ASMAT Bis Pole PreColumbian Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

by unidentified hand

paired with a longhaired full-bodied costume comprised of bear skin

matted and framed size 35 1/4” x  22 1/2”

and in the streets and cafés of Paris

ASMAT Bis Pole PreColumbian Rapa Nui (Easter Island)Asmat Ancestor Pole, Bis or Bisj Pole, carved wood, pigment, organic material, 14 ft H The Asmat honored their dead with feasts and rituals, which both commemorated the deceased and reminded the living to avenge their deaths. The towering Asmat "bis" poles were made for these funeral feasts. The basic form of the bis is an openwork pole incorporating several ancestor figures and a winglike projection that represents the pole's phallus. In Asmat