thumb|Dilukai from the Caroline Islands, [[Belau (Palau), 19th-early 20th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art]] thumb|Dilukai, Belau culture, Micronesia
thumb|Dilukai from the Caroline Islands, [[Belau (Palau), 19th-early 20th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art]] thumb|Dilukai, Belau culture, Micronesia
Dilukai (or dilukái or dilugai) are wooden figures of young women carved over the doorways of chiefs' houses (bai) in the Palauan archipelago. They are typically shown with legs splayed, revealing a large, black, triangular pubic area with the hands resting on the thighs. These female figures protect the villagers' health and crops and ward off evil spirits. They were traditionally carved by ritual specialists according to strict rules, which, if broken, would result in the deaths of the carver and the chief. Female figures presenting their vulva can be found in many cultures: they symbolize fertility, (spiritual) rebirth, and they protect from evil (see above).
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).