Giving Birth

Physical description

Wood carving of a man, woman, newborn child and bird. The woman crouches in a birthing position, a baby emerging from behind her grass skirt. She wears an elaborately painted mask, and holds her arms above her head where a long bone is grasped between her hands. A large white cockatoo bird sits on the bone near a cup that the woman holds in her left hand. A man stands behind her with hands on her wrists. He too is masked and wears a skirt of braided grass. Man and woman both have long twisted fibre for hair. All figures have eyes made of shell. The base of the sculpture is a rounded circle of wood.