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How did Marquesan artists represent the human face in sculpture and decorative art?

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dilly bag; Aboriginal Australian art, Northern Territory, Australia — Oceanic art and architecture An Aboriginal Australian decorating a tightly woven dilly bag with white, yellow, and ochre (red) paints, Northern Territory, Australia, 1948.

In Marquesan art, the representation of the human face is defined by a strict conventionalization that remains consistent across both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works.1

Key features of this artistic convention include:

Eyes: These are depicted as large, circular, or pointed ovals.1
Brows: A continuous, curved brow line connects to the nose.1
Nose: This is represented by two small, broad semicircles.1
Mouth: The mouth is consistently shaped as a horizontal oblong.1

This stylized face appears on a wide variety of objects, including wood and stone sculpture representing deified ancestors, as well as on stone slabs incorporated into the walls of sacred enclosures. Beyond large-scale figures, these facial conventions are found on smaller items such as ivory ear ornaments, bone cylinders, handles for fans, and tobacco pipes. Marquesan weapons, particularly clubs, also frequently feature these faces carved into their flared, semicircular upper ends, and stone pounders often include human heads carved into their shafts.1