Indonesian Masks in Global Museum Collections

 

Masks | Borneo
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 
 

Indonesian Masks in
Global Museum Collections

 

Curated by Steven G. Alpert

 
 

This month, Art of the Ancestors features outstanding old masks from traditional cultures that span the length and breadth of the archipelago. Seen together for the first time, the masks illustrated here represent an impressive aggregation of stylistic range and diverse functions.

The origins and near-universal appearance of masking traditions stretch far back into our collective antiquity. Some scholars believe that masking evolved along with the earliest known Paleolithic figurative renderings dating back some 40,000-plus years ago. We've been using masks for so long that even the word 'mask' in English is of uncertain origin. Its closest relationship might be from Middle French as the word 'masque' means "to hide or to cover one's face" or from an old Germanic root or even be of Indo-European derivation. However, perhaps the most fascinating contender for its etymology in English is possibly from Arabic. Our word 'mascara' evolved from the Arabic word for "buffoon" coupled with the verb "to ridicule" and maybe the culvert by which the word 'mask' entered our own lexicon via Al-Andalus (Iberian Spain) and thus into French, Italian, and ultimately English.

Of course, most masks were crafted from mostly fungible organic materials that did not survive beyond a short lifespan. In Indonesia, beaten gold masks have been discovered to date to the early Iron Age. This tradition continued to exist in central Java and Sulawesi, as reflected in the repoussé burial masks found there. One such example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is currently being dated to the 9th century. While not the focus of this feature, masking traditions, originally from India and Southeast Asia via the circuitry of former Buddhist and Hindu era empires, were formative to the development of various traditions of mask-making and story-telling traditions that continue to exist in Java, Bali, and other courtly Indonesian cultures.

In general, in Indonesia, traditional cultures utilized masks in a wide variety of transformative ways: as a sort of doppelgänger that allowed a priest or an adept to be able to speak with the spirit world without harm or to disseminate knowledge in a manner where it cannot be otherwise directly transmitted by healers to assist in coaxing the souls of errant or ill persons back into their temporal bodies or to purify spaces where ceremonies and rituals occur. Masks were often associated with agricultural cycles and harvests, successful raids during headhunting times, and mortuary practices. Whether used in conjunction with an important ritual occurrence or simply for entertainment, masks were a formative means by which to transfer or reaffirm purposive themes. The imposing Nias priest's crown from the Tropenmuseum (Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen) is also recorded in an old ethnographic photograph with its wearer gripping its lower prongs. At the same time, the mask rests on the wearer's head. "Said to have belonged to the noble priest Lotebulo," it was displayed every seven years at a feast of reconciliation where the mask was said to be a "second face" that allowed the priest "to speak about phenomena of the spirit world" (Feldman 1990: 251). 

 
 

Mask of Karo-Batakse (or Poerbasche) origin for funeral celebrations of aristocratic people
Unknown, TM-10003338
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 

Studio portrait of a man in military clothing, South Nias, 1892-1922
Christiaan Benjamin Nieuwenhuis, TM-60042491
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

From the nearby Batak peoples of Sumatra, five remarkably emotive Karo and Simalungan Batak masks are also illustrated here from the collections of the Museum Nasional Indonesia in Jakarta, the Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen, the British Museum, and Yale University Art Gallery. While Batak masks are common, they rarely reach the artistic levels of these beautifully chiseled and venerable examples that were further enhanced with natural pigments, hair and hide, and, on occasion, beaten metal adornments. While masks were used at various functions, most were danced in performances that accompanied the funerary rites of high-ranking persons. Created to be danced in pairs, masked dancers would escort a funeral cortège, swaying and dancing particularly when the deceased was being interred and finally laid to rest. Such heightened expression allowed for a last lingering moment between the living and the dead and the creation of an "unhindered passage to the after-life." (Hasibuan: 1986: 71). Just as significantly, the role of masked dancers is purposely utilized to confuse the soul or spirit (begu) of the deceased so that it would not overly linger, contaminate or come back to harm the living.

