Arts of Flores in Global Museum Collections
Arts of Flores in Global Museum Collections
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month, Art of the Ancestors features historically significant cultural items from Flores Island and the nearby Island of Lembata. Part of the Lesser Sunda chain, east of Bali, Flores anchors a surround of more than five hundred islands known as Nusa Tenggara Timur, with Sumba to its southwest and Timor to its southeast.
Geographically and historically, Flores is a fascinating island. It is mountainous, with some areas that remain remote and difficult to access. The local climate can vary from arid to tropical. Flores possesses many unusual natural wonders, including Kelimutu, a volcano boasting three lakes, each with a distinct color ranging from aqua blue to emerald green to coppery red. The Island straddles the dividing line between Asia and Oceania.
Flores is also the site of untold prehistoric migrations that included both the presence of hominids and homo sapiens. A version of Homo erectus (upright man), which is considered the first hominid to spread beyond Africa, and is known in Indonesia and beyond as 'Java Man,' is thought to have arrived on Flores Island around 750,000 years ago. Headlines from around the world loomed large in 2004 when the remains of more than one hundred archaic humans (Homo floresiensis) were discovered deep within a cave north of Ruteng in West Flores. Intriguingly, Floresiensis were all hobbit-sized individuals, well under four feet tall, that did not become extinct until about 50,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the arrival of the first Homo sapiens on Flores.
As the Island's name suggests, it was explored and settled by Europeans when the Portuguese arrived in 1511. Traditional cultures there have been significantly impacted and transformed over time by the arrival of modernity, new economic imperatives, and conversion to Christianity, particularly Catholicism. The artwork featured here was primarily created in central Flores by the Ngada, Nagekeo, Ende, and Lio peoples. It was produced from the 19th century through the early 20th century up until the eve of World War II.
Perhaps the most instructive piece in this introductory grouping is the large, finely weathered, and beautifully carved horse (jara heda) that is now preserved in Yale's Indo-Pacific collection. Such carvings were placed in the center of the village in front and just below the main entrance of small dwellings or female ancestor shrines (sao heda) that contained a pair of ancestral statues, ritual paraphernalia and sometimes the bones and jaws of ritually sacrificed animals whose meat had been distributed and subsequently eaten. With the exception of this horse with its two riders, nearly all preserved jara heda in museums are post-World War II dating from the late 1940s to the present.
This particular horse was carved around 1925 and is from the village of Liwa. It was replaced with great fanfare along with a new ritual structure in 1985. Fifty years ago, one encountered fragmentary examples of decomposing jara heda on the edge of a few villages. In Ngada, I was informed on numerous occasions, particularly in Udi and Maunori (Udi-Maunori), and particularly by my late friend and local leader, Severinus Rangga, that these ritual structures, posts, and attendant statues were recreated roughly every forty to sixty years, not only because the wood rotted, but because it was necessary, according to the elders, to keep vital skills and the continuum of knowledge alive.
One of the masterpieces of Nagekeo wood carving illustrated below is a couple hewn from a single piece of wood. It is unclear whether the human images (ana deo) are tutelary figures from a village shrine, or whether it is a fragmentary memento from an older horse and rider. (This can be ascertained by looking at the sides and bottom of the carving. It appears from afar to be a singular item) Most importantly, it is the gesture of the male slightly raising his left shoulder socket, then extending his arm out to gently place his hand on the female's backside and left shoulder blade that is so memorable in what would otherwise be fine, but formal figures. There are very few examples in art history where such a fondness and devotion to one another is so tenderly displayed in such an open yet dignified manner. A beautiful Mesoamerican ceramic from Jalisco in the same semblance in the Dallas Museum of Art, a famous Dogon statue at the Met, along with a few reclining Etruscan and seated ancient Egyptian couples in similar guises of intimacy readily come to mind.
Other notable figures derived from pairs include a female statue from an ancestral shrine now housed at Yale University Art Gallery and a female figure that appears to be of a genre that was erected outside the doorway to the house of the village sponsor of recreating shrines or the left and right of the village's chief or a leader's dwelling. Given the interior sockets, it may have also once been the sides of a short ladder into a structure. A pair of figures with blue trade bead eyes from the National Museum in Jakarta collected in 1939 and a small charm from Rotterdam's Wereldmuseum, also collected before World War II, display items that are no longer used or seen. In addition, there is a rare carved and painted war shield from Lembata and a fine Flores mask, which is misidentified in the Met's database as deriving from Timor. While the latter's function is unknown, it is reminiscent of the finest biola masks from Timor and is in a style that once roughly ranged from Sumba to Timor and as far north as Babar in the province of Maluku.
