Neckrest, Coastal Sepik or Ramu River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

The significance and principal function of this wonderful stone-carved neckrest were probably magical, with the four ancestral spirit figures guarding the body of the sleeper whilst his soul wandered from it and into the world of the spirits. Here the figures form a protective circle around the head of the owner, watching over the four cardinal directions, their legs bent, and hands joined in a beautiful design that rhythmically rises and falls. Waldemar Stöhr illustrates a group of Coastal Sepik or Ramu neckrests in the collection of the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne (Stöhr, Melanesien. Schwarze Inseln der Südsee, 1971, p. 105, figs. 193-199) which illustrate the very powerful, protective presence of this type of neckrest; none, however, has the peculiarly ethereal grace of this extraordinary object.