Photographs © Tim Hamill
NGATA
Figure 5
45.5" high
$800
Despite its appearance this coffin was probably made to be sold.
All sculpture made among the Ngata is related to their elaborate funerary rituals. Best known are the wooden anthropomorphic polychromed coffins, which exist in both male and female forms. Reports about their use conflict, but what is certain is that they were carved in secrecy at a sacred clearing in the forest called Efomba by a ritual specialist woodcarver, bobongo, and the coffin is called bonganga-nganga. These anthropomorphic figures were put on the tombs of important people, in a small house built solely for that purpose.
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