Papua New Guinea Spirit Boat, Carved and Painted Wood. Animalistic imagery and patterns along it.

Size: 38 X 4 X 2 1/2 in.

#5350 .

Papua New Guinea is a country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and its offshore islands in Melanesia. It shares its only land border with Indonesia to the west and it is directly adjacent to Australia to the south and the Solomon Islands to the east. Archaeological evidence indicates that humans first arrived in Papua New Guinea around 42,000 to 45,000 years ago, in one of the earliest waves of human migration from Africa. There are 839 known languages of Papua New Guinea, making it the most linguistically diverse country in the world. At the national level, after being ruled by three external powers since 1883, including nearly 60 years of Australian administration starting during World War I, Papua New Guinea established its sovereignty in 1975, becoming an independent Commonwealth realm with the British monarch as its leader. Papua New Guinea is world-famous for carved wooden sculptures, particularly masks, canoes, story-boards. Many of the best collections of these are held in overseas museums, and are identified as being in the first wave of contemporary art primarily from the capital city of Port Moresby.