Suspension hook with Janus face

Description

wood, old collection label: “New Guinea …er Sepik, house or …hook. Carved with stone tools. Collected …1st World War. …Missner. 1st Pre…- Museum.” (writing has partially disappeared, cannot be reconstructed)

Suspension hooks can be found in many formal and iconographic variations throughout the Sepik region.

According to Gregory Bateson, any hook can be transformed into a spirit. All one has to do, is to offer flowers or leaves to him and fasten a basket with sacrificial offerings to the object. This temporarily turns the hook into an active image of the ancestor that can be contacted for help. (Peltier, 2015, p. 197)

Comparing literature