Art of the Ancestors Nias Gallery Renovation
This month, Art of the Ancestors invites our readers to explore the art and culture of Tanö Niha, which is centered around the largest and most culturally important island in this chain, Nias. Geographically, Nias, like the island cultures of Enggano and Mentawai lies off the west coast of Sumatra at the far western edges of the Malay Indonesian archipelago. These island cultures despite their relative geographic proximity are remarkably different from one other. Each produced in varying realms fine artistic traditions that are highly regarded by aficionados of Indonesian art.
For our purposes, Nias can be divided into three cultural zones based on northern, central, and southern island traditions. These groups were formerly quite bellicose. While now largely performed for tourists, at cultural events, and as welcoming ceremonies the martial ethos of the Nias’ past can still be sensed in the island's war dances and stone jumping performances. In former times, stone leaping, or hombu batu, sometimes over a stone wall standing up to six feet tall, was part of the training of an adolescent into becoming an able adult and an adept warrior.
These were highly aristocratic societies whose rituals often involved status-raising events marked by the creation of gold ornaments and the erection of elaborate megalithic memorials in stone. Headhunting was as much to collect slaves for the afterlife as it was for revenge. The leading families' wealth and status were primed and supported by trafficking in slaves in exchange for trade goods and precious metals, especially gold. Gold ornaments were skillfully created by local artisans there even though this material is not naturally found on the island. Perhaps the greatest form of artistic expression that has survived on Nias are the grand noble houses of village chiefs (omo sebua) from southern Nias. These remarkable dwellings were defensively stout and built to last. They are constructed on massive raised pylons with forty-five-degree angle buttresses designed to survive severe earthquakes. Decorated boards, wall panels, hooks, statues placed at cardinal points, on shrines, or placed along the galleries were once found in abundance in these settings.
We have added a number of renowned, as well as some lesser-known ancestor figures to include grand examples of seated adu siraha salawa from north Nias to adu zatua of varying size and importance, to rows of intertwined smaller ancestor figures known as adu nuwu from central and southern Nias. The majority of these items are sourced from the extensive holdings of the Dutch museum system. Other individual items have also been added from Saint Louis Art Museum, Musée du quai Branly in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Museum für Völkerkunde in Dresden.
Also included in the gallery, and of note, are images of the protective bundles and charms that were affixed to warrior's swords (balato) from the Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden, the Dallas Museum of Art, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Fowler Museum at UCLA. The best of these bundles, along with the most inspired decorations on utilitarian items and architectural embellishments, can be visually potent, humorous and like the great houses, expertly constructed.
For more on the cultural and artistic history of Nias please refer to the voluminous writings of Jerome Feldman, Traditional Architecture and Art on Nias edited by Ulrike Herbig, scholarly work by Alain Viaro, Peter T. Suzuki, as well as the Nias Heritage Museum website.
— Steven G. Alpert
Nias Gallery Preview
Seated Male Ancestor Figure | Adu Sihara Salawa
© Musée du quai Branly | France