Seated Rice Deity (Bulul)

Miniature Bulul (carved figure of an ancestral spirit and guardian)
Place: Ifugao Province, Northern Philippines
Material: Mahogany Wood

Bulul, also known as bul-ul or tinagtaggu, is a carved wooden figure used to guard the rice crop by the Ifugao (and their sub-tribe Kalanguya) peoples of northern Luzon. The sculptures are highly stylized representations of ancestors and are thought to gain power from the presence of the ancestral spirit.