Sawos Statue of a Female Spirit from a Sacred Flute, Middle Sepik River Region, Papua New Guinea

Félicia Dialossin (Galerie Argiles), Paris, 1960s
Mr. and Mrs. Philippe Solvit, Paris, acquired from the above in 1964
Ricqlès, Paris, Arts Primitifs: Collection de Monsieur et Madame Solvit et à divers amateurs, June 7, 1998, lot 56
Private American Collection, acquired at the above auction with the assistance of Lance Entwistle, London

Very good condition for an object of this age and rare type. Vertical age crack to proper right side of face. Marks, nicks, scratches, abrasions, small old chips, and hairline age cracks consistent with age and use. Surface is worn. Shallow pit to proper right side below hand. Encrustation to proper left thigh, hand, and forearm. Hole underneath for attachment to base. White inventory number "EN322" on bottom reverse.
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This figure is of the same type and function as the famous wusear figures of the Biwat (Mundugumor) people from the shores of the middle Yuat River, a side-arm of the Lower Sepik River, one of the most iconic genres of Melaneasian art. Almost always of male gender, the spirit figures were placed on top of sacred bamboo flutes, with the stick-shaped bottom end inserted vertically.   While the wusear were often called "flute stoppers" by western scholars, this expression is misleading insofar as it reduces these effigies to a decorative function.  Wusear were in fact effigies who "spoke" through the flute.  It is therefore more appropriate to interperet the flute as part of the wusear than vice versa. 

Spirit figures were associated with powerful ancestors and had in themselves supernatural aura. They were sacred property of a clan, honored through ritual and received food offerings. Dirk Smidt (in Kooten and Heuvel 1990: 245-246, text to cat. 93), discussing a Mundugumor wusear figure, notes: "These last-named are thought by the Biwat themselves to be their most important, and sacred objects. They were the crowns of the long bamboo flutes (aiyang), and their voices were heard when the flutes were blown, after the stoppers were removed. Their social, ceremonial, and religious significance was tremendous. [...] Seeing the sacred flutes was a highlight of the initiation and made a deep impression. An uncle (mother's brother) of a boy undergoing initiation, would show his nephew the sacred flutes and hand them to the boy's father, at whose death they would be inherited by the boy. In turn, the father would make new flutes for his sister's husband to be shown at the initiation of the latter's son. A remarkable fact is that the girls were allowed to see the flutes as well. Their involvement was understandable. The symbolic value of such a flute was nearly as high as the value of a woman. A man who wanted to marry but had no sister to compensate the group who gave the bride, could only satisfy the family of the bride, after he had resorted to kidnapping his beloved, by offering a sacred flute, indeed symbolic of the strength and riches of his own group."

The Sawos statue previously in the Solvit Collection features clear signs of stone tools and can thus be dated to the pre-contact period of the 19th century or earlier. It is one of only a handful known of its type. Based on the rich body scarification it is plausible to identify it as an important female spirit associated with a specific family clan, perhaps one of the founding ancestors. However, in his discussion of a closely related statue which has been C-14 dated to 1520-1810, Friede (2005: 120, text to cat. 235) suggests another possibility (unfortunately without any reference to his source): "The figure represents a woman who had insulted a powerful spirit by 'stealing' his fish. She has been transformed into a fish eating bird [...]. This mythical concept is less violent but similar to the story of the goddess Artemis and the hunter Actaeon in Greek mythology."

Indeed the iconography of a part-human, part-bird is a particularly powerful idea, and appears in various world cultures.  The surrealist Max Ernst famously drew inspiration from the primary arts of Oceania and their particular expressions of the human psyche, and in particular the rich sculptural traditions of Papua New Guinea. According to Maurer (in Rubin 1984: 553), "The Primitive aspect that Ernst saw in himself [...] not only enabled him to live in harmony with nature, but helped him explore all her mysteries and appropriate the secrets of her creative powers. In both classical and tribal mythology, animals and their anthropomorphized variants appear as symbols of both the spiritual forces of nature and man's mystical relationship to these forces.  These types of images appear throughout Max Ernst's oeuvre - a bizarre menagerie of insects, fish, animals, and fantastic hybrids that constitute his personal bestiary. The bird, however, is by far his favorite and most frequently represented creature, and in his intimate association with birds we find Ernst's most significant association with the Primitive."  Ernst went so far as to identify himself with a mythical character named Loplop, a bird-man who frequently recurred in his drawings, paintings, and collages.  Ernst's famous 1934 collage-novel Une Semaine de bonté (see Fig. 1) is rich with references to classical mythology as well as forms inspired by the arts and myths of primary cultures, and especially bird-headed human figures, expressions of a powerful spiritual and artistic affinity across distant cultures.

For two other closely related statues in the Museum der Kulturen, Basel, see Bühler (1970: 78-79, fig. 33).