A fine Wapo /Era region spirit board (Gope); Gulf province Papua New Guinea. (C. 20th Century).This fine and extremely large board with stylized head at the top, possibly of a turtle, the body made-up of mirrored linear designs stacked one against one over the other, creating multiple sub-figures. Quite heavy, with excellent carving; some pigments appear to be more recently applied in a traditional context than others, however the board does appear to be quite old.Spirit boards of the Papuan Gulf were traditionally made in the Central and Eastern areas. They were routinely found in the Men’s houses of the Kerewa, the peoples of the Era River and Wapo Creek, Purari delta areas and from the Urama river as far east as the Elema people.The boards were believed to be the abode of an Imunu, or spirit entity that is represented on the front, though the connection of the image to the spirt is not really a clear one-to-one depiction and the iconography is far more complex in nature.In each locale the ethnic name was different – Titi Ebiha among the Kerewa, Gope among the peoples of the Era and Wapo areas. The Purari used both the terms Gope and Kwoi depending on their location while the Elema region called them Hohao. Stylistically the imagery also varied greatly, with the Kerewa often depicting entire figures while the neighboring peoples of the Era, Wapo and Purari reducing the forms to abstracted shapes.Many of the boards were cut from old war canoes, though in the Kerewa region many were simply made of flatter timber cut for the purpose. Acquired by Marc Seidler from George Craig, C. 1980, Field collected by Craig prior to 1966. This is a very large board and it measures 70.5 inches tall.

Fair, well handled