Female ancestor figure "adu zatua" ·  Indonesia - Nias · ID: 3040763

Description

wood, greyish brown partly encrusted patina, with female ear ornaments and indicated loincloth, arms in front of the chest produce a “W” configuration, holding a cup in both hands, headband with conical points, crown broken (?), slightly dam.;
such smaller “adu zatua” figures were lashed with rattan strings to horizontal bars. Such rows were placed against the wall in the big front room of the house. Each time a person in the family died, a new image was added. Much has been speculated about the transfer of the soul of the deceased to the “adu zatua”. Acccording to old missionaries reports the last breath of a dying person was captured in a bamboo tube and transferred to an “adu zatua” image.

The object Female ancestor figure “adu zatua” with the object ID 3040763 was last part of the auction 83rd Tribal Art Auction at May 28, 2016 on Zemanek-Münster Auction house. The object with the lot number 8 achieved a sales price of EUR 500.

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