Title
Rmarki (day dance display ornament)
mid 20th century
collected 1965
Artist
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Details
- Other Titles
- Dance shield
Tapa dance wand
Remortki - Place where the work was made
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Gazelle Peninsula
→
East New Britain Province
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New Britain
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Papua New Guinea
- Cultural origin
- attrib. Qaqet (Chachet) Baining people
- Dates
- mid 20th century
collected 1965 - Media categories
- Ceremonial object , Sculpture
- Materials used
- barkcloth, bamboo, plant fibres, red, red-brown and black natural dyes and pigments
- Dimensions
- 625.0 cm length; 66.0 cm width; 5.0 cm depth
- Credit
- Purchased 1965
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- IA4.1965
- Copyright
- © Baining people, under the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Museums Association's (PIMA) Code of Ethics
- Artist information
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Baining people
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
The Qaqet (Chachet) Baining live in an area surrounded by dense rainforest inhabited by spirits that dominate everyday life. Rituals and ceremonies, where colossal barkcloth masks are worn, act as mediations between the spiritual and physical worlds.
The 'rmarki' shield is carried by a group of boys and men at the opening of the day dance, when the 'kusmespetut' dance is performed to cleanse the ceremonial ground of evil influences. Accompanied by two or three 'ara vuchulka' (polemasks), the 'rmarki' dancers spit ginger juice towards a group of singing and drumming women. The 'rmarki' is then taken away, having 'opened' the day dance.
This 'rmarki' featured in the 1966 exhibition 'Melanesian art', together with three 'kavat' (night dance masks) from the collections of artists John Olsen and Douglas Watson.
[revised entry from Exhibition Guide for 'Melanesian art: redux', 2018, cat no 2]
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Exhibition history
Shown in 4 exhibitions
Purchases and Acquisitions for 1965, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 09 Mar 1966–03 Apr 1966
Melanesian Art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Apr 1966–22 May 1966
Aboriginal and Melanesian art, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 19 Oct 1974 -
Melanesian art: redux, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 17 Nov 2018–17 Feb 2019
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Bibliography
Referenced in 6 publications
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Daniel Thomas AM (Editor), 1965 Acquisitions, Sydney, 1965, 80. cat.no. 146
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Tony Tuckson, Aboriginal and Melanesian art, Sydney, 1973, 42. cat.no. 10
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Tony Tuckson, Melanesian art, Sydney, 1966, 22. cat.no. 323; "Dance shield. pointed at both ends. Bark cloth on frame with desin in black, some of undecorated area red, 183h cloth, 25w, Baining tribe, Gazelle Peninsula, New Britain".
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Natalie Wilson, Hunting the collectors: Pacific collections in Australian museums, art galleries and archives, '(Works of) paradise and yet: Stanley Gordon Moriarty, Tony Tuckson and the collection of Oceanic Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales', pg. 221-241, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2007, 233.
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, Sydney, Apr 1966, (illus.).
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Editor Unknown (Editor), Bulletin, Sydney, 24 Jul 1965.
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