Code: ITNB021
Size: 3 1/4" (8.25 cm) diameter

What a tour de force - the specific talent and fame of this Wounaan carver, Idalgo Piraza, is his able to carve in one single tagua nut, multiple animals. This is his 'hummingbird ball'. Carving is traditionally a male activity among the indigenous Embera and Wounaan of the Darien region of eastern Panama. Historically and up to present times, highly skilled wood carvers among these two Native peoples have been fashioning elegant dugout canoes and shamanic ritual implements (carved staffs) in local rainforest hardwoods. Since the 60's, these carvers turned their attention to carving the potato-sized tagua ("ivory") nut on the suggestion, as it's been anecdotally told - by a biologist working and investigating in the Darien forest years ago. As carving was already a highly developed skill among these two tribes ancestrally, these carvers excelled in creating wonderful (and often, very naturally rendered) figurines in tagua nut of local flora and fauna endemic to their territory. All pieces are signed by the artist