This elaborate headdress, made by the Roro people of Central Province, New Guinea, was collected in 1923 by photographer Frank Hurley on an Australian Museum expedition.
Ceremonial headdresses are worn by Roro men of high status, with the number of feathers signifying the owner’s achievements and social rank. They are still worn today at special ceremonies. A beautiful headdress is said to attract Roro women, who wish to become the wife of the wearer.
Made from a variety of natural resources in patterns unique to each clan, such headdresses illustrate the intimate relationship of the Roro people to their environment and the animals that inhabit it.
Cultural artefacts also illustrate how museum collecting has changed over time. Early expeditions sometimes exploited Indigenous communities, removing sacred or rare artefacts with little given in exchange, and yielding only scant information about the cultural practices which gave meaning to the artefacts. Today, the Australian Museum seeks to maintain its ties with the people of Papua New Guinea through collaborative partnerships.
To the left of the headdress, two clay masks known as holosa, meaning ‘spirit’, come from the Komunive community from the Asaro Valley. The Museum acquired the masks as part of a collaborative project with the local community and with institutions in nearby Goroka.
Holosa masks were traditionally worn by male warriors during tribal warfare to instigate fear. Today, they are worn mainly in public performances.
The Australian Museum has also long studied New Guinea’s rich biodiversity. On the plinth lie skins of two tree-kangaroos, rare and timid marsupials that live only in the rainforests of New Guinea and northern Australia. Tree-kangaroos are an important part of the culture of some New Guinea communities, but very little is known about their biology or behaviour in the wild. The Australian Museum has the world’s most comprehensive collection of tree-kangaroos and has made important international contributions to their discovery, description and conservation.