Asmat Tribe Ancestral Skull

Asmat Tribe Ancestral Skullwith Carved Bone, Feathers, Fibers and Seeds

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 Endeavor encountered a group of Asmat warriors; sensing a threat, the explorers quickly retreated.

The Asmat are an Indonesian cannibalistic tribe on the island; Papua. The Asmat live in mangrove vegetation near the sea and rivers, on the south side of the western part of New Guinea. The Asmat venerated their ancestors by decorating and honoring their skulls. Asmat decorated skulls are displayed in sacred places inside Asmat domiciles.

Karoo Ashevak

Karoo Ashevak, “Drummer”, Date Unknown, Fossilized Whale Bone

Born in 1940, Karoo Ashevak was an Inuit sculptor who lived a nomadic hunting life in the Kitikmeot Region of the central Arctic befor moving into Spence Bay, Northwest Territories in 1960. His career as an artist started in 1968 when he participated in a goverment funded carving program. Ashevak created about 250 sculptures in his lifetime, primarily in the medium of fossilized whale bone. He expored the themes of shamanism and Inuit spirituality with hsi depictions of human figures, shamans, spirits, and Arctic wildlife.

Karoo Ashevak became a recognizable artist after his solo exhibition at the American Indian Art Center in New York in 1973. Unlike other Inuit primitivist carvings, Ashevak’s work abandoned cultural references and adopted a modern expressionistic style, which visually appealed to a broader audience than collectors of Inuit art.

On October 9th of 1974, Ashevak and his wife Doris both died in a fire that destroyed their home. Despite his short life, he established a well-known reputation in his community and the nearby area of Uqsuqtuc. His sculptures inspired a whole generation of Kitikmeot carvers and have been included in multiple exhibitions. They continue to be widely collected as well as traded on the art market and during auctions

Bill Reid

Bill Reid, “Raven and The First Men”, 1980, Yellow Cedar, .University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology

Canadian artist Bill Reid was born in Victoria, British Columbia, in January of 1920. His father was of Scottish-German descent and his mother was from the Raven/Wolg Clan of T’anuu, known as the Haida, one of the First Nations of the Pacific coast. Reid studied jewelry making at the Ryerson Institute of Technology and Haida art from his grandfather.

In 1951 Reid returned to Vancouver, where he established a studio on Granville Island, a suburban area of Vancouver. He became very interested in the artworks of his great-great-uncle Charles Edenshaw, a renowned Haida artist. As a result, Reid’s work began incorporating his ancestors’ visual traditions and mythology into his contemporary style.

“Raven and The First Men” depicts part of a Haida creation myth with the raven representing the Trickster. In this creation story, the raven Trickster opens an oyster shell on the beach to find the first Humans. The Raven coaxed them to leave the shell to join him in his wonderful world. Some of the humans were hesitant at first, but they were overcome by curiosity and eventually emerged from the partly open giant clamshell to become the first Haida.

The sculpture was carved from a giant block of laminated yellow cedar. The carving took two years to complete and was dedicated on April 1, 1980. A number of First Nation carvers also worked on the project, including Reggie Davidson, Jim Hart, and Gary Edenshaw. Working on the emerging little humans in the latter stages was Geroge Rammell, a sculptor in his own right. Bill Reid did most of the finishing carving.