Context (Display)
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'Úmamnák Ésá
Bag for a Ritual Leader
Monika Tótirú, 2018
Pandanus, cockatoo feathers, grass seeds, grass, lime, ochre and charcoal

This type of ésá or bag is made only for senior ritual leaders. The feathers which adorn it conceal potent designs which must be hidden from the community. Since the 1980s, this type of bag is hung at the right side of the crucifix in the church in Sawa Erma, marking Jesus as a powerful figure both in Christian and ancestral terms.

Sa, Sawa Erma, Asmat, Papua, Indonesia.
Collected by Tom Powell Davies, 2020.25'
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)
A bag (ésá) of the type that could be work by an úmámnák, or senior male ritual leader who has the right to organise across clans in a ritual setting. Such a bag is placed on the carved figure of Jesus on the cross on the western end of the church to indicate his seniority. The feathers - which are only allowed on bags for ritual leaders - obscures the motif below, which in this case is sénénéfó, or a broken elbow set in the shape of an 'L' by rigor mortis.

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 (Display)
Exhibited in a table top case, Andrews gallery by the outreach area 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

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

Description (Physical description)
Bag woven from pandanus. Feathers are from sulphur crested cockatoo, but the yellow colour rarely remains once plucked as here. The thicker feathers are the underfeathers. The birds are then eaten. With tassels of Job's tears (Coix lachrym) seeds and decorated with twice-fired earth pigment/ochre, charcoal and lime pigments.
From observations by Nick Stanley and Gretchen Burau during a visit with
Event Date 27/3/2024
Author: rachel hand