In Palau, local histories were once carved into the wooden planks of bai (grand meeting houses). Bai stopped being erected in the late 19th century, but the practice of carving local histories in wood was revived in the mid-20th century thanks to Palauan artists like Ngiraibuuch Skedong and his teacher, the Japanese sculptor Hisakatsu Hijikata (1900–1977). Skedong created a portable art object that spoke to both local consumers and international tourists and reflected midcentury visual culture. Like many of his works, this piece depicts a 20th-century Palauan story in a traditional color palette, with outlined, abstracted figures inspired by the American comic books he read in the 1940s.