Usually representing spirits, ancestors or the primordial couple,
these figures were placed in shrines and treated with great respect. Through
a wide range of style, scale, belief and function the couples depicted share
a timeless, serene equality necessary to the continuity of their societies.
Traditionally, most of the couples are two freestanding figures, conceived
as a unit, and posed frontally, symmetrically, in formal postures and of
equal size.