Food Pounder for a High Grade Elder

A rare form of food pounder from a high Grade man decorated with two janus birds as the finial. Gaua Island, Banks Islands, Vanuatu, Melanesia. Wood. 19th century. 80 x 9.2 x 6 cm.

Literature: See Speiser, Felix: ETHNOLOGY OF VANUATU, AN EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY STUDY. English translation of the original 1923 edition, Crawford-House Press, Bathurst, 1991, for a pounder with a single bird of identical type.