adu zatua

Language: unknown
Language: unknown
Figure

The elongated wooden figure depicts a representative of the female upper class. She is wearing a high crown, the shape and design of which is modelled on a palm leaf, and heavy gold jewellery that stretches the earlobes. The broad golden necklace is recognisable by marks in the neck area. Such symmetrically conceived figures in the typical posture with bent knees and hands in front of the belly were made by the Niha, inhabitants of the small island of Nias, located to the west of Sumatra. They are ancestor figures that function as a kind of container for the spirit of the ancestors, so that it could be located and sacrificed.

Data Provider
Städtische Museen Freiburg
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Cataloguing data

Object type
figures (representations)
Dimensions
Höhe: 350.0 mm, Breite: 60.0 mm, Tiefe: 45.0 mm
Material/Technique
Carving
Current location
Museum Natur und Mensch
Inventory number
IV/2194
Related object(s)
is related to : IV/2191

Provenance and sources

when
End of the 19th century

when
1899

where
Indonesia (location/origin)
Nias (location/origin)

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