Image of a hornbill "pal" ·  Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, Abelam · ID: 3040194

Description

wood, red and yellow ochre, black pigment, traditionally flat worked with prominent beak, min. dam., water spots, slight traces of abrasion;
such hornbill images were attached to the front of ritual houses, two of them, one on the left and one on the right side underneath the frieze beam facing each other. When a new ritual house was errected the carvings were removed from the old house, they were washed and repainted and attached to the newly built ceremonial house.

Littérature comparée

Koch, Gerd, Kultur der Abelam, Berlin 1968, p. 46 f.