Murik Lakes Kandimbwag Figure-Louis Pierre Ledoux-New Guinea Art-Oceanic Art
The young American ethnologist Louis Pierre Ledoux collected this small “kandimbwag” figure in the Murik Lakes area back in 1936. In Ledoux’s unpublished manuscript, he describes in detail the male initiation ceremony that features taking the young men to the beach for bleeding the penis—which involves inserting a barbed length of grass into the urethra and yanking it out—repeatedly … Ledoux states, “the initiate wears a long mal (tapa waist belt), the tail of which comes up under the corset, and hangs down to just below the knees, with a small kandimbwag, hanging from one end. I collected one of these which was some nine inches to a foot in length and which had a long mal but no corset” (Ch. 3, page 60). The present figure is 10 ¾” (27.2 cm) in height, dates to the early 20th century and is illustrated in my most recent catalog “Three Collections of Oceanic Art” no. 18, pages 56/57. The figure sells for $5500.