Most traditional societies in Flores were hierarchical, with an aristocratic class that once ruled over commoners and enslaved people while controlling agrarian wealth and the practices of ritual renewal. Three noble gold ornaments that reflect these old ways are illustrated below. The first is a well-known gold crown (lado wea), formerly in the collection of Jean-Paul Barbier, that is now housed in the Musée du quai Branly in Paris. The frontal part of the crown resembles a crescent moon whose finials are reminiscent of a pair of avians or the prow and stern of a ship. The five masts or vertical struts have been likened to earlier types of lado that were decorated with a cock's feather (Rodgers: 1985: 326), or perhaps they might also be appreciated as tree trunks that are rooted to the frontlet and whose canopy sports dangling leaves or minuscule birds. Through offerings and animal sacrifices, these potent crowns were thought to help preserve a village's life force and prosperity. Rodgers further recorded that four nobles would don such crowns when they went into the forest in search of just the right stout forked tree trunk from which to carve a sacred peo. Peo (Literally: "a place surrounded by community") reflects many poetic yet practical local ideas as these large, sometimes towering pole-carvings center a village between heaven and earth while designating and honoring a place for people to live within a tripartite universe.
A well-known photograph from the Tropenmuseum collection of the Raja of Boawae depicts him wearing a similar crown, wrapped in woven gold chains and a resplendent necklace (wuli) as emblems of regalia. Wuli were typically made of large natural cowrie shells that were pierced and then fastened together, attached to a rattan collar. These were once worn only by successful warriors in the Nagekeo and Ngada regions. The last gold item is of a type that is said to come from Manggarai and most likely was either once part of a noble house's accumulated gold treasures or a bride-wealth object of exchange. It is too large to have been used as an earring. If exposed, it would have been worn as a pendant of prestige on important occasions by aristocratic women. Both items are being stewarded by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Often fashioned with intricate beading known as granulation and with dangling flanges or appendages, whether open-worked, cast, or with a frame filled with hammered sheet, gold earrings of many varieties are quite common throughout west and central Flores (See Rodgers: 1985: Power and Gold).
As in other areas in Indonesia, textiles also play a prominent role in ceremonies as all ritual goods or creations have a gender polarity that is necessary when establishing or measuring the relationship between what is considered 'masculine' and what is 'feminine.' Such values are ascribed in negotiations between "wife-takers" and "wife-givers." The amount of meat, rice, cloth, gold, and woven textiles required for every important ceremonial ritual, including marriage, belong to customs and age-old traditions that are said to have "originated when the rocks were young and the earth was soft" (Erb 1988: 117).
While island woven textiles are common, and generally prosaic to outsiders, there are a few older surviving textiles of rare homespun cotton and natural dyes with inspired designs that appear in cloths of singular artistic merit. The most notable of these textiles from Flores are the beaded lawo butu, particularly the ones made in Ngada. Trade beads, some of which are ancient and not of European manufacture, are sewn onto sarongs, resulting in intricate and lively beaded designs set on warp ikat sarongs that include geometric motifs, rhombs, keys, and stick-like horses. The finest lawo butu are anchored by beaded hexagons with shimmering rays or tendrils that are then surrounded by human figures with raised arms, roosters, and complementary rhombuses. The Dallas Museum of Art's example features original beading on a sarong with beautiful pale blue and lightly shaded coral-salmon-red tones set on a bold, dark indigo ground. The lawo butu from the Honolulu Museum of Art is also an inspiring example that, instead of using only rhombuses, employs bold, large hexagons with the addition of two beaded horses near the bottom of the sarong. Unlike other textiles that have lost much of their ritual value or meaning, lawo butu are still considered to have magical properties. They are danced by noble women and are said to be employed to generate fertility and to ensure smooth and bounteous agricultural cycles. They are also brought out as mediators in times of crisis and drought. "This textile is considered to belong to the realm of the old and wise, for if young people look upon it, they risk becoming barren and unfruitful" (Maxwell 1990: 140-141).
