Malagan Figure
- Title
- Malagan Figure
- Description
- This Malagan figure was produced in the late 19th to early 20th century and is an Eikuar type. What is unusual about this Malagan is that it features just one figure with complex images of birds and fish. The malagan figure also has a wooden border surrounding the face of the figure, and the border connected to the nostrils may represent the figure's last breath. The imagery on this Malagan seems to be an allegory of life feeding on life in which double-mouthed objects consume birds, and birds become fish.
- Semester
- Spring 2026
- Subject
- Indigenous art
- Morton D. May Collection
- Saint Louis Art Museum
- Melanesian
- Papua New Guinea
- Temporal Coverage
- mid-19th to early 20th century
- Spatial Coverage
- Tabar Islands, Northern New Ireland
- Language
- The objects description is in English.
- Medium
- Sculpture made out of wood, indigenous paints, red ochre, seed bracts, attachment resin, and shell
- Is Part Of
- Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas
- Morton D. May Collection
- Identifier
- 60:1977
- Provenance
-
1970
Everett Rassiga Inc., New York, NY, USA -
1970 - 1977
Morton D. May (1914-1983), St. Louis, MO, purchased from Everett Rassiga Inc. -
1977
Saint Louis Art Museum, given by Morton D. May - Explanation of Omeka Map Location
- The Malagan figure was created in the Tabar Islands of Northern New Ireland which is known as Papua New Guinea.
