Chieftain of the Roro people from Bereina with feathered headdress.
Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, Bereina district.
A chief from the Roro tribe, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, decorated for a ceremonial dance. The design of the tall framed feather structure on the head is unique.
The ornament lying on the middle of the chest is the badge of chieftaincy, consisting mainly of two thin leaves of ground tusks of a boar. A young chief, on reaching the age of manhood is publicly and ceremoniously invested with this ornament in the clan club house.
Bereina is a town in the Central Province of Papua New Guinea. It is located about 100 miles north-west of Port Moresby, and contains the headquarters of both the Kairuku-Hiri District and the Kairuku Rural local-level government area.
Source: The customs of peoples: love, marriage, childbirth, religion, superstition, habits of life, cultural characteristics, death and burial among all peoples of the earth; by Georg Buschan, 1863-1942. Publisher: Union German Publishing Company, Stuttgart 1914.
