Carving time: Axes and ancestrality in Asmat, West New Guinea

Abstract

Asmat, like many Papuan people, are often typecast by non-Papuans as 'living in the Stone Age'.Likewise, in the art market for woodcarving, which is central to Asmat peoples' access to money, the use of stone tools is viewed as a marker of objects' authenticity.While social scientists frequently push back against these stereotypes, it is often unclear how Papuan people themselves think about stone tools in the present.In this ethnographically grounded chapter, I analyse how contemporary Asmat stone tool usage inflects Asmat thinking about ancestral history, particularly as it is informed by ritual feasting.I then consider how increasing integration within a money economy is transforming Asmat peoples' use of stone tools in bride price and compensation payments.At stake, in this analysis, is how tools figure in Asmat conceptualisations of personhood, kinship, and temporality as it is being reshaped in the present in the context of the region's increasing incorporation within broader macrostructural orders.

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