Italian pen makers Delta add a new limited series to their Indigenous People collection.
After BriBri, the Papuasi series is dedicated to the disappearing tribe of the Asaro Mudmen, a small population of Papua New Guinea that owes its name to a ghosts legend.
Order now your Delta Papuasi from giardino.it.
“The thing I find really scary about ghosts and demons is that you don’t really know what they are or where they are. They’re not very well understood. You don’t know what they want from you. So it’s the kind of thing you don’t even know how to defend yourself against. Anything that’s unknown and mysterious is very scary.“
Oren Peli
Papua New Guinea, a new Country for ancestral people
The world’s second-largest island is in the eastern part of New Guinea. It gained full independence from Australia only in 1975, when the nation of Papua New Guinea was born.
Here, local peoples are amongst the most heterogeneous in the world. Environmental harshness and a history of inter-tribal warfare have led to village isolation and the proliferation of independent languages.
The last Stone Age tribe was discovered as recently as 1980, hidden in the jungle: this is the Asaro Mudmen tribe.
Asaro Mudmen, the ghosts of Papuasia
As the legend goes, Asaro Mudmen were defeated by a rival tribe and forced to flee into the Asaro River. Here, they hid and waited until dusk before attempting an escape. When their enemies saw them rise from the banks, their dark skins covered in mud, thought they were spirits.
In many remote southern lands, white is – indeed – the colour of the dead. According to such cultures, white skinned people might as well be albinos, sick people, or spirits – all are related to the supernatural domain (i.e. witchcraft or evil spirits).
Since the day of the victory upon their enemies, the Asaro became known as the Mudmen: not only they painted their dark bodies in white mud; with mud they also shaped dreadful masks with big eyes and ears, horns and ferocious features to scare their opponents.
Among their scams, they used to wear long, fake red nails made out of bamboo and worn on their fingers, to look like devilish claws.
The Asaro Mudmen have been recently portrayed by photographer Jimmy Nelson for the project “Before They Pass Away”.
This is a photographic collection depicting the rarest tribes in the world that are now endangered. His pictures of these men and women could be the latest record of their extraordinary culture and history.
Papuasi by Delta
Italian pen makers Delta have also dedicated their latest series of pens to the Asaro Mudmen tribe.
Papuasi – this is the name of the new pen series – is a limited set of 975 pens within the Indigenous People collection. The series includes roller pens, ball point pens and two different editions of fountain pens, plus a special Collection edition.
All the details of the Papuasi series truthfully represent the Asaro Mudmen symbols and distinctive features.
The colour of the barrel is in black resin streaked in white, to recall the tribesmen’s dark skin covered in white mud;
the clip of the pen has a bamboo shaft pattern to recall Papuan native vegetation;
Papua New Guinea’s flag is reproduced on the pen’s cap, while the horns and scary masks are represented in the band at its bottom.
Finally, the fake claws are engraved in the nib of the fountain pen editions.
The Papuasi series includes the R2 convertible model, available as a ball point pen or roller pen with refill system and twist mechanism;
the 1KF fountain pen, with fusion nib, small parts in rhodium, and cartridge/converter filler;
and the 1KSF fountain pen with gold plated small parts and button filler.
Available only on request, a Celebration limited series of 33 pens – as many as Delta’s years of activity – features silver small parts with vermeil finishes, 5 glitters on the cap and button filler.
All the info about Papuasi by Delta are available in Giardino Italiano‘s website.
This is a wonderful occasion to keep the memory of the Asaro Mudmen tribe alive and to help raising awareness on endangered peoples ‘before they pass away’.
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