A Nias 'Adu Zatua' wooden ancestor sculpture

Papua New Guinea, 18th-19th century L. 22.5 x W. 18 cm (approx.) Provenance: Collected by Schulze-Westrum Collection Rinck Hollnberger, Munich (purchased in the 1980s or 1990s) For a comparable skull see the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The heads of humans and of animals such as crocodiles and pigs formerly played integral roles in the ceremonial life of Papuan Gulf peoples, who considered the heads to be vessels of life-giving supernatural power. Within men’s ceremonial houses, human skulls were displayed, together with sacred images such as spirit boards or gope, by the members of each clan in a specially constructed clan shrine. However, not all heads required the death of an enemy. In some areas, heads made from wood or other materials appear to have had powers equal to actual ones. In contrast to skulls, the facial features of wood heads were sometimes depicted as they appeared in life. This example comes from the Wapo Creek area, where wood heads appear to have been used interchangeably with actual skulls. When headhunting was abolished by Australian colonial...

A splendid and rare Amazon indigenous wamara wood Macana war-club Southern-Guyana or Northern Brazil, Wapitxana group of the Aruak peoples, 18th century, possibly earlier Measure: H. 43 cm The deep patina of the club present, and the residue on the part where it was held, attest to its great age. This unusually large Macana is decorated with several incised whitened anthropomorphic and human figures, a decoration only found on one other documented club in the British Museum, which is illustrated in: Hjalmar Stolpe, Amazon Indian...

Naga Konyak, North-India, early 20th century The Konyaks, the largest of the Naga ethnic groups, reside primarily in the districts of Tirap, Longding, and Changlang in Arunachal Pra...

A rare Papua 'Gope' Spirit board from the Schulze Westrum collection New Guinea, Papua Gulf, probably Minagoiravi, Wapo River, late 19th–early 20th century H. 130 x W. 24.5 cm Pro...

This spice box comes for the Island of Nias, Indonesia. Dating to the early 20th Century it was crafted from a single block of wood. It features a sliding lid, has an elegant wood te...

This hand-carved tray comes from the Nias, Mentawai Islands off the west coast, Sumatra, Indonesia. It is hand-carved from a single block of wood. Trays such as these were used to di...

This 'Kalabubu' necklace, also known as the 'head-hunter' necklace made out of coconut and brass is the most important ornament for the men of Southern Nias Island, North Sumatra...

This 'Kalabubu' necklace, also known as the 'head-hunter' necklace made out of coconut and brass is the most important ornament for the men of Southern Nias Island, North Sumatra...