Staff with Parent Carrying Child on Shoulders
Not on view
This short wooden staff from southern Borneo depicts a figure supporting a child on the shoulders. Highly stylized and attenuated in form, the central figure has wide shoulders, a somewhat tapered torso, flaring angular hips and thin legs with the feet shown as downward angled tab-like projections. Both figures have smooth, rounded heads with shallow concave surfaces to indicate cheeks and eyes. The slender figure of a lizard, its scales and bodily markings indicated with shallow incised lines, appears on the lower section of the shaft directly beneath the central figure’s feet. The body of a snake, carved in low relief, also coils several times around the length of the shaft, its head appearing as a simple curved form below the figure’s right foot.
