Indonesia Export News & Updates

Our first batch of Asmat Primitive carvings went online at Indonesia Export in 1998 (beggars belief how quickly time does pass) and stayed there pretty much untouched bar one update in 2000.

Today, we’ve removed the old pictures – many of those models are no longer available – and reloaded the entire category with 236 new models.

In case you’re not familiar with the line, our Asmat Carvings are nothing like the authentic Asmat pieces of shields and totems and so on – this line is a relatively inexpensive, low grade teak handicraft that’s sold more on its novelty value than anything else.

If you are interested in original Asmat craft, let us know – we can source that for you.

In the meantime, here’s the link to the new category: Asmat Primitive Carvings

A little background on the Asmat Tribe (taken from Wikipedia):

Until the 1950s, their remote and harsh location isolated the Asmat from other peoples. It was not until the mid-20th century that they came into regular contact with outsiders. Initially, the Asmat had a reputation as headhunters and cannibals, and were left undisturbed.

Asmat on the Lorentz River, photographed during the third South New Guinea expedition in 1912-13.

The first apparent sighting of the Asmat people by explorers was from the deck of a ship led by a Dutch trader, Jan Carstensz in the year 1623. Captain James Cook and his crew were the first to actually land in Asmat on September 3, 1770 (near what is now the village of Pirimapun). According to the journals of Captain Cook, a small party from the HM Bark Endeavour encountered a group of Asmat warriors; sensing a threat, the explorers quickly retreated. In 1826, another Dutch explorer, Kolff, anchored in approximately the same area as that visited by Cook. When the Asmat warriors again frightened the visitors with loud noises and bursts of white powder, Kolff’s crew also rapidly withdrew. The Dutch, who gained sovereignty over the western half of the island in 1793, did not begin exploring the region until the early 1900s, when they established a government post in Merauke in the southeast corner of the territory. From there, several exploratory excursions with the goal of reaching the central mountain range passed through the Asmat area and gathered small numbers of zoological specimens and artifacts. These artifacts were taken to Europe where they generated much interest, and probably influenced modernist and surrealist Western artists such as Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Pablo Picasso.

Read the entire wikipedia article by clicking here.