Context (Display)
Display label text:

'Right: Pir Kematian - Death
Ravaela Ep, Bibiana Kákan, Virginia
Tómbair, Monika Tótirú, Kasparlina
Tóyakas and Vincent Túman, 2018
Panadanus, lime, ochre and charcoal

This pir mat depicts the theme of death. A mat of this type is hung on the west side of the church in Sawa Erma, in the direction of the setting sun. Here, elements of Asmat life are broken, or unnatural. Creatures are missing legs or tails, a bag has a broken handle and a canoe is missing its prow.

Sa, Sawa Erama, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia
Collected by Tom Powell Davies. 2020.17'
Event Date
Author: Guey-Mei Hsu

Description (Physical description)
Woven pir or palm leaf mat by Raffaela Takane and Monika Takane, used in the jimi pir feast, decorated with designs representing death such as a man with a spade, a bird, two dogs and a shark. Fringed on short edges
Event Date 10/1/2019
Author: rachel hand

Context (Field collection)
Part of a Crowther Beynon collection by Tom Powell Davies which investigates how Asmat people have recognised the word of God in the journeys of their ancestors, and how they have used ancestral forms of ritual and making to forge their own quintessentially Asmat form of Catholic liturgy

The specific contents of the collection were decided in conjunction with senior female ritual leaders, who wanted to give the MAA a complete set of the weavings used in their church. Powell Davies also requested they make an example of the traditional weaving used in ancestral feasts, as a point of reference so that viewers will be able to see both the weaving’s original ritual form as well as how it has been developed within the Asmat Catholic church. While there are a small number of Asmat weavings in existing museum collections, this is the first collection to be accompanied by any kind of research. It is also the first Asmat-focused museum project to be designed in collaboration with Asmat people.

All the weavings submitted to the MAA are commissioned copies of ‘sacred’ works that are not allowed to be sold or removed from the local church building for which they are made. As such they are completely unique outside of Asmat and exist in no other collection. Just as a feast cannot proceed unless the complete set of sacred tools required for it are present, it was important to the weavers that what they made for the museum was comprehensive, showing in full the sacred arts they have invented within their church. Their makers envisaged the collection as a single, impartible set.


Details taken from Powell Davies' Initial report and object list: Asmat weaving and the foundation of an indigenous Catholicism, based on the Crowther Beynon application, "Gereje, 'Enculturation' and the role of material culture in the foundation of an indigenous Asmat Catholicism"
Event Date 10/1/2019
Author: rachel hand

Context (Production / use)
Two pír of this kind, approximately four times as long and twice as wide, are displayed on the western side of the church (where the sun sets), either side of a large cross with a carved figure of Jesus on the Crucifix. These pír are woven by women by the village of Sa, whose village lies on the western side of the its twin village of Er, and who therefore occupy the western half of the church. The pír depicts a number of items that are broken (such as animals missing legs) as a way of depicting death. If they were to be stored, they would be stored rolled up with their designs facing inwards.
From Asmat sacred arts and the transformation of ancestral ritual: the pír and Christmas feasts. Crowther Beynon interim report, Tom Powell Davies, 21/01/2019
Event Date 7/2/2019
Author: rachel hand

Context (References)
Exhibition tour by collector and co-curator Tom Powell Davis, 'Church and the Ancestors: Sacred Pir Mats from Asmat, Papua, Indonesia: 3 December 2020 - January 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EBXiafDSFA
Event Date 3/12/2020
Author: rachel hand

Context (Display)
Exhibited in the outreach area of the Andrews Gallery, in 'Church and the Ancestors: Sacred pir mats from Asmat, Papua, Indonesia (3 December 2020 – 3- January 2021).
Guest curated by collectors Tom Powell Davis and Sophie Hopmeier with the assistance of MAA Senior Curator Anita Herle.

Event Date 3/12/2020
Author: rachel hand