Headhunt Revisited - The Story of Caroline Mytinger

Caroline Mytinger was born in 1897 in Sacramento, California. She was a noted portrait artist of important and wealthy Americans during the first half of the 20th century. Her love of adventure and interest in native cultures led her to travel to Guatemala, Haiti, Panama, and eventually to the South Pacific. In 1926 she set out with a friend, Margaret Warner, on a four-year journey to paint portraits of the tribes people in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

In addition to being a successful artist with a spirit of adventure, Caroline was a noted beauty of her time. She was the model for Charles Dana Gibson’s “Gibson Girl,” an icon of early 20th century female elegance. It was therefore not surprising that a prominent doctor took her to the altar. But it was not to last, as her passion to travel the world and paint portraits of exotic tribes was too much for the young physician. Proclaiming his undying love for her in a letter, he released her to the world.

With little more than $600 and a tin of oil paints, Caroline and Margaret set out for the land of cannibals and headhunters. Few white women had gone before them, and the only white men were missionaries, plantation owners, or the occasional adventurer. It must have seemed like an impossible proposition. Why would these two women, neither with a degree in anthropology or experience in overseas adventuring, and with no sponsors or grants, embark on such an expedition?

A woman ahead of her time, Caroline realized the enormous impact that colonization was having on indigenous peoples. Her goal was to record their traditions before they were forever changed by western cultural influence. Caroline authored two books detailing her adventures, Headhunting in the Solomon Islands, and New Guinea Headhunt, published in the 1940s. It was through these books that Michele Westmorland discovered the incredible story of Caroline and Margaret.

“It has been found that the decline in primitive populations which inevitably follows the coming of white men to their countries is not always caused by new diseases or abuse alone. There is also a mysterious disintegration of the spirit, a weakening of the will-to-live that gives microbes and bullying a fallow soil to fall on. One cause for this…is too abrupt a transition from the old culture to an entirely different new one; from the rich old beliefs and exciting customs to comparatively vacuous new activities.”

Caroline Mytinger
From New Guinea Headhunt

Upon their return in 1930, Caroline’s art was exhibited at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, under the guidance of anthropologist Margaret Mead. After touring several other venues, Caroline bequeathed 23 paintings to the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley, California, where they have lain in obscurity—until now.