Arts of Borneo in University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Arts of Borneo in University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month's feature on museum collections highlights items from the island of Borneo that are stewarded by the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (1887). Penn Museum (renamed in 1996) is one of America's most vibrant university museum collections. Housing over 1.3 million objects of art and diverse artifacts that span the globe, Penn Museum pays homage to many horizons of human history. There is a long tradition of honoring artistic excellence and documentation that runs through the museum's collections, which are a repository for important assemblages ranging from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Native Americans, Arts of the Pacific, and so much more. Penn is a destination where art, science, dialogue, and change meet, and stories continue to be remembered, re-interpreted and told.
With over 2,000 items, the Penn Museum's Borneo section constitutes the second largest collection of early acquired Dayak items in the U.S. Only the Smithsonian has a more extensive aggregation of material collected from the early 20th century (Abbott 1906). Penn's collection was gathered on two trips dating to 1896 and 1898 when, as young medical students and members of prominent families, William H. Furness 3rd, Hiram M. Hiller, and Alfred C. Harrison, Jr., undertook several collecting expeditions to Borneo on behalf of the Penn Museum. They spent six months in Sarawak, traveling upriver to Dayak longhouses, followed by an expedition to Dutch West Borneo, where they journeyed on the Kapuas River for several months. They also traveled to the Medalam and the Mahakam rivers (under the aegis of the Sultan of Kutai) and as far as the insurmountable rapids at Ana in what was then Dutch East Borneo (Kalimantan). On these trips, and at a time when headhunting treaties were just being concluded and enforced in those areas, and when only a few hardy European outsiders had ever ventured this deeply into Borneo, their expedition collected ethnographic objects for the Penn Museum and zoological specimens for the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Their story, while not the subject of this piece, is a remarkable one, replete with exotic Eastern travel, epic adventures, as well as contributions to posterity in the form of their collections, notations and endowments. A concise yet highly informative article about the trio's trips, Borneo To Philadelphia: The Furness-Hiller-Harrison Collections by Adria H Katz, appears in the Penn Museum's magazine, Expedition, and in our Art of the Ancestors edition of May 25th, 2019. The museum's magazine is published tri-annually, entertaining, and highly recommended for reading. Each of the items illustrated here was either acquired and given by Furness or by Harrison and Hiller, the product of their diverse trips while on the island of Borneo.
From the point of view of material culture, what makes the contributions of these items so interesting, particularly to an old Borneo hand and for anyone who appreciates documentation, connoisseurship, and technical excellence, is that this collection — whether in a still shot or as a vibrant overview — provides us with insights as to what a) existed between 1896-1898, b) could possibly be collected by early outside visitors in the area's where the expedition's team visited, and c) the exact locations where their material was acquired.
Studying this collection allows one to note small stylistic variations, from aspects of design to material components. For example, this might include the palette chosen for beadwork or the woodworking techniques used to create the items illustrated here. A collection made in the era of Penn's collection engenders questions, such as: what styles and categories survived into the 20th century? This, in turn, leads to posing questions as to how items change or whether some cultural creations are later, and/or inspired by older, earlier models? Clues from what existed from a period of relative isolation and vitality to one of decline to vibrant revitalization (beginning in the latter 1970s with some Dayak material) assist us in further understanding the nomenclature of different categories of Dayak material culture with an enhanced appreciation of the fragility of culture and the frangible quality of organic materials.
As one goes through the eighteen items from Penn's collection illustrated here, some will be quite familiar, others not. They remind us of other known items. Yet material culture has its own evolutionary or speciating process. It is always fascinating to see what survives versus what has become extinct while evaluating the circumstances or factors that led to an outcome. A fine array of carved wood is illustrated here. The first item is a rare little-known high chief's seat in the form of a protective and connective spirit creature. The seat is engraved with circular constructions and interwoven curvilinear lines. These are made all the more radiant by pegging the glistening rounded white ends of cut conus shells to the wooden creature's back and for its eyes (now lost). These embellishments not only decorated the seat but umbilically connected its owner to his community and the spirit world beyond. In more modern times, these emblems of authority rarely survived. There are several in the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, and a famous one in the form of a world-bearing turtle that appears in Jean Paul Barbier's Art of the Archaic Indonesians (p. 110, pl. 65).
