Monumental Slit Drum, Ambrym Island, Vanuatuatingting height 116in (294.5cm)ProvenanceDayton Society of Natural History's Boonshoft Museum, Anonymous donation circa 1970Private Collection, Illinois"New Hebrides sculpture is true and truer than true, because it looks. This is not just the imitation of the eye, this really is a gaze."Albert Giacometti*Sculpted from the trunk of a felled tree, the center is hollowed out through the vertical slit; the upper portion carved with the face of an ancestor with large circular eyes and diminutive arms at the side.Crispin Howarth notes, "the face of each Ambrym slit drum is devoid of a mouth. The long vertical aperture--Tute--of the musical part of the drum is the mouth, and the noise produced by playing the drum is considered to be a way to summon the ancestors. Drums have many uses, for ritual and festive performances, and to communicate and broadcast over long distances. Complex beaten rhythms can indicate events, warn of danger, tell of the death of a person or announce a meeting and ritually chase away the bad weather of the hurricane season." (Kastom - Art of Vanuatu, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2013, p. 80)*J Flam and M Deutch (eds), Primitivism and Twentieth Century Art - A Documentary History, University of California Press, California, 2003, p. 308, n6.