Figure "malagan" with outstretched arms
Description
light wood (“alstonia scholaris”), eyes with shell inlay (“turbo phetolatus opercula”), lime, red and yellow ochre, black pigment, standing male figure on plug-like projection, separate carved arms mortised into the body, carved with ear-ornament, arm- and leg-rings and a long projecting loincloth, face and body ornamentally painted, slightly dam. (chin, mouth, plug), missing parts (one finger of each hand), opening on the head closed with mass (presumably once crowned by a fish sculpture), strong abrasion;
present sculpture with outstretched arms might be a “turu malagan” figure which was displayed at the beginning of the commemorative cycle of a “malagan” ceremony. Three types of “malagan” sculptures were used: a seated figure made of bush materials, wearing a “ges” mask; a horizontal flat “rarau”-type “malagan” featuring a painting of two opposed fish was hanged on the wall of the display house. Beneath this a “turu” malagan" figure standing in a wooden clam shell was placed.
The carvings were displayed in secondary funeral rites for one or more deceased members of the community. The purpose of these rites was to make peace with the deceased and to make it possible for them to be subsumed into the spirit world. In addition to the memorial sculpture itself, which represented the deceased at these funeral celebrations, the right to specific “malagan” carvings illustrating cultural narratives constituted a closely guarded personal prerogative.