The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Grade society figure, a human-like figure with their head almost as big as their body and carved from a fernwood tree, the figure almost black with a sandpaper-like texture. The figure squats over the trunk, knees turned in, and hands folded just below their stomach, the remainder of the trunk sticking out the top of their head. Their head is oval with shadowed recesses where their eyes and mouth would be.

Grade Society Figure

c. 1930

Melanesia, Ambrym, Vanuatu , 20th century

(New Hebrides)
fernwood
Overall: 210.9 cm (83 1/16 in.)
Gift of Herbert Baker 1971.272
Location: Not on view

Description

In the islands of Vanuatu, communities carved large statutes to honor ancestors. The figures were often erected near men's-society houses, in conjunction with celebrations marking an individual's attainment of a new rank or grade. Carved from the trunks of fernwood trees, the ancestor statues were originally covered with mud plaster and painted with many colors. The large heads typical of these sculptures symbolize the ancestors' spiritual power, or "mana".
  • Year in Review: 1972. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 27-March 18, 1973).
  • {{cite web|title=Grade Society Figure|url=false|author=|year=c. 1930|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1971.272