Two other textiles of exceptional aesthetic merit are also highlighted. The first is from Lamalera to the east of Flores, an area particularly noted for weaving fine cloth. This 19th-century sarong was collected in the 1930s by Ernst and Johanna Vatter and is now held in the Museum der Weltkulturen, formerly known as Museum für Volkerkunde in Frankfurt. Its palette of tied-off light areas with a generous red (Morinda citrifolia) laid on a darker indigo-mixed ground is quite stunning. The main motif is comprised of manta rays, perhaps as they skim the water at sundown, a design consistent with the seafaring culture surrounding Lembata. Lamalera is said to be populated by refugees from Lapan Batan, an island just to the east of Lembata. (Hamilton 1994: 181) The second is an antique Lio nobleman's large shawl or blanket worn by a paramount chief or mosalaki (The Lords of the Earth). There are seven defined roles for mosalaki, who functioned in apex roles in well-organized societies. They established 'collegial leadership patterns' that were transferred through male lineages. (Suswandari & Sri Astuti 2021: 30)
In recent decades, particularly among the peoples of Lio and Sikka, the quantity of cloth, though not of past quality, has greatly increased. Hamilton adds that: "it is not surprising that most ritual cloths have fallen casualty to the economic, socio-political, and cultural changes that have taken place since the beginning of the twentieth century." (1994: 225) However, female industry and booming tourism in Bali and beyond have meant that mass-produced cloth has generated income for local weavers. In the realm of carving, perusing Internet vendors, in Bali, or on auction sites, one sometimes encounters ana deo, some quite beautifully done, that have been made or embellished in various locations to fulfill an outside demand for them. With exceptions, like the horse and rider carved at Liwa in 1985, fifty years ago, the costs and the cooperative skills necessary for ritual displays, to carve sacred posts and statues, and create their structures were already increasingly challenging to re-enact. It would be interesting to understand further and document which villages have been able to replicate traditional ritual cycles that include the types of carving described in the literature on the subject.
For time-tested and curated material from Flores, we encourage you to visit our galleries dedicated to the finest traditional material found in public institutions. Flores is a highly recommended destination on any Indonesian travel itinerary.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
Suggest Readings
Gift of the Cotton Maiden: Textiles of Flores and the Solor Islands
Hamilton, Roy W.; Barnes, Ruth
UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1994Islands and Ancestors: Indigenous Styles of Southeast Asia
Barbier, Jean-Paul; Newton, Douglas
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée Barbier-Mueller
Prestel Pub, 1988Textiles of Southeast Asia: Tradition, Trade and Transformation
Maxwell, Robyn; Gittinger, Mattiebelle
Tuttle Publishing, 2014Power and Gold: Jewelry from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, from the Collection of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva
Rodgers, Susan
Prestel Pub, 1999
1
Ritual Horse-Serpent with Male and Female Riders | Jara Heda
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th century
Nage peoples
Wood with shells and porcelain
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.129
2
Ancestral Couple | Ana Deo
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, New York
Late 19th–early 20th century
Nage peoples
Wood
Gift of Fred and Rita Richman, 2006
2006.510
3
Ancestral Post | Ana Deo
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th century
Wood
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.824.1
4
Ancestor Figure | Ana Deo
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th century
Wood
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.131.1
5
Pair of Ancestor Figures | Ana Deo
Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
Before 1938
Wood, beads
Gifted by J.A. van Staveren
23030A / 23030B
6
Mask
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York, New York
19th–early 20th century
Wood, fiber, paint, lime, and hair
Purchase, Discovery Communications Inc. Gift and Rogers Fund, 2000
2000.444
7
Female Ancestor Image
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
The Netherlands
Before 1939
Ngada peoples
Wood, brass, beads
RV-2380-65
8
Woman’s Ceremonial Sarong | Lawo Butu
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
Ngada peoples
19th century - early 20th-century
Homespun cotton, beads, shell
Dallas Museum of Art, the Steven G. Alpert Collection of Indonesian Textiles, gift of The Eugene McDermott Foundation
1983.100
9
Woman’s Ceremonial Sarong | Lawo Butu
Honolulu Museum of Art
Honolulu, Hawaii
Ngada peoples
Cotton, beads, shell
10
Man’s Ceremonial Shawl | Ikat Selendang
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
Early 20th-century
Lio peoples
Dallas Museum of Art, the Steven G. Alpert Collection of Indonesian Textiles, gift of The Eugene McDermott Foundation
1983.102
11
Women’s Ceremonial Sarong
Museum der Weltkulturen
Frankfurt, Germany
Lamalera, Lembata Island
27997
12
Painted Shield
Museum der Weltkulturen
Frankfurt, Germany
Lembata Island
Wood, pigment
28093
13
Companion Necklace
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Houston, Texas
18th-19th century
Nage peoples
Gold
Museum purchase funded by Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson
2006.535
14
Gold Ceremonial Head Ornament | Lado or Lado Wea
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
Paris, France
20th century
Nage peoples
Gold
Ex-Collection: Barbier-Mueller
70.2001.27.709
15
Gold Pendant
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Houston, Texas
18th century
Lio or Nage peoples
Gold
Museum purchase funded by Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson
2006.537
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the attributed museums.