Lot 161 Dα

A number of very similar figures were photographed by James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton in April 1923 in the Konya Naga village of Angphang close to the border with Burma (today Myanmar). Hutton was Deputy Commissioner at Kohima at the time and Mills was Assistant Commissioner at Mokokchung. They were in the area on a punitive expedition to the Konyak village of Yungya, certain inhabitants of which had carried out a head-hunting raid on Kamahu. Both men carried out extensive anthropological research during their time in Nagaland.

Mills photographs a large number of figures under a thatched shelter (Image number B.027, J.P. Mills Photographic Collection, SOAS University of London) and Hutton photographed a row of three figures (J.P. Mills Photographic Collection Image number B.020) which are today in the Pitt Rivers Museum, having been donated by Hutton in 1928. The figures are close in style to our figures with the same concave heart-shaped face with metal tacks inserted in the eyes (the Pitt Rivers figures are accession numbers 1923.84.897.1, 1923.84.988.1 and 1923.84.989.1-3, and illustrated in Jacobs, J. et al., "The Nagas: Hill People of Northeast India", London, 1990, p.209).

Wooden ancestor figures amongst the Northern and Central Naga groups might be carved to represent not just a deceased man of high rank but also his family, lineage, servants and the people he had killed. They were sometimes carved in pairs, one representing the deceased and the other a servant to accompany him to the land of the dead. Once the prescribed rituals had been performed the figures were no longer considered taboo. In the area of Angphang the figures were not placed on the graves of a deceased but were placed in a shelter belonging to the clan or on the path so they would be seen as villagers go to and from the fileds. One of our figures has painted on his chest the tattoo which, amongst the northern Naga tribes, denotes his status as a headhunter. The practise of headhunting was carried out to bring to the clan a surplus of fertility and life power and erect phalluses were a common feature on ancestor carvings and on carvings in the "morung", the dorminories of unmarried men.


Additional image : Image number B.027, J.P. Mills Photographic Collection, SOAS University of London