Slit Gong Head

ClassificationsTools and Equipment-musical instruments-drums

Date20th Century

Made AtVanuatu

MediumWood and pigment

Dimensions84 × 15 × 18 in. (213.4 × 38.1 × 45.7 cm)

Credit LineGift of Peter and Signe Keller

Object number2022.11.9

DescriptionThis object is the upper portion of a gargantuan slit drum from Vanuatu's Ambrym Island. It is made of a dense, heavy wood and carved with two abstract faces featuring large eyes and wide, pointed noses. The similarity between this object and the grade statues of Ambrym Island is not coincidental. Both types of monumental carving feature the stylized faces of ancestors and played important roles in traditional ceremonies. The number of faces on drums especially correlated to the prestige of the object, as carvers were paid more for each additional face. To this day, Vanuatuan carvers are prohibited from adding more than five faces on one standing drum.

Factors like limited food, high rates of disease, and constant battles over land made traditional life throughout Melanesia uncertain at the best of times. In an effort to control these unknowns and improve their lives, the peoples of New Guinea often turned to gods, spirits of the forest, and their own ancestors. Every village found a unique balance between the physical and spiritual worlds, using belief systems and ritual objects developed over thousands of generations to influence outcomes for the better. Consequently, what has evolved in New Guinea is today one of the world’s richest animistic belief systems as witnessed through the island’s art.

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