New Guinea Asmat Shell & Bead Nose Ornament

This large nose ornament is made from two pieces of carved baler shell threaded together by nature fibre twine which has been smeared with tree pitch at the front and then embedded with tiny red glass trade beads. The red glass beads have the appearance of bright red berries or seeds, and interesting have not been sewn on, but simply pressed into the pitch.

The red beads are likely to be Indo-Pacific trade beads (also known as tradewind beads and in Southeast Asia, they have been termed mutisalah beads), which have been traded across Asia and the Pacific for centuries (Francis, 2002, p. 19). They are irregularly-shaped but glossy. Such beads date to a period of more than 2,000 years and have been found from Africa to China. The beads were first made in India from where they were traded across much of the world. Later, other manufacturing sites appeared in Sri Lanka, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, and Vietnam.

Such ornaments were worn by Asmat men beneath or through the septum of the nose. (The Asmat are an ethnic group in the west of the island of New Guinea, largely in the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya.)

Similar examples are illustrated in Borel (1994, p. 210) and Daalder (2009, p. 77).

The example here is in fine condition.