W50xD40xH120mm, Macau
We have posted this form of wooden figurine (Junk Boat God, Junk Boat God, god?) twice already in the blog, but this time with a new understanding. Last week I was at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum visiting the Picasso Exhibition (Masterpieces from Musée National Picasso, Paris), if you are visiting Hong Kong try to prebook a ticket to see, its well worth the trip. Now I have got you all excited, well, the effigy has nothing to do with Picasso, I found similar figurines in the local history section of the museum and here is the describsion;
“Wooden Effigies – People who lived on land worshipped wooden tablets with the names of their ancestors written on them. Fishermen worshiped wooden effigies instead. the appearances of the effigies vary according to the status and sex of the deceased. The usual practice was for a family to hire a spirit medium to conduct a ceremony, and sculpt a wooden effigy of the deceased according to her instuction. As time passed and fishing families became better educated, wooden effigies were replaced by wooden tablets.”
If this is correct, I wonder if the person this effigy is made for had an ambition to become a concert conductor. The explanation from the museum is quite different from the one told me by the old Tanka gentlemen in the Tai O fishing village (see Junk Boat God, god?). Would a Tanka person help me to clarify this?
Mountain Folkcraft 