In a similar vein, carved war canoe prow elements also rarely survived. There is one in the British Museum and two in the Borneo Cultures Museum in Sarawak. Penn Museum also has two stellar examples. The first depicts a well-fanged protective figure with its arms wrapped back around its head, and the second boasts a splayed human figure of a type that is visually reminiscent of Sarawak's Santubong' Birdman', a carving in stone from an area where iron was worked for many centuries. Rivers were (and still are) the highways by which most everything travels. This is reflected in old photographs of war canoes and in the few bits of decorated canoes that have survived. A rare carved canoe cleat with two charming creatures from Penn's collection had several very practical purposes. It strengthened the sides of the boat from impact and doubled as an oar or spear rest.
In the realm of warfare, a human-sized mock wooden head with cordage is shown here, and it was carried or danced by the Murut people during celebrations where ceremonies involving headhunting were invoked. Speaking of weapons, decorated head hunting swords were exquisitely forged from river-hardened iron, sometimes etched, inlaid with brass, or with partially perforated vine-like designs. The blades were then often married to intricately carved plumed handles largely fashioned from deer antler bone. On rare occasions, wooden scabbards were also exceptionally designed and sometimes further embellished with intricately carved bone plaques or insets in the grand curvilinear style of diverse Dayak groups. To exult in effective beauty and respect, a 'thirsty' blade was further 'clothed' when a sheath was decorated with fine beadwork, attached tassels and charms. Great swords – those that are consummate works of art – are not common, as all the component parts have to work harmoniously together. Old museums have such weapons, but they are seldom well-imaged and difficult to present as works of art. The Penn Museum's Kayan sword (mandau or malat) has all the bells and whistles. It is nicely photographed and reveals small details that make such an object sensorially tactile and visually satisfying, even online.
A warrior's accompanying garb was meant to be imposing and to terrify opponents by magnifying the presence of a fighter, thus reaffirming his connections to the spirit world while embodying or exchanging with the traits of powerful animals. A complete warrior's poncho-like jacket collected by Furness prior to 1897 on the Pilran River is composed of a sun bear's hide with attached rhinoceros hornbill beaks and casques, and a large pearl shell disk that once reflected its owner's status and shining valor.
Another mixed medium and tour de force is a Kayan warrior's headgear reflecting a formidable creature whose face is composed of trade beads, cut cowrie, nasa, and conus shells (for its eyes), and clouded leopard teeth for the beast's sharp toothy fangs. These, in turn, were attached to a helmet of woven split bamboo and rattan that was covered with spotted civet skin and further complemented with tufts of orange-colored orangutan hair – all of which was then topped off with a lone hornbill's tail feather.
Mention must also be made here of the early beadwork on these items – again, a good way to compare and study older pieces versus revisionist items of the 1970s and onwards that pay homage to the working of earlier items. Of particular interest in this regard is a beaded ritual mat (sometimes referred to as hangings) that were used to center attention and focus and to invoke a ritual axis mundi around important ceremonial events. Such mats are seldom seen nowadays. This one is a Taman piece (Maloh) that was collected by Harrison and Hillier in 1899.
Other unusual items of note include a raised ink bowl for tattooing in the form of a protective being from a Kayan group on the Mendalam river. On the same Harrison and Hillier expedition, they also collected a unique survivor that reflects the hospitality that anyone traveling to a traditional longhouse still receives and remembers with fondness. When accommodating guests, indigenous groups often ceremoniously proffered betel nut and smokes. Here, in lieu of a plate or tray, a large perforated gourd decorated with an attached monkey's skull once served as an elegant serving tray for offering cigarettes. Pre-rolled trade tobacco wrapped in nipa leaves would have been placed in the gourd's holes — in what one can imagine must have been a theatrical, gifting, and ice-breaking sight. Again, from the same journey is an unusual Kayan Hudoq-like mask in the form of an owl-like beaked avian from the Mendalam river, again in a style that no longer exists.
