YUSTINUS SEMPAH (English translation): I would like to tell the story of Fumeripitsj creating the first humans in Asmat.

KATERINA TEAIWA (NARRATOR): For the Asmat people of southwest New Guinea, ancestor figures like these relate to fundamental origin stories. The following is one version of an origin story, told by Yustinus Sempah from Er Village. He spoke to photojournalist Joshua Irwandi in 2022.

YUSTINUS SEMPAH (English translation): In the beginning, Fumeripitsj plans to build the first men’s ceremonial house, called jeu.

He starts to gather materials.

He creates the foundation by driving a pole into the ground. The moment he drives the wood into the ground, immediately the jeu is erected.

After that, Fumeripitsj begins to think about creating humans out of wood.

He gathers materials to create statues, male and female statues alike.

And it begins. He starts to carve statue after statue.

Fumeripitsj then feels he is lacking the tools to give statues life to become human beings.

He needs to make a tifa, a drum.

He peels the skin off a monitor lizard. He takes blood from his own calves and uses it to bind the lizard skin to the wood drum. The tifa is made.

For the next step, Fumeripitsj gathers leaves. He rubs them against the statues, so the statues can come to life.

Fumeripitsj takes the tifa, starts swinging his arm slowly, and mutters words.

Before he pounds the tifa, he says, “O statues, my children. After I pound the tifa, you have to move, as freely as you can.”

KATERINA TEAIWA: Look at the way the figures’ elbows and knees are joined together. On the smallest figure in the middle, you’ll see a small pad between his hands where the wood is still joined. These details in the carving refer to this stage in the story, before the carvings come fully to life.

YUSTINUS SEMPAH (English translation): Slowly, all the statues start moving according to the rhythm of the tifa. As the pounding gets stronger, so do the statues.

They all stand, and finally they cheer. They rejoice and dance.

The wooden statues have turned into the first humans, male and female, whose numbers fill the large house, or jeu.

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Woodcarving audio: Joshua Irwandi, with the support of the National Geographic Society.