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Carving
a place in museum history
Wichita
State becomes one of few places in U.S. with extensive Asmat art
collection
By
Amy Geiszler-Jones
With
the arrival of nearly 950 pieces of Asmat artifacts from Irian Jaya,
all of it collected by a WSU museum director, WSU has become one
of the few places in the United States to have such an extensive
collection of carvings and other items crafted by the Asmat culture.
Photo
by Jerry Martin
Villagers in Buepis, Irian Jaya, honor their ancestors with
a mask ceremony, duirng which they wear body masks and become
the "spirits" of their ancestors. The masks were
later purchased by WSU for and Asmat art collection.
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The
pieces range from small woven bags, made from the fronds of the
sago palm tree, to a 30-foot "soul" ship used in initiation
ceremonies for young men to honor deceased ancestors.
The
collection also includes more than 100 drums of varying sizes with
the largest being 6 feet tall, more than 60 large, intricately carved
shields, everyday items like a fish net, 39 body masks and 16 elaborate
ancestor, or bis, poles. It’s extremely difficult to collect
authentic bis poles because of their length. They are carved from
the trunk of a mangrove tree, with a part of the tree root forming
a sort of wing. The poles depict ancestors in various poses.
The
Asmat are a Stone Age culture of semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers
whose most enduring tradition is elaborate woodcarvings. They live
in the coastal tidal swamp area of the Indonesian province of Irian
Jaya. The province is the western half of the South Pacific island
of New Guinea, the second largest island in the world. Few visitors
are allowed into the region.
The
pieces collected by Jerry Martin, director of the Lowell D. Holmes
Museum of Anthropology, during a six-week expedition this summer
recently arrived at WSU in two containers, measuring 40 and 20 feet
long.
The
expedition was funded by an undisclosed gift from businessman Barry
and his wife Paula Downing, who have visited the Asmat region and
have collected a few pieces.
It
will take about three years to inspect, clean, curate and mount
a major exhibition of the Downing Collection of Asmat Art, says
Martin. In the meantime, a few pieces will go on display periodically
in the Holmes Museum in Neff Hall.
Already
the 30-foot soul ship, known as a wuroman, is mounted above the
doorway of the museum, for the simple fact that there was no other
place to store the item while it’s cleaned.
Photo
by Inside WSU
Jerry Martin, director of the Lowell D. Holmes Museum of Anthropolgy
examines one of the Asmat drums that arrived last month.
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"Those
things don’t look so big in the jungle, but you get them in
a building and it looks huge," Martin says.
The
Downing collection will be the largest U.S. university collection
of Asmat art and one of the largest such collections in the United
States. Martin estimates the collection is worth more than $1 million.
WSU
has the unique distinction as the first American university allowed
in the region to collect tribal artifacts.
Other
large collections can be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
whose collection was gathered by Michael Rockefeller, who disappeared
in the Asmat region in the 1960s; the American Museum of Asmat Art
in St. Paul, Minn., with pieces collected by the Catholic Crosier
order which has sent missionaries into the area since 1958, and
the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.
Photo
by Inside WSU
Work study student Jeff Waren clean a 30-foot "soul"
ship made by Asmat carvers. The piece, one of the largest
in a new Asmat art collection that arrived last month, is
displayed in Neff Hall.
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Another
important distinction the WSU collection will have is that Martin
meticulously collected the provenance, or history, of each piece,
tagging each piece with a number that corresponds to his notes.
This will make it a very valuable research collection.
"We
were very, very careful. For each piece we know who made it, why
it was made and for what ceremony if was used for, if it was used
in ceremonies, and what ancestor spirit was called into the object,"
Martin says.
The
Asmat strongly believe in ancestor spirits and items usually are
dedicated or have ancestor spirits "called" into them.
The making of most items are marked by ceremonies.
For
example, during a mask ceremony witnessed by Martin and his expedition,
the village had created seven body masks. Once the masks were made,
dancers donned the masks and became "spirits" of ancestors,
dancing into the evening and night. In the morning, the spirits
led a single-file procession through the village, viewing all the
changes that had happened since the last ceremony, about 10 years
prior, and since their death.
Photo
by Inside WSU
Students Teresa Leonard, left, and Barbara Carlin inspect
a ceremonial mat that was purchased during a WSU art expedition
trip to the Asmat region of Irian Jaya
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Martin’s
photographs of the ceremony, along with numerous others he took
during the expedition, will become part of the collection. An interpreter
for the group, who has filmed a video for MTV Indonesia, recorded
tribal music for the collection, as well.
Patti
Seery, an Indonesian cultural expert who led the Downings
on a trip to the Asmat region, handled most of the logistics of
the trip.
Martin,
seven locals and two interpreters, including Seery, visited four
major Asmat areas, stopping at a number of villages to buy items.
Sometimes they stayed in the village’s ceremonial house, offering
donations of tobacco and Indonesian currency, called rupiah.
Photo
by Jerry Martin
Interpreter Ronny Fodatkuso, left, record, the singing and
chanting of a welcoming ceremony, performed by the Asmat villagers
in Emene to welcome WSU's expedition group.
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"We
didn’t want things that they thought tourists would buy,"
Martin says. "We wanted things they used in their culture,
whether it was for daily use or ceremonial use."
The
group’s base camp was in Agats; a house used to store the art
burned only four days after they left the country in a case of arson.
Now
that the collection has arrived at WSU, students in Martin’s
Museum Methods class have the daunting assignment of cleaning and
curating nearly 950 items.
"Item
by item, inch by inch, they’ll need to be inspected,"
Martin says.
The
collection has some damage, as expected, from being shipped to Wichita.
Half
the drums suffered extensive damage during the first leg of the
trip from Irian Jaya to Java. Cockroaches ate holes in the drum
heads made of dried lizard skins.
A number
of the wooden items are infected with bore beetles, evidenced by
the sawdust found when some of the items were unwrapped. Mold also
has set in on some of the items.
Photo
by Inside WSU
Trevor Gilbert, left, Physical Plant warehouse worker, and graduate
student Steve Roberts ease down a crate full of Asmat art
that arrived in laste October
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Martin
expects he and the students will use various methods to clean the
collection, ranging from sealing smaller items in bags and depleting
the oxygen supply so the beetles suffocate and the mold doesn’t
spread to putting some items in a freezer. With large pieces, they’ll
fumigate the items. |
