The Pagu placed their dead in hollowed log coffins and the split-off tops were sealed with pitch and the coffin was bound with rattan. After the Great Cataclysm when the victims, and probably many of the already dead, were carried out to sea they began stacking the coffins facing out in caves and galleries in the limestone cliffs overlooking the main settlements, or in shelters built for that purpose. This was presumably to prevent them from being washed away by another great wave. No coffins dating to pre-cataclysmic times were found. The Pagu, while in no way worshipping their ancestors, liked to have them close by so they could continue to be part of the community. The dead had no heaven or hell to go to and through "the dead" masks, discussed elsewhere, were invited to observe certain events.
Usually, a coffin mask representing the spirit, or essence, of the person was placed on the outfacing end of the coffin. Early chroniclers report great walls of masks creating a spectacular, and sometimes eerie, effect. Most were fairly simple masks carved from darle but much more elaborate and durable ones carved from cedar were used particularly after the Pagu acquired the steel blades needed for working this harder wood. Beginning around the middle of the Nineteenth Century the coffins were vandalized and the masks were removed to sell to collectors. Only a few hundred, mainly in the more remote caves, survived intact to when the first serious studies began in the 1890's. While the large collection in the Schwartz Museum in Hamburg was destroyed in the war, hundreds of other survive in private collections.
This particular mask is fairly typical of the more elaborate ones. It probably bears some resemblance to the person and how he painted his face on ceremonial occasions. Nostrils are omitted, as the dead don't breathe. Whether they would want to smell is questionable. The eyes are shown blank as the dead apparently saw with an inner eye, and through haunting the dead, skull face masks. Not even Schwartz was able to figure out how the Pagu conceptualized this. Mouths are often open with the tongue visible as it is assumed that the dead are able to taste if not feast. Small portions of delicacies were sometimes placed in the mouths of the masks. The original from which this one was made had a badly rotted mouth, as do many others as a result of this practice.
