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TRIBAL OCEANIA
Including Artworks from New Guinea and islands from Melanesia and  Polynesia 

Featuring:

New Ireland Archaic Chalk Figures & an Old New Hebrides (Vanuatu) Slit Drum
Collected in the late 1940's by a German Missionary based in the south pacific islands, we can think of no other oceanic art form that compares in majesty and simplistic form than the revered slit drums of the Old New Hebrides Islands now known as Vanuatu. 

Utilized in mystical dance ceremonies, these dance drums were handcarved of bread fruit tree wood and meticulously worked  using lozenge shaped motifs thought to symbolize the nana or face that is associated with bato ancestor figures.  The carved chevrons perhaps symbolize pig jaws and symbol of rank of the grades. Dance drums can possess multiple faces...and all from Ambrym, where our artworks are from,  possess the unmistakable elongated face with toothing surround and  carved tapering crest.

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