A beautifully sculpted male Adu Ndra Ama (image of the father) from the village of Hilisimaetanö in South Nias. The figure sits on a hour-glass shaped stool and wears a globular helmet (takula töfaö) with a plume like decoration and a kalabubu necklace. Around his right wrist is a bracelet and in his right ear there is a an 8-shaped (gaule or saro dalinga) ornament suspended from a twisted hanger. In the right hand a pestle is held while the left hand holds a tabular peg. These two objects formed a betel-nut cruncher often used by older people, whose teeth did not permit chewing.

The statue has a nice chestnut colored patina and there is no damage other than a crack along the back and behind the right ear. Possibly this is the reason this statue was sold as when a statue cracked, it was believed the ancestral spirit had disappeared. In that case a new carving had to be created and a new ritual performed to let the ancestral spirit enter the statue.

Collection #: 323
Size: 38cm (h) x 12cm (w) x 11cm (d)
Age: 19th-20th century
Material: Hardwood
Origin: Hilisimaetanö, Nias Island, Sumatra
Publication:
An almost identical carving can be seen in Feldman et al. 1990, Nias Tribal Treasures (cat nr. 37). Furthermore there is resemblance with collection # 1772-111 of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam and published in Brakel, K. et al., 1996 ‘A passion for Indonesian Art: The Georg Tillmann Collection at the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam’, pp. 27

Detail of hands

Detail of head

Amsterdam (#1772-111)

Entrance to the village of Hilisimaetanö

The house of the Hilisimaetanö chief