Throughout the Sepik river, in particular the lower Sepik groups of Anggoram and Kambot as well as the Abelam region, ceremonial houses were decorated with panels made from sago palm petiotes, known as 'panggals'. Using charcoal, ochres and other mineral pigments, artists painted onto panels, which were often bound together with plant fibre to form a larger surface on which to work.

These panels were adorned with paintings representing mythological beings, spirits and motifs from the Sepik plant and animal world. The motifs found on this panel resemble designs found on paintings collected on the Berlin Ethnological Museum's Sepik expedition of 1912-13, and reproduced in Heinz Kelm's 'Kunst vom Sepik' (catalogue numbers 328-332), published in 1966.