A massive and heavy chiefly headrest or, unguna. These remarkable pillows are composed of a single piece horizontal neck-bar and main foot which flows down at a tapered 135° angle and a separately carved bipod that is lashed to the neck-bar at the opposite end. The separate double-foot is usually carved of another type of wood. A very fine central ridge is carved along the underside of the neck-bar. The only other island culture in the South Pacific that uses this strange composite system is Tikopia. Three legged headrest are known in the Highlands and Papuan Gulf areas of New Guinea as well as in Tikopia, Fiji and Tonga.

Rennel Island, Solomon Islands, Polynesian Outliers. Hard wood with coconut fiber and rattan. 45 x 26.1 x 17.7 x 17 cm. 19/20th century.

Collected on Rennel island by a member of the Johnson family on board the yacht Yankee between 1930 & 1954. Irving & Electa Johnson, from Hadley, Massachusetts, traveled extensively in the South Pacific and collected large quantities of artifacts. Their son Arthur returned in 1954 for a last collecting trip.

Exhibited : Power and Prestige, The Arts of Island Melanesia and the Polynesian Outliers. Hurst Gallery, Cambridge 1996, illustrated fig. 72 of the catalogue.

Ex coll.: John Hewett, London.