Figure of the Creator Deity

Figural woodcarvings from the Raja Ampat Islands are expertly worked and very distinctive, with oval facial planes and characteristically long, narrow noses. Often the figures’ detachable arms are spread out in an attitude of prayer. Very few of these carvings survive, and the most comprehensive group is now in the Royal Tropical Museum in Amsterdam. The figure shown here is similar to the figures in that collection, which scholars believe represent deities. If that is true, it is a rare instance in eastern Indonesia of producing images of the divine; figural representation is usually reserved for ancestors, while the divine remains abstract.