Spirit board "malu"

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Description

wood, dark brown patina, filigree work: leaf-shaped holes forming floral motifs, small head on top, raised vertical middle ridge, two grid-like compartments in the lower third, slightly dam. (rim, middle ridge), minor missing parts (nose tip), abrasion of paint, metal plate;
almost all of the sparse field information about openwork “malu” boards was not obtained from the Sawos but from their neighbours, the Iatmul, where they were collected. One description of “malu” board motifs is birds playing in the forest. However, Douglas Newton, suggests a more serious purpose. He proposes that the “malu” was originally a cult object, a “rack from which captured heads were hung, functionally akin to the Kerewa “agibe”. To him the “malu” represents a highly stylized male human figure, the archetypal cannibal, the founding father of the group, a great cultural hero and warrior.

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Comparing literature

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (ed.), Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art, San Francisco 2006, ill. 230

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