Toba Batak. Sumatra Island, Indonesia.
Wood. Height of head only (not including neck stem): 10.5” (26.7 cm).

Sigale Gale puppet head, with a mechanism to close the eyes.

Sigale Gale is a wooden puppet used in a funeral dance performance (papurpur sapata) of the Toba Batak people on Samosir Island, Lake Toba, north Sumatra Island.
During the dance, the puppet is operated from behind, like a marionette, using strings that run through the ornate wheeled wooden platform on which it stands.
The setup enables its arms and body to be moved and its head to turn. The Toba Batak believe their souls become ancestral spirits and the children of the deceased
perform the funerary rites. If a person of high rank died childless a Sigale Gale is created as a substitute. Complicated Sigale Gale could be life sized and featured
actuation using wet moss that could be squeezed to make the puppets appear to cry. The ritual dispelled the curse of dying childless, and placated the spirit of the
deceased so that he would do no harm to the community

This is one of the best Sigale Gale heads I have ever come across.
It has the most powerful and soulful expression, especially when the eyes are closed.

Ex: Jack Sadovnic collection, Caracas, New York, Bali, Brussels, Miami, Los Angeles.

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