From now on, until Gao Fei and others leave, this stilt house will be their destination.
This house made of thatch and mangroves has an indoor area of about 50 square meters. The floor is paved with bark. Moss grows in the corners where the sun does not shine. In this humid and rainy season, the walls and floors emit a pleasant smell.
Musty smell.
There is a clay stove inside the house, and blackened iron pots hang under the eaves.
The only decoration in the house is a row of bones that serve as wind chimes hanging under the eaves: pig bones, crocodile spines, crane and camel leg bones... and human skulls.
"Asmat people have had the habit of preserving the skulls of their relatives since ancient times, just like we preserve portraits and photos of our ancestors."
Tangning introduced it to her curious companions.
Goofy stood in the veranda and carefully observed the human skulls used as decorations, and found that there were two types of skulls.
After asking Pep and Tangning about it, I learned that the skull with a relatively complete shape is the skull left after a normal death; the other type has a hole in the temple or lacks the mandible, which is a trophy obtained by the owner in the headhunting war.
At this time, a man came over and took Pep to whisper.
Looking at his beaming expression, Gao Fei suspected that this guy was a profiteer and tried to persuade Pep to help him sell local specialties. He treated the tourists as their wrongdoers and killed them with a knife.
Pep listened to the man silently and gave him a pack of tobacco and a bag of betel nut. The man accepted the gift, smiled with satisfaction, and waved to the tourists to follow him.
"What are you going to do?" Goofy asked Pep.
"I'll take you to visit the recently completed Bixi Pillar." Pep pointed to the big house opposite. "If you're not interested, you don't have to go."
"The Bexi Pillar is the essence of Asmat culture and is rarely seen. This is a good opportunity!"
Tang Ning is very interested in folk culture and warmly invites everyone to visit together.
Anyway, I’m here, and Gao Fei doesn’t mind broadening his horizons.
In addition to headhunting and cannibalism, the greatest contribution the Asmat nation has made to the history of world civilization is its unique wood carving art.
Most of the foreign tourists who come to the village come to see and buy wood carvings.
One of the most famous wood carvings is the "Bishi Pillar" - a totem pole that embodies the essence of Asmat's traditional culture!
The carvings of the Asmat people, such as drums, shields, spears, bowls, oars, etc., are all very exquisite, but their artistic value cannot be compared with that of the Bixi Pillar.
This is a complex wooden pillar carved from mangrove branches, with a height of no less than 6 meters.
Each pillar is carved with a row of ancestor heads stacked one above the other. Those who are eligible to be carved are very important figures in the history of the tribe.
The base of the pillar is engraved with images of canoes, snakes and crocodiles, and the raised part on the top is engraved with headhunting symbols.
The three-dimensional details and dynamic lines on this pillar were carved by hand without drafts or line drawings.
The limbs and faces of the human figure are intertwined with the mantis, hornbill, and crocodile, showing an ingenious fusion of strength and beauty.
Gao Fei also saw symbols symbolizing male and female genitals on the Bixi Pillar, which are symbols of fertility.
Not only the Asmat people, but also "reproductive worship" is reflected in primitive tribal arts around the world, such as totems, sculptures and murals.
“The word ‘bixi’ comes from ‘mbiu’, which refers to the spirit or soul of the deceased.”
The knowledgeable Tang Ning introduced the significance of Bixi Zhu in folklore and sociology to Gao Fei and others.
"In Asmat culture, the Bixi Pillar is regarded as a bridge between the worlds of life and death."
"The Asmat people believe that after death, people will enter the second world of the earth, a place similar to limbo - which is also known as 'limbo' in Christian discourse."
"In order to cross this world to Savan, the dead need the help of the living."
"The Asmat people uphold the dualistic philosophy of 'balance between life and death'. A person's death must be caused by an enemy, whether it is direct death or through a magical curse."
"Therefore, if someone in the tribe is killed, relatives and friends must seek revenge to maintain spiritual balance."
"When the dead accumulate to a certain number, the tribal leader will call on the tribesmen to build Bixi Pillars and launch a headhunting operation aimed at restoring the balance of the world."
"After the Bixi Pillar is completed, people will go around, hunt for human heads, and wipe the blood of the victims on the Bixi Pillar. The souls on the Bixi Pillar will be sacrificed, and they can provide help to the living."
"For the Asmat people, the Bixi Pillar is not only a symbol of the existence of their ancestors, but also a reminder to the living of their responsibility to avenge the dead."
Finally, Tangning added:
“In the traditional concept of the Asmat people, if the Bisi celebration ceremony is not held, people’s memories cannot be aroused, new heads cannot be obtained, and life and happiness cannot flow back from the ancestral world of Savan.
In the human world, once the balanced chain of the cycle of life and death is broken, the world will also usher in destruction."
Gao Fei listened silently to her story, and naturally connected the Asmat people's world view with the great environmental changes in reality.
The Asmat region is the most severely affected and largest "magic-rich area" in the world by the silver flash outbreak.
Along the way, the SWAT team was attacked by mutated monsters several times. If they were not strong enough, they would have died on the journey.
It is conceivable that the Asmat aborigines living here have experienced the rapid deterioration of their living environment more than foreign travelers. They have seen with their own eyes that there are more and more mutated monsters in the wild and they are attacking the villages with increasing ferocity.
.
Especially in the depths of the rainforest and swamps that are beyond the reach of government forces, facing growing security threats and witnessing incidents of monsters hurting people, the spiritual world of the Asmat people will inevitably be greatly impacted. How to explain this increasingly violent situation?
What about the disaster?
Gao Fei imagined that he was a conservative-minded Asmat who didn't understand the bullshit "Silver Flash" outbreak, nor did he understand that the periodic increase in Blue Star's magic power was a natural law. He would definitely blame the bad situation on the anger of ghosts and gods.
It is attributed to the fact that the balanced state of the dual opposition of life and death has been broken, so there are so many weird monsters running out of Savan, the underworld, killing humans crazily.
If you are an Asmat, what can you do if you are faced with such a predicament, faced with a wave of demonic beasts that you cannot resist and the government is ignoring?
Instead of seeking comfort from traditional religion, we can only place our hope on the Bixi Pillar, hoping to appease the furious ghosts and gods by holding a grand Bixi celebration ceremony.