 
 
 

Batak mask dance at a festival of the dead, 1930
Unknown, TM-10004608
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 
 

From Borneo, there are masks that once served a dynamic variety of important functions. One mask illustrated from central Borneo in Oslo's Kulturhistorisk Museum utilizes a gripping handle and is similar to others in private collections, that were recorded as formerly used by shamanic healers when coaxing an errant soul, the cause of sickness, safely back into a patient's body. Among the Iban, one category of mask that could be carved by non-experts and that reflects their prankish sense of humor is referred to as indai guru'. Traditionally, at the end of the harvest festival, at a time when much rice wine and hard spirits are consumed, and inhibitions are low (Heppell 2005: 141-142), older women would don these masks while dressing in absurd costumes, flirting, taunting and generally making fun of men and their sexual expectations in a sort of role reversal play that can end up creating hilarious outcomes. In response, men will don masks, too, in an attempt to scare young ladies while they shriek and hide to the crowd's amusement. An example of such a mask is housed in the Yale University Art Gallery, featuring elongated horns and a fibrous beard. "Masks are usually fashioned quickly. Splashing some paint on a gourd, Halloween style, or hewing some eyes and a nose out of a flat piece of wood, charring it, and adding some lime is all that is required to produce a mask for the occasional times it might be used." (Heppell 2005: 143) A small number of Iban indai guru' masks are less frangible, as is the finely carved hardwood example at the Dallas Museum of Art. (Alpert 2013: 144-145)

Perhaps the most notable and dramatic of all masking traditions in Borneo are classified as hudoq masks. These masks are associated with agrarian cycles and the harvest among the various peoples living in East Kalimantan, including the Bahau, Busang, Ao'heng, Penihing, and Modang groups. Hudoq are said to represent thirteen tempestuous crop-destroying animals or pests that include avians such as crows, boars, rats, and even leopards. Masked dancers wearing full regalia annually re-enact crop-destroying chaos until they are chased away at the end of each performance by two human hudoqsHudoq masks are part of a living culture and have also been produced in mass numbers to sell. Traditionally, few hudoq were ever kept past their season of use as they were generally discarded. Old hudoq of distinction, like the two illustrated here and the many others displayed in our Borneo gallery, are rare survivors within a ubiquitous tradition. Older masks tend to be finely carved and well ornamented, often with pendulous earrings, and above all, handsomely painted with stone-ground natural pigments as opposed to garish modern paints.

 
 
 

Mask dance during the sowing festivals of the Bahau Dayaks, Upper Mahakam, Jean Demmeni, 1898-1900
Kayan, TM-60001698
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 
 

To the East, in areas ranging from Nusa Tenggara to the island of Timor and the Moluccas, a modest number of remarkable and authentic masks have survived. Among those from West Timor (reproduced here) is a category of mask known as a biola from the Tetun speakers of Belu. Some of these masks are so old that their original functions have been obscured over time via the regimens of change, politics, and modern dictates of world religions. The oldest masks are so layered and lustrous with a hardened blackened patina that cannot easily be scratched off. A mask such as this one would have once been kept in the village's ritual house, the uma lulik, along with other 'hot' items associated with headhunting. The Timorese ceremonial dance, the loro'sae, now used as a welcoming dance, traditionally was a martial celebration that ended with the execution of captives at dawn. The Museum Volkerkunde stewards a mask, also from western Timor, that has been described as being "named Le'u musuh that was worn by a priest during the ritual dance performed with warriors after a victorious military expedition." (de Hoog 1981: 123). The Dallas Museum of Art’s biola mask’s offsetting deep black polished patina with traces of chalk and two insets of ancient-looking shell eyes make it one of the most expressive of all surviving old examples. We can only imagine what it would have looked like in motion, being surrounded by attachments of hair while being forcefully danced. (See Alpert 2013: 256-257). 

