Spirit board "malu" · Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée, Sawos · ID: 3037581
Will Hoogstraate, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Salon de Mars, Paris, 1990
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.
L’objet Spirit board “malu” avec l’ID d’objet 3037581 a fait partie de la dernière vente aux enchères 78th tribal art auction dans 18 octobre 2014 le Zemanek-Münster Hôtel des ventes. L’objet portant le numéro de lot 34 a atteint un prix de vente de 8 000 €.
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Littérature comparée
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (ed.), Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and the Jolika Collection of New Guinea Art, San Francisco 2006, ill. 230