Azera Neckrest, Markham Valley, Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea

This neckrest depicts a recumbent figure, an anthropomorphic head at one end, with a long, lean, torso, and projecting limbs that make the best use of the natural form of the branch or root from which the neckrest is made. At the opposite end to the head is a projection which Carl Schmitz read as a penis (Schmitz, “Die Nackenstützen und Zeremonialstühle der Azera in Nordost-Neuguinea”, Baessler-Archiv, N. F., Vol. VII, No. 1, 1959, p. 150).

Arnhold Wenholt notes that “every adult male Azera possessed such a headrest to be slept upon on the night of a raid and when the subsequent cannibalistic rituals took place. As such, it is a warrior’s property that is most closely linked to cannibalism.” (Wenholt, “The Azera”, in Hamson, ed., Between the Known and Unknown: New Guinea Art from Astrolabe Bay to Morobe, Palos Verdes Estates, 2016, p. 88). The bulbous form of the head suggests the barkcloth caps which were worn by warriors of the neighbouring Laewomba people as a mark of their success in committing homicide and other important events in the cycle of life.