M0012652: Skin covered mask-head, Southern Nigeria / M0012653: Polychrome ancestral figure, New Guinea.

Previous title, replaced August 2022: Skin covered mask-head, Southern Nigeria/Previous title, replaced August 2022: Gable ornament, New Guinea.

Photograph of a wooden mask-head covered in skin from South Nigeria, supposedly used in dances of the Ekpe secret society, alongside a carved wooden ancestral figure painted red from the Sepik river area, New Guinea on display in the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum. These items were accessioned by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum (R7225/1936, R3294/1936) but are not held by Wellcome Collection. The photograph was included in the catalogue for a Wellcome Historical Medical Museum Exhibition illustrating the medicine of the aboriginal peoples in the British Commonwealth, London, 1952.

August 1952

1 photograph glass plate negative; 12 x 16.5 cm

Wellcome Collection holds the accession register for an item depicted in the glass plate negative:R7225/1936.

Copyright is held by Wellcome Collection

Catalogue data comes from a combination of entries in the original glass plate registers, metadata created when the glass plates were digitised in the early 2000s and enhancements made by the cataloguer in 2022.

This item is fragile. Email library@wellcomecollection.org to request access to the physical item.