Indonesian Tau Tau Funerary Wooden Head

A natural root club with a good patina of age and wear; hide thong for suspension. 391 grams, 34.2 cm



From Fiji, South Pacific. From an old Northern Ireland collection. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

“The club was the Fijian warrior's favourite weapon. He had his spears, from ten to fifteen feet long and often richly carved, efficient bows and arrows, and slings for throwing stones; but, although these had each its special use, none approached the club in popularity.” R. A. Derrick, “Notes on Fijian Clubs, (With a System of Classification)”.

A hand-carved standing female figure with hands placed in front of the figure and wearing arm rings. 930 grams, 48 cm



From Equatorial Guinea, West Coast of Central Africa. From an old Bristol, UK, ethnographical collection. From the property of a late Lincolnshire, UK, gentleman.

The people that are called “Fang” in the geographic or ethnographic literature number 800,000 and constitute a vast mosaic of village communities, established in a large zone of Atlantic equatorial Africa comprising Cameroon, continental Equatorial Guinea and nearly the whole north of Gabon, on the right bank of the Ogowe River. The Fang practice a cult devoted to ancestor lineages, the bieri, whose aim is to both protect themselves from the deceased and to recruit their aid in matters of daily life. Bieri are reliquary figures placed by the Fang upon their bark boxes to personify the tribal soul, containing the skulls and skeletons of prominent deceased persons. The bieri also served for therapeutic rituals and, above all, for initiations of young males during the great so festival. The rites included consumption of a plant with stimulant properties, which induced a trance lasting for several hours, and the “resuscitation of the ancestors,” in which figures detached from the reliquaries were moved somewhat playfully from behind a raffia screen as puppets.

Penannular in form and D-shaped in section formed from bronze and brass coils, with clubbed beast-head finials. 182 grams, 76 mm



Private collection, London, UK.