A Batak dog oracle biang

A Batak dog oracle biang

Samsoir Island, Sumatra, Indonesia

crouching with bared teeth and wearing a collar, the chest with a projecting head and the body with a scallop design and scrolling triangles to shoulders and hips, raised on a decorated rectangular base,

36.5cm high, 33cm long.

Provenance

Collected on Samosir Island.

Sotheby's, New York, 6th May 1998, lot 12.

cf. Achim Sibeth and Bruce W. Carpenter. Batak Sculpture, 2007, p.314, xi.09a-b.

These figures are usually described as dogs though they have lion like features and were used by the datu priests to tell fortunes.