Join us on a trip to Uganda guided by our guest blogger Sophie Hooge Seebach, PhD Scholar at the Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University: What do the voices of the dead sound like? In Acholi, Northern Uganda, the spirits of the dead do not disappear […]
Tetepeku – one of the rare female ancestor figures from Papua New Guinea, of great importance to the Abelam people of Wosera. As a central part of male initiation rites, the novice is to crawl between the legs of Tetepeku, placed inside the ceremonial house, haus tambaran. […]
So, a chair is basically something to sit on, right? Well actually, there is so much more to chairs than just that. There’s a chair for every occasion, but apart from the myriad different everyday chairs you’ll find around the world, you’ll also find more […]
Looking at this figure, what creature would you think it represents? Man? Animal? Both? Collected in 1999 by Rane Willerslev, during his fieldwork in the blistering cold of Siberia, this figure tells the story of an important link in the complex process of the Yukagir hunters’ preparation for killing […]
You might be familiar with the colourful totem poles of Native Americans, with carved out masks and animals – but have you ever seen a Papua New Guinean bisj pole like the ones here? Collected by Aksel Bojsen-Møller in 1955, these poles tell the story of an old […]
Quite frankly, we were a little spooked by this item! Even more so when we discovered that beneath the layers of clay and paint, is the real human skull of a specifically important ancestor of the Sepik province in Papua New Guinea. According to Jens […]
Start not nor deem my spirit fled; In me behold the only skull, From which, unlike a living head Whatever flows is never dull Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone In aid of others’ let me shine; And when, alas! Our brains are gone, […]
Almost resembling a funky dancer expressing himself in the light of the disco ball, perplexed and surprised by his own moves, we were amused to learn that this little fella is actually connected to the afterlife of the Enga people of Papua New Guinea in […]
ethnographica 