Arguably, the region's most iconic mask, and one of the symbols of the Dallas Museum of Art's Indonesia collection, is a mouth mask from Luhuleli, Leti, in the Southeastern Moluccas. There are four, or possibly five, of these masks that have survived in public collections and the fragment of a sixth that is still privately owned. Behind the mask's head is an extended tab that would have been bitten on as it was danced during the porka festival, a fertility feast that, according to the noted scholar Nico de Jonge, was intended to bring about a renewal of life. (de Jonge 2013: 284-285) On Luang, for example, these rituals were enacted every seven years. Beginning around 1850, colonial authorities and outside religious denominations outlawed and rigorously repressed this ceremony. While these masks can take the form of pigs or goats, i.e., 'sources of abundance,' as noted again by de Jonge, the function of this unique variant is likely quite different. It represents a rooster, the symbol of masculinity, martial prowess, and successful head-hunting expeditions. "These dances were led by a champion who was called the 'dog's tongue.'" (NdJ). Fashioned from hardwood and with the pegs, pupils, and lateral extensions carved buffalo horn, this mask is further beautified by plaques cut from clamshell, mother-of-pearl inset eyes, and an affixed crest and beak of boar's tusks.

The last masks in this presentation derive from Papua. In 1931, the Dutch high commissioner of Ternate, W. A. Hovenkamp, sent a number of items to the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. In his shipment were two masks of a typical face-forming rounded type that were "rarely found in these parts of New Guinea — one of which was said to have been worn during expeditions to frighten away the enemy." (van Duuren 1992: 208-211). Each of the two masks illustrated here is, to my knowledge, a unique and compelling variant of the norm. The first is a large mask measuring over thirty-four inches in length that was collected at Kurudu, Geelvinck Bay (Cenderawasih Bay). With its' raised almond-shaped eyes, fluke-like brows, demonstrative features, and the use of black and white pigments augmented by a beard and flowing hair, it is still capable of radiating a forceful presence over space and forgotten time. The last mask from the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome from Ansua, also in Geelvinck Bay, is special. While the exact function of this mask is uncertain, it was collected quite early by the naturalist Odoardo Beccari between 1871-76. The face is reminiscent of those found on a typical deceased ancestor figure or korwar. However, with its incised and painted designs with natural white, red, and black pigments and a hairdo and mustache ornamented and resolved with clipped black cassowary feathers, this mask stares directly at us with a gaze that garners attention. Like many other masks in Art of the Ancestors' diverse galleries, it underscores the rich and little-known masking traditions of Indonesia's outer islands.

Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors

 
 
 

1

 
 

Mask of a Priest

 
 

Mask of a Priest
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands

Nias

Before 1935

Wood

TM-1772-90

 
 

2

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng
© Museum Nasional Indonesia

Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia

North Sumatra

Batak peoples

Acquired in 1910

14196

 
 
 
 

3

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng

 

Mourning Mask | Topeng
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 

Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut

North Sumatra

Batak peoples

Wood, brass, hair

Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971

ILE2012.30.526

 
 

4

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng

 

Mourning Mask | Topeng
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands

Simalungun, North Sumatra

Batak peoples

Before 1910

Animal hair and skin, wood, plant fiber, ears of corn

TM-137-656

 
 

5

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng
© Museum Nasional Indonesia

 
 

Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia

Simalungun, North Sumatra

Batak peoples

Acquired in 1910

14197

 
 

6

 
 

Mourning Mask | Topeng

 

Mourning Mask | Topeng
© The British Museum

 
 

The British Museum
London, England

Sumatra

Batak peoples

Early 19th-century

Wood, copper, hair

Donated by S R Robinson, 1895

As1895,0902.13

 
 

7

 
 

Mask

 

Mask
© Museum Füenf Kontinente

 
 

Museum Fünf Kontinente
Munich, Germany

Borneo

Apo Kayan peoples

Before 1936

Wood, rattan, pigments, glass

Friedrich Karl Dalsheim | Maria Wilhelm, née Illch, on permanent loan in 1937

W-24

 
 

8

 
 

