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artist
Spirit Canoe, Wuramon , 19th–early 20th century
Wood, pigment
20.3 x 246.4 x 25.4 cm (8 x 97 x 10 in.)
Gift of Marcia and John Friede in honor of Diane B. Wilsey and Harry S. Parker III 2007.44.51

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Artist Biography: (none) PROVENANCE: "Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam (2316-58); Jef van Straete Collection, Lasnes, Belgium." (Catalog #515, New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, 2005, Volume 2, p. 174.) EXHIBITIONS: 2005 - New Guinea Art. Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede. De Young Museum, San Francisco, 2005. PUBLICATIONS: 2009 FAM Bulletin entry (unabridged) - "Canoes are an essential means of transportation in the swampy Asmat region. This bottomless dugout style canoe is made to symbolically transport spirits and to initiate young men during the emak cem feast. It is called a spirit canoe, soulship, or a wuramon by the Northwestern Asmat where it originated. (1) During the mortuary ritual of emak cem, the canoe carries ancestor spirits to the realm of the dead. (2) “In the Asmat concept of life, the spirit and the living body are united freely. The spirit can leave the body and roam about…The permanent division of spirit and body means death.” (3) The recently deceased stay in a village as living spirits embodied by wooden figures for some time in order to protect and help their descendents. Eventually, though, when the number of ancestral spirits becomes a burden on the village the descendents prepare the feast. (4) Each of the four curved insect- or bird-like figures (ambirak) seated in this spirit canoe embody and were named after a recently deceased ancestor. (5) Villagers would carry the whole canoe to the sago forest and leave it to decay. (6) The tortoise (mbu) perched in the center of the spirit canoe signals its other use. During initiation, adolescent boys are isolated for months at a time in a ceremonial house, emak tsjem. (7) Each initiate must sit on the tortoise and receive painful initiation tattoos on their thighs. (8) Another account describes the boys lying across the tortoise figure to receive scarifications on their chest. (9) The tortoise with its great egg-laying capacity is an Asmat symbol of fertility. The village is weakened by deaths though refreshed by the blood of the initiates. (10)" FOOTNOTES (1) John and Marcia Friede, New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, exh. cat. (Milan: 5 Continents Editions, 2005), 174. (2) Friedes, New Guinea Art, 174. (3) Gunter and Ursula Konrad and Tobias Schneebaum, Asmat, Life with the Ancestors: Stone Age Woodcarvers of our Time (Hofheim am Taunus, Germany: Stadhalle, 1981), 29. (4) Konrad, Konrad, and Schneebaum, Asmat, Life with the Ancestors, 29-30. (5) Tobias Schneebaum, Asmat Images from the collection of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress (Minneapolis: Crosier Mission, 1985), 107. (6) Adrian A. Gerbrands, ed., The Asmat of New Guinea: The Journal of Michael Clark Rockefeller (The Museum of Primitive Art, New York: 1961), 33. (7) Schneebaum, Asmat Images, 107. (8) Gerbrands, The Asmat of New Guinea, 33. (9) Dirk A.M. Smidt, ed. Asmat Art: Woodcarvings of Southwest New Guinea (New York: George Braziller, 1993), 98. (10) H.C. van Renselaar in Friedes, New Guinea Art, 174. 2005 - "The wuramon or soul boat only occurs in the delta area of the Northwestern Asmat region and is specific to the Yurat (Joerat) subgroup according to Konrad (1996: 379). The Yurat do not have the ancestor poles (bis) of other Asmat groups. However, earlier sources have suggested provenances from neighboring areas as well, such as Simai, and perhaps even further inland; one wuramon at the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, has "Utumbuwe River" (upstream from Asewets River) as the provenance (van Renselaar, 1961, figs. 2-3). The wuramon is a spirit canoe that carries the spirits of the ancestors to the realm of the dead. The four ancestor spirits here depicted seem to have been transformed into insects. Insects symbolize the circle of death and rebirth to the Asmat because they "die" in their caterpillar form and are reborn when they emerge from their chrysalis. However, these figures with their curved bodies bent foreward and their beaked heads may simultaneously also be ambirak, dangerous female spirits living in rivers and streams. The wuramon is used in an emak cem (emaketsjem) mortuary ritual similar to the bis ritual of other Asmat groups, like the Bismam, for example (see previous object). The wuramon also has a role in the initiation of boys. One by one, the boys sit on the turtle in the middle and receive painful initiation tattoos on their thighs, which they must bear without complaint. The two roles of the wuramon have been described as complementary. While the village is weakened by the deaths of headhunting victims, it is refreshed by the new blood of boys becoming initiated men. The idea is symbolized by the turtle (mbu), whose great egg-laying capacity made it an Asmat symbol of fertility (van Renselaar, 1961: 10-11). See Konrad, 1996: 378-79 for a photo of a wuramon displayed in situ, in front of a ceremonial structure specially built for the occassion." (Catalog #515, New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, 2005, Volume 2, p. 174.) 1958 - van Ernst, 1958, pl. II, fig. 1.

Related Keywords
Wuramon Spirit III Parker S Harry Wilsey B Diane honor Gift 174 p 2 Volume 2005 Friede John Marcia Jolika Masterpieces Art 515 Catalog Belgium Lasnes Straete van Jef 58 2316 Amsterdam Tropenmuseum subgroup Simai people Asmat Oceania Jaya Irian Papua West Guinea New object Ritual pigment chest thighs scarifications tattoos initiation painful receive back lye sit who men young initiate used center mbu tortoise dead realm spirits transports symbolically ancestor deceased recently named embody ambirak figures bird insect curved four Each wood painted Carved canoe style dugout Bottomless 0709200406050406 A361078 2007.44.51 AOA