Standing male ancestor figure "kawe" · Papua New Guinea, Asmat, village Aworket · ID: 3039904
Description
wood, small remains of painting in red, white and black, label with the inscription: “from the museum of Jayapura” (= provincial capital of Papua, Indonesia), slightly dam., minor missing parts, crack (back of the head), abrasion of paint;
probably an ancestor figure “kawe”, who depicted certain individual ancestors. In the creation myth of the Asmat the big hero “fumeripit” carved a number of human figures. When he beat his his drum they became alive as the original humans and formed the first clans.
The object Standing male ancestor figure “kawe” with the object ID 3039904 was part of the auction 82nd Tribal Art Auction on February 27, 2016. The object with the lot number 40 achieved a sales price of EUR 600 with an asking price of EUR 450.
You can find more Figures and other popular object types on our related topic pages. You may also be interested in our page on Oceanian art.