Tahitian mourners costume
Last updated | 22/09/2010
This is an example of the costume or ‘heva’ worn by
the chief mourner following the funeral of an important Tahitian
person. For the duration of the mourning the mourner was allowed to
kill or maim anyone who came within his or her striking
distance.
This example comprises a fan of tropical bird feathers secured
to a pearl shell above a turtle shell plaque. Below this a flat
crescentic breastplate of wood supports five pearl shells tied on
with sennit cord. Fragments of an original apron of finely cut
sections of pearl shell hang from the lower edge of the wood. A
replacement apron comprises woven fibre matting surmounted by brown
backcloth and ten rows of cut discs of coconut shell, three shaped
as stylised turtles. Only half of the mask survives, made of cut
pearl shell, of hemispherical form, perforated at the edges for the
attachment of a cord of fibre wrapped with sennit.
There are no more than five such complete costumes surviving in
the world.
This costume was amongst a number of objects collected by David
Ramsay, a Perth-born doctor who sailed to Australia as a ship's
surgeon and settled there. He donated his collection to the Perth
Literary and Antiquarian Society in 1842
