M0012662: Two ceremonial masks from Amhrym, New Hebrides

Photograph of two ceremonial masks from the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu). One is an ancestral mask painted on bark on a wooden frame with fibre hair and beard. It was purchased at auction by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum in 1934 and given accession number A221930. It is now held by the Science Museum (object number A221930). The other mask is a carved wooden male face with operculum eyes set in open sockets and a fibre headdress. It was acquired by the Museum at an unknown point and accessioned in 1952 (accession number R30/1952). The items featured in the "Medicine of the Aboriginal Peoples in the British Commonwealth" exhibition which opened at the Museum in July 1952