Replacement skull "kus" · Westneuguinea / Westpapua (Irian Jaya), Asmat · ID: 3040093
serving as a transport agent of the Royal Dutch Shipping Company and subsequently, as a UNESCO official in Indonesia and New Guinea allowed him to probe deeply into the ritual art of the Batak (north Sumatra), Lake Sentani, the Humboldt Bay, the Asmat (New Guinea), and the Dayak (Borneo). Later in life, having returned to the Netherlands, he continued to hunt out items of ethnographic interest - at auctions, but also by means of his excellent connections in missionary circles and with former colonials. At the same time he explored colonial and missionary archives in order to contextualize and document the objects he found.
Description
iron wood, brown patina, deep hollowed eye sockets inlaid with red seeds pressed into clay-like mass, pierced septum with wooden stick, handwritten numbers “70” and “1933” on the bottom, min. dam., crack;
carved by Araf from the village Saman, probably in 1933, collected in situ by Jac Hoogerbrugge in 1970.
Trophy heads or skulls were used in initiation rites. Wooden heads, called “kus” first were carved to replace lost skulls; after head-hunting was banned by the authorities they completely replaced the original trophy skulls. As part of the initiation ceremony, the young man-to-be meditated for several days in the presence of the head. The boy and the head are taken on a canoe ride towards the land of the ancestors. On this trip he acts as if he is ageing rapidly until he falls down and symbolically dies. He is immersed in the river along with the head and is reborn as a baby. As the canoe returns to the village he “grows up” towards his true age acquiring knowledge and wisdom. Upon reaching the village he has become an adult and a warrior.
Littérature comparée
Meyer, Anthony J.P., Ozeanische Kunst, Vol. I, Köln 1995, ill. 65
Publications
Hoogerbrugge, J. & S. Kooijman, 70 jaar Asmat houtsnijkunst in het Volkenkundig Museum, Breda 1976, ill. 115Exposition
70 jaar Asmat houtsnijkunst, Volkenkundig Museum, Breda, December 1976 - Mai 1977,