re-creation

The posts are hand carved structural members arranged in the typical floorplan for an Iatmul spirit house.

The figures depict various stories of creation, histories of clan ancestors and religious spirits that populate the religious imagination of the Iatmul and Kwoma people.

The large center post depicts the first Kwoma ancestors coming into the world from a hole in the ground.

“All of the Kwoma ancestors came up out of a hole in the ground called Wanmi… The pig Gambweos came on top first. This man Gwbyamba held on to the pig and followed him up. And Whynambui followed him, the first ancestor of my clan Nowil Tek. Then the ancestors of all the other clans, they came up out of Wanmi.”
– Naui Sunambui, Kwoma tribe, Papua New Guinea (at Stanford)

Symbolic male fertility is expressed through eccentric trickster figures that recklessly transform between human, animal and inanimate forms.