Context (Display)
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'Ésá Natal
Christmas Bag
Balbina Bám and Fitalia Tóparamók, 2018
Pandanus, lime, ochre and charcoal

This type of ésá or bag is made by the women of Sawa Erma to exchange with each other on Christmas Day. The exchange of equivalent items is a symbol of reconciliation which reaffirms friendships which have been strained throughout the course of the year. This is a new genre of bag, developed within church liturgy, which combines ancestral and Catholic symbols. The right side is decorated with the traditional eé tiní motif, or crocodile vagina, traditionally used on food gathering bags. The left side is decorated with symbols of God's creation - the sun, moon and stars.

Ér, Sawa Erma, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia.
Collected by Tom Powell Davies, 2020.24'
Event Date
Author: Guey-Mei Hsu

Description (Physical description)
Woven bag decorated with sun and moon designs, made by Balbina Bam and Vitalia Toporamok. A Christmas 'Esa'
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)
This is a bag of a type made within the Christmas feast. Bags are made by female exchange partners, who swap identical items they have made for each other during the Christmas liturgy. This mirrors a part of the jimi pír feast, which is focused on repairing social relations of enmity. The combinations of motifs are unique to the Christmas feast, with one half of the bag using ancestral motifs and the other employing motifs developed in Catholic liturgy. In this case, the right hand panel depicts eé tíní, or crocodile vagina, an ancestral motif, while the left hand side is, from top to bottom, the sun, moon and stars, motifs that have been developed in Catholic liturgy.

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