Asmat Art- West Papua/Irian Jaya, Indonesia

Figure 1: Asmat war shield collected in Sawa-Erma Villages. The head section is filigreed into two ancestor figures. The largest designs on the body are bipane, shell nosepiece motifs, the smaller ones include cuscus tails and two ancestor figures on the right top and bottom.

Asmat Shields: article and photos of Asmat shields from the major design areas.

SEE ALSO:

Links in this site:

• Bone Knives and Bone Daggers photo of Asmat bone dagger at the end of the article.
• Canoes and Canoe Prows photo of Asmat canoe prow at end of the article.
• New Guinea Shields photo of Asmat shield from the Brazza River area.
• Spears and Atlatls photo of Asmat spearhead.

Books

• Asmat Art, Woodcarvings of Southwest New Guinea, edited by Dirk Smidt, Periplus Editions and the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden, 1993. The best choice if you want one book on the Asmat.

• Asmat Images, by Tobias Schneebaum, Pendragon Press, NY for the Crosier Missions, 1985. Line drawings by Schneebaum, black and white photos with text in both English and Bahasa Indonesian from the local collection of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress in Agats, Irian Jaya, Indonesia.

• ASMAT, Myth and Ritual, the Inspiration of Art, edited by Gunter and Ursula Konrad, Erizzo Editrice, Venezia, 1995. Published in both German and English editions. Numerous contemporary color photographs of life and ritual in the Asmat.

• ASMAT, Perception of Life in Art, the Collection of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress
  Edited by Ursula Konrad, Alphonse Sowada and Gunter Konrad, published in German (ISBN 3-87448-227-8), English (ISBN 3-87448-229-4) and Indonesian editions (ISBN 3-87448-228-6), 2002, by K. Kühlen Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Mönchengladbach, Germany, © copyright Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress, Agats, Papua, Indonesia.
  Excellent hardcover, essays on the Asmat and their art in their own context and in the world context, defining of 12 major Asmat groups, color photographs of the collection and of the Asmat people, maps.
  

• The Asmat, the Michael C. Rockefeller Expeditions, the Museum of Primitive Art, NY. The Rockefeller collections from Michael Rockefeller's two trips during 1961, including field photos and documentation.

• Chez Les Asmat, Papous de nouvelle-Guinée Occidentale Irian Jaya, by Paul Simpelaere, photographs by Roi Léopold III de Belgique. Published by Fonds Léopold III our l'Exploration et la conservation de la Nature, 1983, ISBN 90-209-1094-9. History, culture and art of the Asmat from Simpelaere's 1973 expedition. Text in French.

• Head Hunters of Papua, by Tony Saulnier. Crown Publishers Inc. NY, 1963. Expedition into what was then Netherlands New Guinea, now the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya.

• Rocky Goes West, by Paul Toohey, Duffy & Snellgrove, PO Box 177, Potts Point, NSW, Australia, 1997. $16.95 AusDollars. One of the few books on Rockefeller's disappearance that we would recommend.

• Where the Spirits Dwell, an Odyssey in the Jungle of New Guinea, by Tobias Schneebaum, Grove Press, NY, 1988. Interesting, funny and honest account of Schneebaum's love for the Asmat people and their artistic culture.

Figure 2: Art areas of Melanesia (map of New Guinea and adjacent islands), The Asmat and their neighbors, the Marind-anim, the Mimika and related tribes are at 14. Link to the article for explanation of other numbered areas.

Photographs, text and maps copyright © Carolyn Leigh, 1996-2006. All rights reserved. Last modified: Wednesday, January 4, 2006
http://www.art-pacific.com/artifacts/nuguinea/asmat/asmatmap.htm
Contact Us

Artifacts on this site are collected in the field by my husband, Ron Perry. I take the photographs, do the html, text and maps. More background in Who We Are. Art-Pacific has been on the WWW since 1996. We hope you enjoy our New Guinea tribal art and Indonesian folk art as much as we do. Carolyn Leigh, P.O. Box 85284,Tucson, AZ 85754-5284 USA, Art-Pacific at http://www.art-pacific.com/