Indonesian Masks in Global Museum Collections
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).
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.
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 hudoqs. Hudoq 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.
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
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands
Nias
Before 1935
Wood
TM-1772-90
2
Mourning Mask | Topeng
Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
North Sumatra
Batak peoples
Acquired in 1910
14196
3
Mourning Mask | Topeng
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
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
Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
Simalungun, North Sumatra
Batak peoples
Acquired in 1910
14197
6
Mourning Mask | Topeng
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
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
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
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
Borneo
19th century
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.296
10
Mask
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
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
Kulturhistorisk Museum Universitetet i Oslo
Oslo, Norway
Borneo
Wood, pigment, vegetable fiber, cowrie shell
UEM22436
13
Spirit Mask | Hudoq
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
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
Leiden, Netherlands
Poso, Central Sulawesi
Wood, brass, pigment
WM-19122
15
Mask
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.