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It’s the end of April 2014 and it’s unseasonably 112 warm. I’m driving over a small road surrounded by pasture and orchards. Through the open car window, the warm wind brings in the smell of freshly cut grass. Every now and then I have to steer my car onto the shoulder of the road, so as to make way for the big agricultural vehicles loaded with hay. After passing through the village of Sint Agatha,1 I drive down a road lined with trees and turn into the parking area of the Kruisherenklooster (Monastery of the Crosiers). This is the oldest monastery in the Netherlands and the Crosiers have been living here since 1371. Since 2006, the old walls have also harbored the Erfgoedcentrum voor Nederlands Kloosterleven (Center for the Heritage of Dutch Religious Life).2 The goal of this foundation is to preserve the heritage of Dutch monastic life within the Netherlands and to make it publicly accessible. So far, around 100 Dutch monastic communities have housed their archives, books, and objects here. By Karel Weener I am here to do research in the archives of the Missionarii Sacratissimi Cordis Jesu (Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, hereafter MSC) and for the last few days have been frantically looking for three photographs showing a group of Asmat shields collected by an early Dutch missionary. I know that years ago the photographs were in the monastery in Tilburg, which is no longer in use. Part of their archive was brought here to the Kruisherenklooster, but did it include the original pictures of the Asmat shields? It’s quite cool in the reading room. On top of a little four-wheeled cart there are about a dozen boxes with photo albums waiting for me. The archivist is called away somewhere else, and I open the first cardboard box. It contains firm, velvety, black-greyish pages with photographs glued onto them. Black-and-white photographs, beautiful images, but I am too restless to look at them attentively. Most of them are related to the MSC mission post in Merauke, southwestern New Guinea. The second Below left to right FIG. 1: Shields 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Reproduced with the kind permission of the MSC de Tilburg. FIG. 2: Shields 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Reproduced with the kind permission of the MSC de Tilburg. FIG. 3: Shields 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Reproduced with the kind permission of the MSC de Tilburg. FEATURE Re-Collecting Father Viegen’s Asmat Objects


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