence,since painting on palm spathe – the fibrous outer sheath of the palm leaf – is associated with the neighboring Kwoma people. This baba measures 52 x 34 x 38 cm / 20 ˝ x 13 ˝ x15 inches

The ritual yams are planted in specially dug 3 metre / 9 feet deep holes and often grow taller than a man. It takes much garden magic and assistance from the ancestors to grow a really long yam, a sign of the power of the grower’s ancestral spirits. The yams are therefore surrogates and yardsticks for the fertility of the village and the power of its ancestors, hence their importance.

Every man who grows yams has a lifelong exchange partner in the next village and the yams are presented at a special ceremony where each long tuber is dressed as a person, with a small woven mask for a face. On the day of the exchange ceremony, the yams would be decorated and displayed in a special enclosure and the neighboring village would troop over much with much display for the formal measurement and feast. The Baba maskers, who were entitled to behave aggressively, had the essential role of roaming through the village in the weeks before the ceremony to scare and threaten villagers into donating food for the all important feast that followed. They also chased the uninitiated away during important ceremonies.

Price:$390.00 AUD
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