Male ritual figure "malum" ·  Papua New Guinea, Abelam · ID: 3033710

Description

wood, painted with red and yellow ochre, black and white pigment, crowned by a hornbill depicted in a nearly naturalistic manner, painted with bracelets and the typical breast ornament of cymbium shell (faintly visible), slightly dam., missing parts, crack (beard), paint rubbed off, traces of old age, rep. (beak of the hornbill), on metal plate;
presumably depicting a male ancestor, the hornbill representing a clan emblem. Some resemblances to the yams ghost “wapinyan”, but decisive attributes missing: the symbolic depiction of the black cockatoo on the shoulders, net-like ornaments on the body and the bush chicken between the legs.

Comparing literature

Lippisches Landesmuseum Detmold (Hg.), Abelam, Detmold 1989, p. 40 f.