Male Figure Item Number: C345 a-c from the MOA: University of British Columbia

Description

Standing male figure (part a) with arms bent upward at the waist. Has tapering oval inlaid eyes, a nose, a closed mouth, and a white line around the face that goes around above the eyes and angles downward near either cheek side. Hair is white in a grooved and upraised lozenge pattern. Body is black. Fibre bands are wrapped around the biceps that consist of eight horizontal white bands below the wider red wood band around the upper portion that has a vertical zigzag pattern. Large necklace around the neck consists of a white circular loop with three rectangular pendants below, the left one of which has white, red, and blue beads and red fibre coiled around the top. Wears a white waist belt and leg bands just below the knees. Left hand holds a shield (part b) and right hand holds an axe (part c). The shield is made of light yellow wood that is pointed at both ends and painted with a black design at either end. The smaller end has a face(?) with oval grey eyes surrounded by three emanating horizontal black lines with a long nose that extends downward into a w-shaped mouth. The larger end has a horizontal black band that has nine plain boxes within and from which, a black line that is interrupted by a square hole and that extends downward toward the tip end along the centre into a w-shape. Fibre is attached at the back of the shield. The wooden axe has a slighty convex, curving red-brown shaft that tapers to a point and has a black arched blade at the other end with an upward pointing triangular feature just above the handle end.

Narrative

Burnett wrote that while "curio-hunting round Grassi" he procured from Mr. Bennett, "two New Georgian figures, true to life, male and female, about three feet high, carved out of wood by the bushmen of the interior" (C344-45).