A Collection of Six Small Amulet Figures, Lower Sepik River area, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

Provenance: Ex Denver Fine Art Museum Collection , the museum numbers on the back of 5 of the figures.

All of these figures are finely carved in the form of an anthropomorphic bird men ancestor that represent a category of powerful ancestral beings called waken.

Small amulet figures like these were kept by men in small woven bags or even sometimes woven into their beards. They were used for magical purposes such as; love magic, controlling the weather, hunting for wild pigs & cassowaries, to protect the owner and his family from malevolent sorcerers & the spirit world.

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