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African and Oceanic Art from the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting
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Figure (Bioma)
Papua New Guinea, Papuan Gulf, Urama Island and Era River region, 19th century
Wood, paint; H: 51 in. (130 cm)
Provenance: Austro-Hungarian collection, before 1914; Ralph Nash, London; [John J. Klejman, New York, 1970]; Barbier-Mueller collection, since 1970
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Art in the Papuan Gulf region on the southeast coast of New Guinea was primarily associated with the large communal men's houses, known as dubu daima in the Urama Island and Era River region, where this work originated. Art and religion in the Papuan Gulf centered primarily on powerful spirits (imunu), each of which was typically associated with a specific place within the landscape, rivers, or sea, and linked to the particular clan in whose territory it dwelt. In the past, the interior of the men's house was partitioned into cubicles, each of which belonged to a specific clan or subclan. Within their cubicle, clan members constructed a shrine to house the sacred spirit boards, figures, human and animal skulls, and other sacred objects associated with the clan's various imunu.
Flat, anthropomorphic figures such as this one, called bioma, were created to decorate the skulls of pigs or crocodiles that were presented to the imunu to honor them for their help during the hunt. In its original context, the present work would have been placed atop or just behind the back of a pig or crocodile skull so that the figure leaned against the wall of the shrine for support. The geometric designs on bioma figures likely encoded aspects of clan oral traditions and were specific enough to enable an informed observer to identify the clan affiliation of the image.
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