Description
Tribal Bark Painting
In this particular tribal bark painting one sees a traditionally-attired woman and man – seemingly a cacique (cheiftain) – walking by one of the many petroglyph-covered rocks and boulders in and around the Ngöbe tribe’s reservations in southwestern Costa Rica. The triangle geometric around the border is an element often used in this tribe’s expression and aesthetic and which represents the ever-present central mountain range of their region.
These bark paintings called mastates depict the natural environment, as well as the beliefs and esoteric traditions of the native Ngobe-Buglé people of Costa Rica and Panama. Although rendered in a naïf, un-schooled, style, the contents of these compositions (in natural pigments) are of major ethnographic and anthropological import.
- Artist: K. Palacios
- Tribe: Ngöbe
- Size: 13″ x 20″ or 33cm x 51cm
