Feast trough in the form of a crocodile

myminifactory

This large crocodile head serves as a feast bowl, presented in the form of a long trough. Inside the crocodile's mouth lies a man's head, and along the sides of the trough run several men. The artwork originates from Kalikoqu village, Roviana Lagoon, in the Solomon Islands. In 1904, Davis (Admiral Edward Davis) noted in British Museum correspondence that the bowl was taken from the Head Quarters of the Rubiana Head hunters in the Rubiana Lagoon Solomon Islands when those villages were destroyed by HMS Royalist in September 1891. He describes it as a "Kiki dish," explaining that after a raid on neighboring villages, cooked captives were eaten from this bowl by their captors. The bowl was published and illustrated by James Edge-Partington (Man 1903 No.91) with an account by C.M. Woodford of a feast at Sisieta in which taro, yams, and nuts were pounded in such a bowl to initiate it in a martial ceremony. Edge-Partington speculates that Woodford may have been describing the same bowl, but his son Thomas Edge-Partington contradicts this (Man 1906 No.79), saying the bowl is from Koli kongo, a village much higher up the lagoon. Ingova, the Roviana chief, assured him time after time that they never eat men from the trough; the heads are always there during the ceremony, but no human meat was eaten from it. Davis wrote to Hercules Read of the British Museum on September 21-22, 1903, recounting giving the bowl to Lord Charles Scott on the understanding that he would not part with it. In a letter to Hercules Read, Davis states that if he even thought of doing so, he was to have the first refusal of it. It would have been a welcome addition to his collection and whoever wanted it would have had to take the whole collection as it is... The present spelling of the island is Kalikoqu. Temporary Register, 1861-1921: The long wooden trough is cut from solid wood and painted. One end represents a crocodile head, while the other depicts the crocodile's tail clasped by an anthropomorphic figure whose legs are being swallowed by a shark.