2-734-557 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Male Figurine or Finial, early 1800s-early 1900s. This male figurine was probably once attached to a scepter or perhaps even to a fly whisk. There are traces on the surface that indicate the sculpture may have carried a medicine-filled package on its abdomen. The man seated with legs crossed and wearing a coiffure of Portuguese inspiration may represent a chief. His broken-off right hand would have held the carved imitation of a root called munkwiza , one of the most important chiefly medicines often buried in the earth of a chief 's compound. Perhaps the smaller figurine on the rear of the work, beneath the root-chewing chief, depicts a child holding onto his parent's back, though such imagery is more typically seen on female sculptures.