Asmat

The Asmat are a cluster of related peoples on the mangrove and tidal-swamp coast of southwestern New Guinea, along the Arafura Sea in South Papua, Indonesia. Its twelve or so sub-groups share Asmat-family languages of the Trans–New Guinea phylum and a warrior culture.

They live on sago starch, fish, crustaceans and forest game, building stilted houses over flooded ground and tall tree houses inland; ancestor veneration lies at the heart of their life: carved bisj poles honour the dead, while headhunting raids and boys' initiation rituals bound villages in cycles of revenge.

Outside contact came late. In 1770 Captain James Cook's Endeavour met Asmat warriors on the shore and withdrew, and in 1826 Dutch explorer Kolff likewise retreated from a hostile reception; though the Dutch had claimed western New Guinea in 1793, they did not penetrate the Asmat region until the early twentieth century.