A highly decorated, carved wooden head with cap and feather. Small pieces of black wood have been placed in the eyes and around the forehead. The whole is decorated with deeply incised lines leaving sections in relief. There is a hole in the decoration at either side of the face, and a deep channel in the back with corresponding holes in the cap and base.
Uhumilau or Uhumwelao. A highly decorated, carved wooden head with cap and feather. Small pieces of black wood have been placed in the eyes and around the forehead.
Carved head with hat and feather up at side [different hand has added '(winged cap?)'], oblong hole at back (?use) uhumilau
[different hand] These heads are known as uhumwelao and were placed on ancestor shrines by important chiefs in the same fashion that the Oba (king) placed brass ones on his. The slot in the back was apparently made to take a long wooden peg, which may have served both to peg the head securely to the altar and/or support some form of tusk or horn.
These heads were placed on ancestor shrines by important chiefs in the same fashion that the Oba (king) placed brass ones on his. The slot in the back was apparently made to take a long wooden peg, which may have served both to peg the head securely to the altar and/or support some form of tusk or horn.