oceania | Papua New Guinea
Bioma
Papua New Guinea
Bioma figure
Era River, Papuan Gulf
Papua New Guinea
Early 20th century
Carved wood and pigments
Height: 70 cm – 27 ½ in.
Provenance
Private collection, Paris
Collection Bernard Dulon, Paris
Bioma 70 cm / Galerie Flak
Price: on request
As described in "Coaxing the Spirits to Dance" (Hood / Metropolitan Museum), in the past, the primary focus of religious and artistic life in the region was on powerful spirits (imunu). Each imunu typically was associated with a specific location in the landscape, rivers, or sea, and was linked to the specific clan within whose territory it dwelt. Papuan Gulf wood sculpture was primarily two-dimensional, consisting of board-like carvings, known as spirit boards (Gope or kopé), and figures with designs in low relief called Bioma. Villages formerly had large communal men's houses divided into cubicles, each allotted to a particular clan or subclan. Every cubicle contained a clan shrine, which housed the Gope spirit boards, Bioma figures, human and animal skulls, and other sacred objects associated with the clan's various imunu.
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