This Asmat shield is preciously carved with a complex ancestral symbology.
It is made by dark and hard wood and it has tiny dimensions (cm.20x82h x 1,5 d) because it was located in one of the four corner of the familiy’s fireplace, the so-called yeu, in the heart of the village to protect from evil spirits.
The artist is quite certainly a wowipitsy, a master carver in Asmat language, because he transformed the precious incision in an authentic low relief: the symbolic abstractism seems having its own life through lights and shadows playing. This is created by reed and leaves walls, then by the sparkling fires in the shed’s common living rooms.
Praying Mantis particular
The iconography is grounded on the figure of the praying mantis: its line symbol is repeated twice, with its tragic and sinuous ainor profile, which represents a ritual and cruel image.
The female mantis, which kills the man cutting the head after sex, represents the headhunter spirit. The revenge of the relatives hunting enemy’s head is the main reason of the stock prosecution.
The shield was used during the jamasj pokumbu (the shield celebrations, which was a prelude to head hunting raids until the 50s and today only a symbolic ceremonial.
Flying fox particular
Mangroves particular - Asmat land
The decoration is closed in the superior and inferior part with the Flying fox, the giant bat, which flies over the mangroves and muddy swamps of the Asmat region landscape.
Also the flying fox, which eats only fruits, is the headhunter metaphor which eat enemy’s brain.
Headhunter particular
The shield is completed by the image of the warrior hitting with the axe already above the nape. The iconographic logic of the gesture and of the siege position, which visually connects with the below symbol of the prayer mantis, is simply magnificent. This Asmat shield is a unique rare masterpiece.