Sexuality

Asmat society is basically patriarchal. Men are chiefs, warriors, carvers, drummers, guardians and performers of myth and ritual. They make canoes, build houses, assist in gathering sago and hunt pigs and crocodiles. Women care for the house and children, gather fire wood, fish, weave mats and bags, and prepare food. They often urge the men to perform rituals, including retaliatory headhunting raids, to keep the cosmos in balance. Both women and men, however, can obtain and use magical powers.

Marriages are arranged with an exchange gift to the bride’s family. Traditionally, a male is most marriageable if he had taken a head in a raid on a neighboring village. Most marriages are monogamous, yet polygamy is accepted and esteemed. Noted or prestigious men could more readily acquire more than one wife. The relative number of men and women in a village plays a role, as does the stigma attached to childless females and the obligation to perpetuate the family. Further, the work of the wives adds to the economic base or strength of the husband.

Husbands and wives live together in family huts as a norm in some parts of Asmat though the men spend substantial time in the feast house during feasts. Single young men often live in the “long” or feast house. Several families might live in the same hut. First wives stay with the husband’s family when widowed; subsequent wives frequently return to their natural families.

Male potency is very obvious in Asmat art. The tsjemen (penis) of the bisj (ancestor) pole is the most obvious example. Manliness, bravery, fearlessness, and the killing of an enemy also indicate potency. Both male and female figures are anatomically correct in Asmat art.

Human reproduction is not well understood. The Asmat believe that women can get pregnant by a green tree frog landing on their shoulder—actually a spirit seeking reincarnation in a woman it judged to be a good mother. Passing by or drinking from certain whirlpools at the junction of rivers where spirits live could also result in pregnancy. Semen feeds the fetus in the womb while the action of the penis during intercourse shapes the embryo into a human form.

Intercourse between husband and wife is not permitted until after the last child walks. While it may be an effective method of spacing children dependent on nursing for survival, the Asmat feel that intercourse generates such energy in the hut that a small child is not able to tolerate it.

Affection in public is rare between men and women. Men, however, can walk hand in hand in the village. Wife exchange, or papisj, is a way of bonding families and even whole villages. It leads to social obligations such as mutual assistance in warfare and care of the sick. Imui pacts celebrate friendship between a woman and another woman or between a man and another man regareded as her or his intimate and personal friend. Valued as a permanent lifetime bond, the breaking of Imui pacts are regarded as a serious social infraction. Debate exists among researchers and anthropologists whether Imui pacts should be regarded as sexual as well as personal and social in nature. A non-Asmat westerner, Tobias Schneebaum, has recounted in several books his gay experiences among the Asmat people.