Producer unknown to us
Uli
Oceania, Papua New Guinea, Bismarck archipelago, New Ireland
Prior to 1907
Wood, carved
Joseph Seibert (physician) probably appropriated the figure while working at the government hospital in Rabaul starting in 1905
Purchased by the museum from Seibert in 1909
Me 8883
Nalik figures were crafted by specialized carving masters for the elaborate Uli ritual festivals. They represent a ritual energy that unites male and female elements. They embody both the fertility expressed in the ancestral ranks and the ability of women to conceive children, as well as the fertility of crops, of which taro and yams are the most important. The male elements embody the power to create the essential things and to meet the social demands of life, that is, martial qualities, ritual knowledge, and performing central rituals and commemorative festivals. Uli energy was located in the heads of the Nalik and could only be controlled by men. A number of Nalik were placed in small men's houses specifically built for the purpose.
Some figures of high rank, called selambungin lorong, have human figures shaped like an arm or a hand attached to both sides.
The efficacy of these figures was mainly attributed to the color white and the ceremonial formulas interspersed with sacred names. Uli festivals were held after the deaths of important men.
The specific circumstances of the acquisition of these figures are not clear to this day. The physician Joseph Seibert probably appropriated this figure during his time at the government hospital in Rabaul in the former German New Guinea from 1905.
Birgit Scheps-Bretschneider