Figure

Male human figure in soft wood carved with a stone or shell knife, and the surface left unsmoothed. The features of the face are not indicated. The arms have been broken off, the hands left in reflief on the stomach. The figure has been split off from the object on which it was carved, partly in the round, as shown by the surfaces at the back of the figure, wher the two were formerly continous: at the back of the headress, the hips and the feet. The headress consists mainly of two prominant knobs, resembling one form of the headresses which appear in the conventionalized human figures of Austral Island paddles. Drums and god-figures from the southeastern Pacific have smaller figures carved on them. The last two facts suggest an origin in this region for this figure.