Vanuatuan

DOUBLE-FACED HEADDRESS MASK FOR NALAWAN RITUAL

This mask comes from one of the Pacific Islands that are located more than a thousand miles east of Australia. On these remote islands, people survived both by hunting and by gathering food from trees and plants. Pacific Islanders communicated with the spirit world and its forces in rituals that involved dance, music and costumes. This mask, called a Janus mask, was made for such a ritual. Any mask with two faces is called a Janus mask, after an ancient god who had two faces. It is made from feathers, clay, vegetable fiber, pigments and real teeth. Masks were worn by men during ceremonies where women sang and played rhythms by beating the ground with bamboo. The two faces on the mask suggest opposite forces: good and evil, man and woman, night and day and, ultimately, life and death.