Grade-figure from Ambrym

Monumental grade-figure from the north of Ambrym, in so-called Ambrym-style (classic style).

The features reflect the aesthetics of the ideal Ambrym male: broad nose, big nostrils with sometimes perforated septum, a long chin and high forehead.

These grade-figures were made and are still being made for a grade-taking ceremony, at which an individual can rise in the social order by entering into a certain secret society and thus accumulates knowledge related to that level. The statues represents an ancestor who already achieved this specific grade.

Grades allow an individual to wear certain insignias (armbands, kneebands, caps) and ornamentations (flowers, pigments with specific colours), to erect artefacts (wooden sculptures, monoliths) and to eat at a specific hearth. Wealth is a precondition for moving upwards in rank. For all ceremonies and artefacts that belong to a certain rank or grade, one needs to pay in male tusker pigs. The highest rank will only be achieved by big men or very wealthy men.

The Ambrym style was very much appreciated by early colonists and collectors who most probably have ordered them. As such one will find several of them in Western museum collections.

This grade-figure has been created for local ceremonial use but was purchased before the ceremony took place. Ceremonially used grade-figures are considered sacred by Vanuatu people and will therefore be impossible to collect. Vanuatu law prohibits the export of these used statues.

Ambrym island. Tree-fern. 250 cm, ca. 1999.

References:

Keersmaeker, Jean P.L. De. Richesse Oblige. Rang op Ambrym en Malekula (Vanuatu). Het nimangki-genootschap: bron van creativiteit, sociale vrede en statusverandering. Dissertatie, Universiteit Gent. 2003. link

Speiser, F. Ethnology of Vanuatu. An early twentieth-century study. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1996 (english edition of the original 1923 edition: Ethnographischen Materialen aus den Neuen Hebriden und den Banks Inseln, Springer Verlag, 1923 zie pl. xi – xiv).

Please, click on one of the pictures below to see an enlargement