Lot Essay
Sold with four photographs of Latuka men wearing similar helmets
Jack (1991, p.35) relates how such helmets were made by matting the hair into a mesh of bark twine which, over a period of up to ten years, "grew" into a mass solid enough to be removed intact from head. In earlier times (the earliest account of such helmets being "grown" was in the 1880s) the helmet was addorned with beads and cowries but, by the beginning of the twentieth century, these were apparently replaced by brass panels. According to the Powell-Cotton Museum guide "In early days, a young man would be rewarded by his chief with a length of brass wire which he beat into a plaque and so gradually built up a helmet, attached permanently to his own hair. At his death the helmet would be removed and the chief usually gave it to a member of the same family". Jack (op. cit.) illustrates a similar helmet lacking the feather stick and another example, with a short stick was illustrated by Oldman (1910, catalogue no.77, fig.7) for which he was asking the considerable sum of ¨6/10/0.
Jack (1991, p.35) relates how such helmets were made by matting the hair into a mesh of bark twine which, over a period of up to ten years, "grew" into a mass solid enough to be removed intact from head. In earlier times (the earliest account of such helmets being "grown" was in the 1880s) the helmet was addorned with beads and cowries but, by the beginning of the twentieth century, these were apparently replaced by brass panels. According to the Powell-Cotton Museum guide "In early days, a young man would be rewarded by his chief with a length of brass wire which he beat into a plaque and so gradually built up a helmet, attached permanently to his own hair. At his death the helmet would be removed and the chief usually gave it to a member of the same family". Jack (op. cit.) illustrates a similar helmet lacking the feather stick and another example, with a short stick was illustrated by Oldman (1910, catalogue no.77, fig.7) for which he was asking the considerable sum of ¨6/10/0.