Spirit Mask | Hudoq

 

Spirit Mask | Hudoq
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 

Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut

Borneo

Kayan peoples

19th–early 20th century

Wood, pigment, mirrored glass

Formerly owned by André Breton

Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971

ILE2012.30.192

 
 

9

 
 

Healing Mask

 
 

Healing Mask
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 

Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut

Borneo

19th century

Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971

ILE2012.30.296

 
 

10

 
 

Mask

 
 

Mask
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 

Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut

Borneo

19th century

Gourd, wood, fiber, wire, string

Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971

ILE2012.30.559

 
 

11

 
 

Mask

 
 

Mask
© The Dallas Museum of Art

 
 

The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

Borneo

Iban peoples

Late 19th – early 20th-century

Wood, dammar resin, lime, black pigment

Gift of Albert and Elissa Yellin

2003.38

 
 

12

 
 

Healer’s Mask

 

Healer’s Mask
© Kulturhistorisk Museum Universitetet i Oslo

 
 

Kulturhistorisk Museum Universitetet i Oslo
Oslo, Norway

Borneo

Wood, pigment, vegetable fiber, cowrie shell

UEM22436

 

13

 
 

Spirit Mask | Hudoq

 

Spirit Mask | Hudoq
© Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac

 
 

Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
Paris, France

Borneo

20th century

Light polychrome wood, cotton threads, rice straw, rattan

Former collection: Alain Schoffel
Former collection: Musée Barbier-Mueller

70.2001.27.234

 
 

14

 
 

Funerary Mask with Brass Sanggori | Kuku

 

Funerary Mask with Brass Sanggori | Kuku
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands

Poso, Central Sulawesi

Wood, brass, pigment

WM-19122

 
 

15

 
 

Mask

 

Mask
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 
 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
New York

Timor-Leste or Flores?

19th–early 20th century

Wood, fiber, paint, lime, hair

Purchase, Discovery Communications Inc. Gift and Rogers Fund, 2000

2000.444

 
 

16

 
 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola

 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola
© Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac

 
 

Musée du quai Branly
Paris, France

20th-century

Timor

Atoni peoples

Light wood, crusty soot patina

Former collection:
Musée Barbier-Mueller

70.2001.27.362

 
 

17

 
 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola

 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola
© The Dallas Museum of Art

 
 

The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

Timor

Tetun peoples

19th century

Wood, chalk lime, resin, nails, shell inset for eyes

The Roberta Coke Camp Fund

1994.254

 
 

18

 
 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola

 

Ceremonial Mask | Biola
© Yale University Art Gallery

 
 

Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut

Timor

Atoni peoples

18th–19th century

Wood

Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971

ILE2012.30.428

 
 

19

 
 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask

 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask
© Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum

 
 

Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum
Cologne, Germany

Maluku

Leti peoples

Wood, boar tusks, shell, plant fiber

Former collection:
Wilhelm Müller-Wismar (1881-1916) before 1913

 
 

20

 
 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask

 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask | Luhulei
© The Dallas Museum of Art

The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas

Maluku

Leti peoples

19th century

Wood, boar tusks, clam shell, mother-of-pearl, buffalo horn, resinous material, pigment

The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc.

1997.141.McD

 
 
 
 

21

 
 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask

 

Porka Festival Mouth Mask
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands

Maluku

Leti peoples

Before 1889

Wood, turtle shell, wild boar tusk, glass beads

TM-A-1021

 
 

22

 
 

Ceremonial Mask

 
 

Ceremonial Mask
© Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen

 
 

Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands

Kurudu, Cenderawasih Bay, Papua Barat

Before 1931

Corn and palm leaf fiber, wood, chalk

TM-669-43

 
 

23

 

Ceremonial Mask

 

Ceremonial Mask
© Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography

 
 

Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography

Geelvinck Bay Region, Papua Barat

Wood, fiber, pigment

#R.O Beccari, 1871-76, cat. 889

 

All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the attributed museums.