In closing, two items strike me as particularly worthy. The first is an Iban spinning wheel (gasieng) from Sarawak. It has been put back together so that one can see a spinning wheel in its glorious completeness. The spinning wheel is the largest and most important of female weaving implements. The protective 'mother figure' in Western weaving parlance is the part of the wheel we call the "maiden, orifice, and flyer" that is used to describe these functional parts. For the Iban, a great wheel is much more likely to inspire the creation of an important textile than using a hastily made or purely utilitarian one. When performing her craft, every weaver likes to be seen with beautiful equipment. It enhances her grace and produces an aura of confidence that assists in releasing all of a great weaver's creative and intellectual power. This is a particularly nice gasieng. Only a few rare old spinning wheels sport fine figurative charms in the form of a female figure. The original decorative application of red ochre (something I never saw in the field) is also most unusual. Such spinning wheels were only owned by weavers who possessed great talent. The 'guardian' figure assisted in protecting a woman while she was engaged in the concentrative and dangerous process of creating the threads that would eventually be woven into a fine blanket.
Lastly, there is a sub-genre of vigorous carving, again that no longer exists, from the Sebop peoples of the once remote upper Tinjar river area. While they are divided into seven sub-groups, their great wood carvings are stylistically identifiable. Penn Museum stewards the only complete Sebop chief's paneled door jamb/doorway in an American collection (i.e., others exist in the British Museum and the Borneo Cultures Museum in Kuching, Sarawak). This particular jamb is beautifully ornamented with an embracing founding couple set amid scrolling vine-work and a mythical animal with another splayed protective creature below to frame a door with a figurative handle. Interspersed throughout the composition are inlaid roundels cut from the top of conus shells.
For students to connoisseurs of art, for championing the idea that a museum can admirably foster world culture, and for their informative journals, a visit to Penn Museum and the 'City of Brotherly Love' is a highly recommended destination.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Chief’s Seat with Anthropomorphic Head
Kayan
Mendalam River
Wood, shell
Gift of Alfred C. Harrison Jr. and Dr. H. M. Hiller, 1899
P617
2
War Canoe Prow Ornament
Kayan
Sarawak
Wood
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1054
3
Canoe Cleat
Kayan
Wood
Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1053
4
Feathered Warrior’s Jacket
Madang
Pliran River
Sun bear skin, hornbill casque, glass beads, hornbill feather, pearl shell
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1152
5
Warrior’s Headdress
Kayan
Sarawak
Rattan, civet cat skin, goat hair, cowrie shells, orangutan hair, glass, cone shell, nassa shell, clouded leopard teeth
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1139A
6
Warrior’s Sword | Parang
Kayan
Sarawak
Iron, bone, hair, rattan, gutta-percha
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1231D
7
Mock Wooden Head
Murut
Sarawak
Wood, plant fiber, paint
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P812A
8
Spinning Wheel | Gasieng
Iban
Sarawak
Wood, pigment
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P555A
9
Beaded Ritual Mat
Taman
Putus Sibau
Plant fiber, glass beads, wool, cowrie shells, pigments
Gift of Alfred C. Harrison Jr. and Dr. H. M. Hiller, 1899
P167
10
Sun Hat
Sebop
Dapoi River
Palm leaf, wool cotton, glass beads, feather, pigment
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P274A
11
Tattooing Ink Bowl
Kayan
Mendalam River
Wood
Gift of Alfred C. Harrison Jr. and Dr. H. M. Hiller, 1899
P248
12
Canoe Bow
Sarawak
Wood
Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1302
13
Figure
Kayan
Sarawak
Wood
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P829
14
Cigarette Holder
Kayan
Sarawak
Gourd, monkey skull, plant fiber
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P824
15
Mask
Kayan
Mendalam River
Wood, cotton, black paint
Gift of Alfred C. Harrison Jr. and Dr. H. M. Hiller, 1899
P803
16
Mask
Kayan
Mendalam River
Wood, plant fiber, pigment, cotton
Gift of Alfred C. Harrison Jr. and Dr. H. M. Hiller, 1899
P806
17
Figure
Kayan
Sarawak
Wood, pigments
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P827A
18
Carved Door Jamb
Sebop
Tinjar River
Wood, pigment, conus shells, ceramic
Gift of Dr. William H. Furness 3rd., 1898
P1301
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
© University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology