Feathers of a Bird of Paradise

A photo occasionally renders a wonderful illustration of an everyday situation. In addition, it can also make a glimpse behind the photographically recorded life procedure possible. To achieve such a basic view of the practices of cultural and social life of the Asmat in West Papua could be very revealing. It would enable the definition of a factor on which all these practices are based. In the course of research a congruency between habits, customs and practices of the Asmat became more and more evident. The effort to describe and to define such a common factor will be recalled in this book. It is a basic idea that underlies the mentioned practices. It connects them and also explains the diverse ways, with which the Asmat organize their lives. In essays and scientific publications I tried to develop this theory. The paradigmatic principle, I discovered, will be summarized in this book. A summary of findings, supporting the theoretical concept, is displayed textually, but then also documented and illustrated with the help of photographs from the past decades.