Paintings Papua

Papua must be the least Indonesian island in the immense Indonesian
archipelago. From the 17th century onwards the Dutch called the island
New Guinea and after annexation by Indonesia in 1963 it became West Irian, followed by Irian Jaya. Now it is simply known as Papua. The Papua are related to the aborigines of Australia and they hardly have anything in common with the other ethnic groups in the archi-pelago at all; more than 800 different languages are spoken. The Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement) strives to gain independence. Papua’s eastern neighbors gained their inde-pendence from Australia a long time ago and are now known as Papua New Guinea.

The magnificent wooden sculptures the Papua make are much in demand through-out the world. The Asmat shields and the Marind-Anim drums from the south are also famous. Also the korwar (wooden ancestor figures), more usually found in the northern and western parts of the island and the
drawings on tree bark from the Sentani region capture the imagination. Masks and figures from the Sepik, Maprik and Muprik regions in Papua New Guinea can be extremely bizarre.

Jos van den Berg has traveled to Papua a number of times: in a wooden schooner (pinisi) along the north coast from Sorong to Biak; in a Fokker F-27 and on foot to the Dani and the Lani in the Baliem Valley in the central mountain range; by boat from Sorong around the ‘Bird’s Head’ to the southern Mimika and Asmat regions. The sensational disappearance in 1961 of Michael Rockefellar, the son of the fabulously rich American governor Nelson Rockefellar, has made the Asmat the most infamous tribe on Papua. Headhunters, warriors and artists.

Throughout the years Jos van den Berg has visited the most remote parts of culturally multi-facetted Indonesia, but the Papua’s original and extremely temperamental figurative style holds an exceptional fascination for him.

The praying mantis is inextricably bound with the images on Asmat shields, wooden figures and outrigger canoes. Ancestors are commemorated as great headhunters, symbolically represented by the praying mantis. For isn’t the female of these insects known to try to bite off the head of the male during mating?

The largest part of Papua is covered in impenetrable rainforests with thundering meandering rivers. Various tribes in the interior still live in almost Stone Age conditions. In the southern lowlands the artistic Asmat and Kamoro survive in immense malaria infested swamps and
mangrove forests; a quagmire in which huge sea-crocodiles also thrive. Brown-red, gray, white and black are the colors of this southern region.