Trophy Skull Decoration
Model Ear
P831B
From: Borneo | Sarawak | Baram District
Curatorial Section: Oceanian
Object Number | P831B |
Current Location | Collections Storage |
Culture | Kelabit |
Provenience | Borneo | Sarawak | Baram District |
Date Made | Before 1897 |
Section | Oceanian |
Materials | Wood | Rattan Peel |
Description | Large wooden ear, with a decorative openwork scroll and greatly elongated lobe (as stretched by an ear weight). Remnants of rattan peel lashings. From the decorated skull of "a chief of the Kelabit tribe," which was "draped with strips of palm leaves, possibly to represent hair, and ornamented with wooden ears, ear-pendants, and a long wooden nose. Such ornamentation of skulls is not usual, at least in the Baram District." (The Home-Life of Borneo Head-Hunters) See P831A. |
Length | 27 cm |
Width | 6.5 cm |
Thickness | 1 cm |
Credit Line | Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898 |
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