Art as Contact with the Ancestors: Visual Arts of the Kamoro and Asmat of West Papua (Bulletins of the Royal Tropical Institute)

Questions about the meanings of non-western art keep intriguing western art-observers. Working towards understanding these meanings, Pauline van der Zee here compares the art, symbolism and mythology of two Papua people—the Kamoro and Asmat.

There are no ready-made and unambiguous answers to be given—every interpretation is a partial one. For the artist himself interpretation is not always an issue, he follows the traditions of his ancestors. In some cases meanings belong to culturally concealed knowledge, not to be shared with outsiders. Yet sometimes a bit of this knowledge is disclosed. Adriaan Gerbrands (1967), drawing on both the work of Ref. Gerard Zegwaard—a profound scholar of Asmat culture—and his own extensive fieldwork, discovered that many Asmat designs can be interpreted as symbols of headhunting ideology. Gerbrands focuses on what he calls the “headhunting-nexus”: a nexus of related forms which can all be connected to headhunting practices and their meaning in the given cultural context. But in fact there are many more interpretations possible.

Art as a medium of contact with ancestors is a recent comparative research focusing on the related, yet different, artistic expressions of Asmat and neighboring Kamoro. The analysis is based on an investigation of the Asmat and Kamoro collections at the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam. The approach taken here emphasizes relationships between art, rituals and mythology. Artifacts perform in rituals and rituals, according to native beliefs, were introduced by mythical heroes. Combining cultural information embedded in myths and rituals with an investigation of various design elements and comparing Asmat and Kamoro data, results in innovative interpretations resonating the intrinsic ambiguity of art.