Post #514893 by Babalu on Wed, Mar 3, 2010 7:24 PM

Thanks for the GREAT shots Sabu, and hell yes I want to go! I have to make a glaze run up that way some time soon anyway...maybe we can take this show in, then step out for some steak and pie somewhere too? :)

It's wonderful to see this "amazing" gathering of work displayed so well...great spacing of the work. The way the museum has lit the work enhances the magic...

Those "Bisj" poles are something else! For those of you that might have not read up on this yet, "bisj are made for a festival called the bisj mbu. during the bisj mbu a number of these poles are placed in front of the men's house. The bisj ceremony serves as a promise by the living to avenge the death of the people that are carved into the poles. During the festival the men boost about their heroic deeds and engage in mock battles. They want to make it clear that they are capable of avenging the dead, thus convincing their spirits that it is safe to travel to Safan...the realm of the dead. The dead are buried with their feet facing the river. The river, of course, is the road to the sea, and behind the sea is the realm of the ancesters. Thus the deceased require a canoe to reach the realm of the ancesters. The bisj serves as a ritual canoe, to take the souls of the deceased to Safan. This is why the bottom of the bisj have the shape of a small canoe. In that recetacal food is placed for the journey of the dead to the other world."

Here are couple other cool facts about the bisj poles...

• "The pennant-shaped protrusion rising up from the body is called the tsjemen (litterally "penis")."

• "even the making of the bisj mimes the taking of a head. Once the tree is chosen, the carver confronts the tree as if it were an enemy that he wants to decapitate. he cuts it down as if it were an enemy, and strips off the bark. At this stage the tree releases a blood red sap, resembling the blood of a man being skinned."