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String Bag, Kabeel Men, mid 20th century
Knotless looped string bag, hornbill (Aceros plicatus), white cockatoo, Paradisaea raggiana and other feathers, pig's tail, cowrie shell, gum, rattan
78.7 cm (31 in.)
Gift of Marcia and John Friede in honor of Diane B. Wilsey and Harry S. Parker III 2007.44.79

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Artist Biography: (none) PROVENANCE: "Walter Randel Collection, New York." (Catalog #359, New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, 2005, Volume 2, p. 141.) EXHIBITIONS: 2005 - New Guinea Art. Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede. De Young Museum, San Francisco, 2005. PUBLICATIONS: 2009 FAM Bulletin entry (unabridged) - "Throughout New Guinea and West Papua string bags are essential companions to men, women, and children. (1) In the Mountain-Ok region, men and women have separate roles in relation to the production and use of the string bag. Women hand-spin bark fibers and loop expansive, unadorned bags which they use in their everyday tasks to store and carry produce from their gardens, and to cradle their babies. (2) Women's bags thus become associated with motherhood, nurturance, protection, and fertility. Men, on the other hand, are the 'elaborators.' (3) Men decorate the outer side of the bags (made by their close female kin) with feathers, and wear them across their shoulders like a cloak rather than hung from the head like women. (4) The feathers on a man's bag proclaim male skills as hunters and identify the particular stage of initiation a man has reached-wild fowl feathers for young initiates, hornbill feathers for maturing sexually active males, and cassowary plumes for elders. Significantly, in each of these species, the male bird helps incubate or nurture the young, and so, through their feather decorated bags, men proclaim their ritual 'mothering'-growing boys into men and ensuring regional wellbeing through successful harvest and hunting. (5) The kabeel men, embellished with shiny black hornbill (Aceros plicatus) feathers, are presented to adolescent males after an initiation rite modeled on the nesting habits of the hornbill. Just as the mother hornbill incubates her eggs in the hole of a tree, nurtured by the male, so the initiates are secluded in the men's house, amid hot fires (incubation), and emerge as men, adorned with their new kabeel men feather bags, body paint and feather headdresses. The beak of the hornbill, going in and out of the small hole in the tree trunk, suggests copulation and reproduction, and the release of creative ancestral power that results from the synthesis of male and female working together for the good of the whole. (6) Walter Randel, who acquired this kabeel men, began collecting over fifty years ago and has become a connoisseur of New Guinea art." (7) FOOTNOTES (1) M. MacKenzie, “Loops of Connection: The bilum and the aesthetics of wellbeing,” Masterpieces of Highlands Art from the Jolika Collection (Milan: 5 Continents Editions, forthcoming). (2) M. MacKenzie, Androgynous Objects: String bags and gender in central New Guinea (Chur, Switzerland; Philadelphia: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1991), 59-109 and 127-155. (3) MacKenzie, Androgynous Objects, 110-125. (4) MacKenzie, Androgynous Objects, 164. (5) MacKenzie, Androgynous Objects, 156-189. (6) MacKenzie, Androgynous Objects, 165-173; Dan Jorgensen, Tarrow and Arrows: Order, entropy, and religion among the Telefolmin. PhD Thesis (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), 344-354. (7) “About the Gallery,” Walter Randel Gallery (18 April 2008): http://www.wrgallery.com/about.html. 2005 - "This type of bag was worn by men who had undertaken their first level of initiation but had not risen to the grade of village elders. The father of the initiate obtained a plain string bag, aam bal men (Telefol for 'mouthband bilum'), which was made by the mother. (Bilum is Melanesian Pidgin for string bag.) He then attached the black wing feathers of the female hornbill and sometimes other items, as in the present object. Thus it was transformed into a kabeel men (Telefol for 'hornbill/initiate's bilum'-hornbill is a metaphor for initiate-or 'string bag with hornbill feathers attached to it'). This name refers to the kabeel am (hornbill house), the house where the initiates live after they have been taken away from their mothers' houses. (See MacKenzie, 1990: 253-54, 274-77; for examples of the aam bal men and the kabeel men bilum, see p. 253, figs. 51a and 51b; see also MacKenzie, 1991, pl. 94 for a comparable kabeel men bilum in the Australian Museum, Sydney.) All string bags symbolize the womb. Women often carried their babies in them, symbolizing the bilum as an external continuation of the womb (the string bag has similar qualities of flexibility as it easily adapts to the shape of a baby). Just as the male hornbills 'incubate the eggs and raise the chicks...the Mountain Ok men similarly bring forth new adults through the initiation of boys. The bird feathers on their bags are a reminder of this role. Furthermore, the string bag is a sybol of Afek, the ancestral mother, out of whose string bag the first Mountain Ok people came. Hence, the Telefol saying 'the string bag is the mother of us all' (Specht, 1988: 10). For a thorough and illuminating discussion of the social and symbolic significance of Telefol string bags and an overview of many different types, see MacKenzie (1990 and 1991)." (Catalog #359, New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, 2005, Volume 2, p. 141.)

Related Keywords
Men Kabeel III Parker S Harry Wilsey B Diane honor Gift 141 p 2 Volume 2005 Friede John Marcia Jolika Masterpieces Art 359 Catalog York Randel Walter speakers language Telefol Oceania Ok Mountain Province Sandaun Sepik West Guinea New Wearable rattan gum shell cowrie tail pig's other raggiana Paradisaea cockatoo white plicatus Aceros bag string Knotless feathers hornbill black adorned fiber bark looped spun Hand initiates male adolescent by worn Bilum 0216200516380002 A361167 2007.44.79 AOA