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Description

Figure representing a woman with brilliant blue accents. Four curves outline the hairline with the hair having a grooved lattice-work effect. Horizontal upraised eyebrows, ovoid eyes, triangular nose. Grooved slightly upturned oval mouth outlined. The ears have a circular dip in the middle. Small breasts. From the downward angled shoulders, the thin arms are straight at the sides until they are bent at the elbows so that the hands are touching each other at the front. Has genatalia. No legs.

History Of Use

According to Burnett, the use of these figures was as follows: "on the death of any member of a Chief's family one of the men ... goes to the bush tribe that live in the Rossel Mountains and obtains a chalk figure of either a man or a woman, according to the sex of the deceased, with which he returns to his village and with great secrecy gives it to a Chief ... by whom it is then placed in a Toberran House or Mortuary Chapel. If this is not done the spirit of the departed, being without an habitation on this earth, will haunt the survivors of its late family and inflict upon them some evil. Women are never allowed to go near or look upon these figures, it being death for them to do so. The chalk of which these figures are composed and which is found at the summit of the Rossel Mountains, is the sole deposit of that material found in the South Pacific."

Narrative

When the funerary rituals using these figures were complete they were normally destroyed, however during the colonial years they were also sold to westerners.