telum figure, also spelled Tellem Figure, small, devotional image carved from wood or stone, probably used in private rather than communal ancestor worship in primitive societies. Telum figures are known on the northwestern coast of New Guinea and in the Dogon art of The Sudan. Extant examples from both regions are rare, probably because they were summarily carved and thus had less intrinsic value than the more carefully executed statues used in fertility rites or formal ceremonies of ancestor worship.
In The Sudan the figures were commonly placed in open grottoes. Both wooden and stone telums have been discovered in New Guinea. There are some fine wooden examples from the region of Astrolabe Bay, in which the facial features are strongly delineated. Not as well preserved, only one complete example of a stone telum from New Guinea is known. Almost certainly, these New Guinea telums are not merely representations of human progenitors but images of divinities that were worshiped by the natives as their mythical ancestors.