Man’s costume tail. Worn behind at waist, long type, ceremonial. Main structure made of one piece of wood, shaped into a hollowed out cone with a flat side at one end, and a long narrow piece extending at right angle from the base. The container end has a handle made of a loop of thick cane, tied on through holes by strips of cane, and held together by a cross brace of plaited cane. The rim of the container is decorated by a circle of cane bound with string that secures tufts of dyed red hair all round. The container end of the tail is decorated only on the curved sides and not the flat, with a design in black painted on consisting of vertical lines of circles with central dots (two on each side), a `figure’ on each side (a long circle topped by a smaller circle with central dot and two straight lines above), and two vertical zig-zag lines, one each side of a basketry decoration at the back. This decoration was stuck to the top by resin. On each side of the container traces of a vertical strip of yellow orchid stem basketry are visible, and pieces of resin by which these were stuck on. The rear extension is decorated by a flat cane strip covered in dyed red cane and yellow orchid strips that runs from inside the container, over the rim (where the covering begins), down the side and along the top of the wooden projection. Adjacent to this strip, on each side along the projection, is a piece of cane, secured at intervals to the wood, bound with string that holds in place a fringe of red and black hair. Attached to the end of these bound canes, at the end of the projection are three short tassels bound with yellow orchid stem (possibly missing a longer part) and one length of string decorated with pierced seed pods some with short tufts of red hair attached.
worn at the rear.
