Beschreibung:

malagan length 37 1/2in (95.3cm) Provenance Alain Schoffel, Paris Daniel Cordier Bordeaux Lance Entwistle, London and Paris American Private Collection, acquired in 1993 According to Susan Küchler (Gunn, Michael, New Ireland: Art of the South Pacific, Museé du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, Paris and 5 Continents, Milan, 2006, p. 46), 'Malagan is the generic name for the spectacular secondary funerary ritual which orchestrates huge community resources and draws hundreds of participants to the final three days of feasting. The final event in a commemorative cycle takes place sometimes more than a decade after a burial and may stretch over several weeks that are punctuated by the stages of carving which culminate in the painting of the figure and the insertions of "eyes." Alternative materials and techniques, allowing for rapid production, may be used should a death have occurred shortly prior to or during the preparation of secondary burial in the village. When installed in a structure on the burial ground, the effigy is said, in the Kara region, to be alive. The height of the malagan ceremony is the dramatic revelation of this effigy, followed moments later by the activation of its death so that the person's soul may achieve immortality, the "empty remains" of effigies being taken to the forest to be left to decompose, while certain other ones are burned, and yet others taken to the mission to be sold to collectors.' Of monumental scale, the anthropomorphic head presented here is deeply hollowed with a long snout and open mouth revealing large upper and bottom tusks curving upward and downward, the eyes pierced through with Turbo petholatus opercula, the top of the head accented with projecting feathery rods, decorated overall with red, black and white pigments.