Subject: kerei shaman

Culture: Mentawai

Setting: tribal warfare, Mentawai Islands 19-20thc

Object: kurabit, koraibi shield

* Dallas Museum of Art > Pacific Islands

"Shield

Indonesia: West Sumatra, Mentawai Islands, Siberut Island, Sagulubbe village

19th century

Wood, paint, and coconut shell ...

Most of the participants in Mentawai headhunting raids carried a shield. The painted elements include tightly coiled spirals thought to represent a fiddlehead (the coiled young frong of a fern) and a silhouetted figure (near the bottom), which represents a slain victim. The incised outlines of hands represent deceased relatives and functioned as memory aids.

"An elderly shaman named Matsebu had inherited this shield. Matsebu remembered having seen headhunters returning from a raid when he was a boy, too young to participate. The deceased relative whose hand was incised on the shield had died so long ago that no one really remembered him. The shield was therefore no longer greatly valued by the family."