Collection of ethnografic objects and human skulls and heads, victims of head-hunters, from the Marind Anim

Campaign against headhunters
When he was appointed Assistant-Resident in 1912, L.M.F. Plate announced his intention to stamp out headhunting. To achieve this he led two police brigades on a tour of the Marind villages in February and March of 1913. One of his aims was to confiscate headhunting objects and skulls. He turned up around a hundred newly captured heads and over five hundred skulls.

Still life
The photographer, probably Plate himself, arranged the objects in a symmetrical composition. These are mainly human skulls, with loose jaws, arrows, drums and the forked stakes on which skulls were hung. The paddle-shaped poles are headhunting clubs - pahui - which played an essential symbolic role in the headhunting ritual. The victim would be struck on the back with the club so hard that it would break, after which the attacker would try to discover the person’s name. This name was needed to give to a Marind child.

Anthropological material
The Dutch rulers did not simply discard the confiscated skulls. Physical anthropologists in the Netherlands wanted to study them. They were involved in the racial classification of mankind. Researchers came on expeditions to take measurements, especially of heads. They would present these together with photos taken in New Guinea. The skulls confiscated in the fight against headhunting in New Guinea therefore offered an ideal opportunity to take measurements in Holland. As a result, the skulls found their way to Europe, often eventually to the collections of ethnographic museums. The Tropenmuseum still has some of those skulls. They are currently the subject of a debate about the appropriate destination of these and other human remains - to preserve, display or return them.

13 x 18cm (5 1/8 x 7 1/16in.)

Source: collectie.tropenmuseum.nl