Carved wood, black pigment, rattan. Length: 39cm. Presumed period: C1930-1950 Iatmul population. Papua New Guinea
This oblong-shaped neck-rest with a slightly curved seat, resting on a double base consolidated with rattan ligatures, features beautifully carved ends in the shape of stylized crocodile heads.
This object, which belonged to a man invested with the spiritual protection of the carved crocodile figures, enabled him to keep his hairstyle intact while he slept.
The totemic animal of the Iatmul society on the banks of the Sepik River, the crocodile is the supreme creator who gave birth to the world.
This divinity is said to have been a double entity who, moving through the mud, created the first lands using his tail.
This belief remains fundamental to the social structure of today’s iatmul villages, with two factions: the Nyawinemba, the “sunrise people”(nyawi), and the Nyamenemba, the “mother earth people”(nyame).
The human body, the ceremonial house and the organization of the village are apprehended in the image of the animal body.
The animal is represented at every moment of daily life, appearing on the prows of pirogues, drums, hanging hooks and, as here, neck rests.
The ancestral spirits of the Wagan waters are embodied in male initiation rites, creating a unique bond between the crocodile and the initiate, hence the term “crocodile-man society”.
The rarity of the zoomorphic iconography, highlighted by Anthony Meyer in his catalog on Oceanian neck-rests, underlines the importance of our object, which can be compared with the neck-rest that belonged to the Roy, Meyer and Pujol collections, and reproduced in the same publication (Galerie Meyer, Appuie-nuque océaniens, 2004, n°18, p.29) Price: 450€.
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