Korwar (ancestor figures)

When you travel, you always travel with your ancestors. 

—Insos Ireeuw 

Ritual experts known as mon created korwar as conduits for communicating with the dead. Early examples, designed as repositories for a skull, had a central cavity to accommodate the spirit once summoned. Others were painted with scrolling designs. All examples have distinctive, arrow-shaped noses and small eyes (embellished here with glass trade beads). The figure on the right was once in the collection of André Breton, who, like many Surrealist artists in the 1920s and 1930s, found Oceanic art inspirational and compelling.