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This figure is one of a dozen known examples of Fijian human figural sculpture. Figures of this type were named and placed on graves as material representations of dead ancestors, and venerated as important ceremonial objects. It was believed that the spirit of the ancestors would occasionally enter the figures. The spirits were consulted and worshipped in a bure kalou, or temple house, to which the spirits descended to the figure by means of special bark cloth.
Fijian culture is a hybrid of Melanesian and Polynesian cultural influences, and the material culture throughout the three hundred islands is an example of this. Very influential to Fiji were the precontact Tongan islands, whose society was typically broken down into chiefly groups joined in larger political federations with frequent warfare. Tongan craftsmen lived among the Fijian islands and influenced Fijian sculptural styles.
Figures such as this Fijian one made of wood are extremely similar stylistically to small ivory human figurines made in Tonga. Such examples are of the same size and general physical description as this wooden figure, with its erect posture, hands attached to its sides, raised triangular pubic area, flat face with deeply pointed chin, well-developed eyebrow ridges, circular drilled eyes, slit mouth, and large lug-shaped protruding ears.
