Drum "em" ·  West New Guinea / West Papua (Irian Jaya), Asmat · ID: 3051692

Description

wood, pigment, lizard drum skin (dam.), remains of resin clumps for tuning on its surface, rattan ring missing, cracks, original repair

The corpus of the drum has been hollowed with glowing logs in a procedure lasting for weeks and months. Afterwards the surface was smoothened with the skin of saw fish or rough leaves. The lizard giving its skin for the covering is first benumbed with a special arrow with butt tip, so that no hole is torn in it. The “glue” between reptile skin and wood is a mixture of human blood (from the lateron owner of the drum) and chalk of snails and mussels.

The object Drum “em” with the object ID 3051692 was part of the auction Auction 104 on April 12, 2025, lot number 209 at that time and is currently available for EUR 500 in Open sale.

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Comparing literature

Helfrich, Klaus u.a., Asmat, Berlin 1996, p. 87 ff.

Notices

This object is subject to CITES. Please note that it can only be sent within the European Union. At the present time export in third countries is prohibited, respectively, export licenses in third countries for objects containing or made of protected materials are only granted under stringent conditions.