IATMUL DRUM

Music plays an influential role in the Middle Sepik River region, particularly during rituals related to ancestor worship, as the sounds of instruments are often associated with the voices of the ancestors. According to Kaufmann, Iatmul drums such as the present lot were used during ceremonies to accompany dances and to modulate "the sui-sagi chanting that evokes the history of each clan and its hero" (Kaufmann in Pelter, ed., Shadows of New Guinea: Art of the Great Island of Oceania from the Barbier-Mueller Collections, Geneva, 2006, p. 336). "Apart from underlining sagi chants, the drumbeat is an indispensable element of musical performances. In Iatmul music, the tune sung or played on a pair of flutes elaborates the melodic motif of the birdcall of the totemic birds linked to a clan and summons them aloft." (ibid.)

Of clear social and ritual importance such instruments were often, as here, finely decorated objects which transcend their functional purpose to become works of art in their own right. Here this artistry is evident in the quality of the carving of the central mask and the two figures of cassowaries at both ends of the handles, their beaks seeming to disappear into the body of the drum itself. This drum relates to a group of four important Iatmul drums of similar iconography but somewhat more elaborately decorated with spiral relief motifs of a style which is very reminiscent of the carving on lot 19 in the present auction, the Blackwater River suspension hook.