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Kamangabbi figure
Kamangabbi figure

Kamangabbi figure

Label TextDemon figure Nicknamed a "hook figure," this type of sculpture was carved by the Arambak people of Papua New Guinea. When anthropologist Anthony Forge studied among the 700 remaining Arambak in 1960, he saw the forms being kept in a men's house where they were decorated with offerings of food and other substances to aid in the fertility of crops and hunting. When he persisted in asking if the hook system might be regarded as a phallus, the elders basically answered, "No comment." Other sources describe the hook above the head as a feather, the center hooks as ribs, with the heart in the middle.
Object number81.17.1463
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, The Untold Story, November 14, 2003 - November 14, 2004
Credit LineGift of Katherine White and the Boeing Company
Dimensions64 1/4 x 6 1/2 x 2in. (163.2 x 16.5 x 5.1cm)
MediumWood and pigment
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1461
Initiation figure
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1499
Crocodile Effigy
Melanesian
late 19th century
Object number: 69.69
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1476
Ancestor Board
Melanesian
Object number: 93.159
Canoe-Prow Splashboard (Rajim)
Melanesian
early 20th Century
Object number: 70.120
Paddle
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1442
Housepost fragment
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1446
Food bowl
Melanesian
Object number: 81.17.1447