“Looking Deeper: Ceremonial Spoons from Timor (Nura Dikun)” by Steven G. Alpert
In recent weeks, we have had a number of inquiries regarding ceremonial spoons from Timor. Like many others, I have always had an affinity for especially beautiful spoons. (See Tribal Art Magazine, Issue 33, 2003)
Writing from British Columbia, the gaze wanders between the screen, the abundance of profuse nature as seen through large windows, and on a nearby shelf a prominent and published Haida spoon. Like the majority of Timor spoons, it is also intricately molded, carved and fashioned from horn. The landmark book, Form and Freedom: A Dialogue on Northwest Coast Indian Art (1978), features comments and exchanges from two of the greatest titans on the art of indigenous Northwest Coast cultures, Bill Holm and Bill Reed. They examine the practical and spiritual architecture of these items while commenting on the beauty and transparent quality that "elegant, deep, honey color" horn can create. As a footnote in tribal art history, a spoon of just such a description from "that little shop on 3rd Street" was purchased in the early 1940s by the artist Max Ernst. In part, this piece inspired other famous Surrealists and wartime emigres such as Breton, Matta, Tanguy, Levi-Strauss, and others to visit this shop where they primarily sought to collect the art of Melanesia, the Inuit, and Northwest Coast peoples.
Like Northwest coast spoons and ladles, Timor spoons are also ubiquitous. The same can also be said say of Batak staffs or mandau from Borneo as they too most likely exist not in the hundreds, but in the thousands. The quality of surviving examples range from the pedestrian to the extraordinary with the finest examples being iconic works of art. Given that spoons from Timor are part of a large corpus of material, comparing notes on pieces à la Monsieurs Reid and Holm is a particularly admirable exercise, a learning tool, and an essential way to hone connoisseurship. It also stands to reason that because these spoons are common, it creates opportunities for collectors or connoisseurs as 'masterclass' examples are sometimes commingled with those of more average countenance and lesser workmanship. Think of being an athlete; it takes continual training to be able (if possible) to improve one's performance. To stay in 'art shape' requires the comparative 'exercise' of continually handling and examining a wide swath of related material.
As an aside, I first went to Timor in 1970, and through the seventies, found a great many spoons there in situ, in Bali, and in the hands of vendors in the States and Europe. After the 1970s - 1980s, the majority of the sort of 'A' level quality artwork that is arrayed in the galleries of Art of the Ancestors, particularly items fashioned from fragile organic materials, were for the most part no longer available in field. Perhaps, Bernard de Grunne said it best in an article that appeared in the New York Times in 1989, ''The better things came out in the 1970s. Today they make incredibly good fakes. You really have to be careful when you buy.'' (Archives: NYT: R. Reif, Antiques; Artifacts Redolent of Myth and Mystery).
Timor spoons are no exception to this general rule and accurate comment. The skill to make nura dikun was still alive at a time when the best older spoons were being sold. For the last forty years, traditional looking as well as inventive 'fantasy' spoons (ones that combine different traditions or new interpretations of older designs) have been made to sell to an international market. The best way to isolate older finer spoons is to study their strength of design, skillful execution, wear, warmth, depth, and hue of patina as well as their tactile qualities, which in the hands of a superior maker can be both imaginative and highly refined.
Given the large number of excellent spoons extant, nura dikun would be a suitable area for further exploration in an article by an aesthetically sensitive site area academic or a specialist on Timor. Interestingly, some of the earlier 'revival' spoons are particularly well done. Where were these made, in what villages, and for whom? Actually, not much has been written about Timorese spoons with any great specificity. To add to our approach and appreciation of these spoons, the following general information and the description of one particularly lovely one, originally appearing in Eyes of the Ancestors, the Dallas Museum of Art, pages 254-255* (2013 Yale University Press, 2016 Tuttle Press*, Singapore) may be of further interest to our readers.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
"Ceremonial spoons are among the most notable creations of the Tetun- and Atoni-speaking peoples. They exist in large numbers, and had already begun to enter European museums by the mid-19th century. These spoons are mostly fashioned from Asiatic buffalo horn (Bubalus arnee), which is boiled and sometimes treated with hot oil to make it easier to embellish and more pliant in forming the spoon's overall shape. Durable and textured, buffalo horn ranges in color from a polished jet black to tones of warm reddish brown to translucent shades of amber.
Tremendous variety is found in the patterns and overall shapes of these utensils. The most frequently encountered design consists of variously stacked geometric designs interspersed with profiles of pairs of birds, whose curvilinear execution aesthetically harks back to Indonesia's distant Bronze Age. The philologist and missionary Peter Middelkoop wrote that these spoons "were used exclusively during a farewell meal for the deceased." Spoons associated with these feasts served as a reminder to mourners that the deceased's soul had assumed the form of a bird and, in successfully achieving this metamorphosis, had permanently separated itself from the living and their communities. Among the Atoni, the name for a spoon in their ritual language, kol kotin, means "backbone of birds."
The grandest old Timor spoons are characterized by their elongated handles and stately length, which generally ranges from approximately six to sixteen inches. Nearly all the available space on a handle's flat surface is intricately carved. Occasionally crocodiles, lizards, and other totemic animals — as well as human figures — are included in these compositions. Some of the most interesting spoons depict large birds perched and twisted at a ninety-degree angle on the handle's end, or human figures that are either three dimensional or raised in relief. The most elegant handles are also perforated with variously sized pinholes, cutout sections, or designs in silhouette. Given the density and complexity of these compositions, the selective use of negative space greatly adds to their visual impact.
This particular spoon is remarkable in every aspect. A kingly piece, it once belonged to the rajas of Mandeu, a Tetun area in Belu. In Mandeu, much as in Middelkoop descriptions, spoons were used during mortuary feasts (kenduri) that took place three days after someone was buried. This spoon was also used during state occasions, and again during feasts when heirloom objects, which were kept in a special house, the uma lulik, were taken out, displayed, and blessed.
The handle's tapered end sports three back-to-back, bent kneed figures forming a circle that recalls the line dances connecting the Tetun to their ancestors and the spirit world. Along the central length of the spoon, figures of both sexes are depicted flanked by stacked birds. The top and bottom figures' frontal views are on the reverse of the spoon, while their backs are aligned to the spoon's bowl. The middle figure's orientation is reversed. This ingenious alternation of bodies, one flat, two raised in relief, adds to the character of this spoon's unique composition. On the handle's flattened section is a distinctive shinglelike pattern covering both the human and avian figures. This surface treatment, suggesting layers of feathers, inextricably and seamlessly binds man and bird together in a transforming and poetic composition."
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Author | Steven G. Alpert
Publication | Eyes of the Ancestors: The Arts of Island Southeast Asia at the Dallas Museum of Art
Publisher | Yale University Press
Date of Publication | 2013
Page Numbers | 254 - 255