Cleveland Museum of Art

Ancestral Figure

Date

1800s

Medium

painted wood with fiber and tapa cloth

Culture

Melanesia, Papua New Guinea, Sepik River region, 19th century

Department

Oceania

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

In the Sepik River region, village social and ceremonial life centers on the men's house. Ritual objects such as slit gongs, orators' stools, and flutes are stored there; the most sacred objects are kept hidden from women and children. Carved wooden figures, which probably represent ancestors, were preserved in the men's houses.

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