Asmat Animal Teeth Necklace

Asmat people, early to mid-20th century, Upper Brazza River Area, Papua Province, Indonesia

Exceptional early necklace composed of 41 small animal teeth, expertly woven with hand-knotted plant-fiber cord. Such necklaces signified a hunter’s skill and courage, each pair of teeth added over time from animals taken for food. They functioned as powerful personal markers of status and achievement within Asmat society.

The Asmat inhabit the swampy coastal lowlands of present-day Papua Province and comprise twelve closely related sub-groups sharing a strong cultural identity. Villages consist of timber houses (tsyem) and at least one men’s house (jeu), the centre of ritual and communal life. Daily subsistence traditionally relied on sago starch, forest game and riverine resources, with mud, water, and wood forming the foundation of their material culture.

Renowned worldwide for their masterful woodcarving, the Asmat are also historically associated with headhunting, once central to warfare, male initiation, and maintaining cosmological balance. These traditions gained international attention after the 1961 disappearance of Michael Rockefeller, who vanished while collecting Asmat art for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Although never definitively solved, later research—most notably Carl Hoffman’s Savage Harvest—suggests he may have been killed in the region.

Traditionally, the Asmat practised animism, believing spirits inhabited trees, rivers, and ancestral domains. Ritual life sought to maintain harmony with these forces; while headhunting and associated practices were suppressed by missionaries in the mid-20th century, their cultural significance remains a central part of Asmat historical identity.

Excellent condition. Wear commensurate with age and use. Lovely dark patina. Size approx. 50,0cm x 4,0cm.

Provenance: From a Dutch private collection; reportedly originally from the holdings of a now-closed ethnographic museum and foundation in the Netherlands.

References and further reading:

The Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress, Tobias Schneebaum, Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, December 1982.

Oceania, Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Peter and Kathleen Van Arsdale, ed. by Terence Hays, G.K. Hall & Company, 1991.

Asmat Art: Seventy years of Asmat woodcarving, Simon Kooijman, Pacific Arts Newsletter No.4, January 1977, pp. 9-11.

Art and Culture of the Asmat, Holmes Museum of Anthropology, Wichita States University, 2021.

Headhunting Practises of the Asmat of Netherlands New Guinea, Gerard A. Zegwaard, American Anthropologist New Series, Vol.61, No.6, December 1959, pp. 1020-1041.

"The Asmat", In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, Emily Caglayan, Ph.D., Department of Art History, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000-, October 2004.

Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art, Carl Hoffman, Publisher William Morrow, 2014.