The Carver’s Hand: Sculptural Arts of Timor and Atauro
The Carver’s Hand
Sculptural Arts of Timor and Atauro
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month, Art of the Ancestors celebrates the skills of the carver's hand by presenting a selection of masterworks from the islands of Timor and nearby Atauro that include architectural items, masks, effigies, ceremonial and utilitarian objects.
Growing up, I first knew the name 'Timor' largely from my grandfather's childhood 1901 Scott's stamp album. Within its pages was an uncancelled stamp from what was then Portuguese Timor. It was mint and a vibrant jade green color. Printed in 1888, it commemorated the 400th anniversary of Vasco de Gama's epic journey around the horn of Africa to India in pursuit of the fabled source of exotic spices and other long-sought commodities of the East. The historical resonances and ramifications of the 'spice wars' still play out in our everyday lives.
The island of Timor lies to the East of Bali at the long end of a chain of islands collectively known as Nusa Tenggara Timur. Shaped like an acute accent or diacritical mark, Timor lies north of Australia and to the west of New Guinea. From diverse Javanese kingdoms and northern sultanates to centuries of interaction with Chinese and Arab merchants, Timor has long been the destination of traders. It is mentioned in the Chinese treatise The Description of Foreign Peoples (ca. 1225 AD) as the land of Ti-wu, where it is noted as an abundant source of sandalwood. The Portuguese first arrived there in 1515, followed by the Dutch in the 17th century. In their turn, each vied for suzerainty over this aromatic and costly medicinal wood that grew especially well in Timor's unusual arid-to-mountain-valley climate. In 1518, Duarte Barbosa recorded that "there's an abundance of (white) sandalwood (there) to which Muslims in India and Persia give great value and where much of it is used."
Today, West Timor is an integral part of Indonesia. Atauro and East Timor, which were under the colonial rule of the Portuguese and later briefly absorbed into Indonesia, became in 2002 the independent nation of Timor-Leste.
This region is an especially fascinating destination. Just as Timor geographically lies on the edge of where the northern Indo-Australian Plate and the Eurasian Plate (that spans into Southeast Asia) meet, the island and its nearby neighbors also reflect the shifting tectonics of ancient migrations. Both Papuan and Austronesian-based etymologies and vernaculars co-exist with one another. At least fifteen readily identifiable languages are spoken. They range from the most common, Tetun, the mother tongue of more than 750,000 persons, to the Maku'va language, which is spoken by less than one hundred persons and is now on the edge of extinction.
As a geographical crucible of art and culture, Timor seems to have had more diverse carving styles than any other of the Lesser Sunda islands east of Bali. Traveling there before the upheavals of the 1970s and moving from one region to another, one immediately noticed the varied forms of the traditional houses of the ruling classes and their ceremonial structures, uma lulik. As a shrine, Uma lulik linked one to their ancestors and the natural world around them and were focal points during rites of passage ceremonies. They were also specialized depots for ceremonial creations and objects, including, in former times, 'hot' materials such as those associated with headhunting and warfare. In general, and in particular, among the Tetun speakers of Belu, the world outside and beyond the house was often considered a 'male' hostile environment while the interiors of great dwellings were decidedly 'female.' Within a tripartite universe, both extended residential houses and uma lulik can be considered structures that stood between heaven and earth and mirrored each group's belief system in microcosmic reflection. (For a fine introduction to Timor, see de Jonge: pp. 244-251, Eyes of the Ancestors, Dallas Museum of Art).
Illustrated here is a rare figurative door from Belu that is currently curated by the Musée du quai Branly, Paris. Set amid visually shifting key designs, a bold, full-breasted, fecund figure represents the combined reproductive power — and the connectedness of many generations of women — into one winsomely wise figure (Alpert: 258-259). Great aristocratic houses had two complementary doors. The front was known as the ulon or "eye of the house." It was used by boys and men. A second door towards the rear of the house was situated near where food was cooked, and placentas were buried, as well as in close proximity to where the house's sacred ancestral altar was maintained. It is the axis mundi or power spot of the house. In olden times, men could only pass through this 'female' door (referred to literally as the 'vagina' of the house) when presenting a new child to the world while circuiting to the village's main plaza and back.
Other exquisite items reproduced from Belu include a tall, sturdy rice pounder with a wooden clapper surmounted by an almost portrait-like figure. It is not recorded exactly how and when such an item would have been used. Was it a utilitarian object of the highest aristocratic pedigree, or was it used in conjunction with rice in a more ritual setting? To strengthen it against cracking and percussive splitting attempts at binding, this pounder further suggests that it was a highly regarded implement. Also pictured here is a unique lime container (ahumama) fashioned of fragrant sandalwood. The composition's figure and the object's patination speak to its age and individual artistry. The angularity of its expressive face is found on other surviving Belu items, such as a well-conceived mask, again in Yale University Art Gallery.
Yale's collection stewards the finest overall repository of well-carved Timorese material in the public domain, particularly in the realm of masks where there is a very old masking tradition in Belu associated with headhunting. While used in modern times to entertain visitors and celebrate village life, a deeper or fuller understanding of their former usage remains limited (See: Alpert: 256-257). We do know that they were kept in the attic of the uma lulik and donned during the loro'sae, a victory dance that rose to a feverish crescendo culminating in the decapitation of prisoners at sunrise. Locally known as biola, four masterful old masks are featured here. Aside from the aforementioned mask, there is a small Expressionistic gem that was initially published in Jean-Paul Barbier's seminal catalog, Art of the Archaic Indonesians (Stohr: 1982). It is now part of the Musée du quai Branly collection. The third is a riveting favorite with inset 'eyes' of well-worn shells on display at the Dallas Museum of Art. The fourth example, conserved in Yale's collection, is one of a pair of nearly identical masks sporting unusual triangular headdresses.
As a general rule, venerable masks (as opposed to those made for sale since the late 1970s) possess denser, hardened, more complex surfaces. Such surfaces are typical of wooden objects that are long exposed and kept in a structure's upper galleries or attic. Understanding an object's skin or surface is important to be conversant with its journey through time. This is particularly true with biola, where reading a mask's surfaces is not unlike a sailor mastering his marine knots, a necessary though not always easy exercise.
From West and Central Timor is a series of pieces that include an intriguing rectangular tablet inscribed with a mosaic of avians, geckos, and saurian-like creatures. Its patterning contains motifs that are often depicted on Atoni spoons, betel nut containers, and textiles. The actual practical or mnemonic use of this venerable tablet is unclear. Two other wooden statuettes from this area are also featured. The first is an effigy of a female figure sporting a bowl. Her stance is imitative of the clay water pots that Timorese women often balance on the crowns of their heads. Tattooing was also once popular among Tetun-speaking groups in West Timor. However, among Dawan-speaking groups, most notably the Atoni, these sorts of patterns, while ubiquitously appearing on textiles, were generally not inked on their persons. This unusual item was collected by W. O. J. Nieuwenkamp before 1918 and is currently in Amsterdam's Wereldmuseum (Tropenmuseum). Nieuwenkamp wrote in 1925 that Timorese sculptural art was already rare and exceedingly difficult to find. The second effigy is an engaging male ancestor figure from West Timor now housed in the Museon Omniversum in the Hague.
Carved images of founding ancestors are known as ai tos (literally: hardwood). These are found in the form of either statues or posts. They were placed outside the entrances to villages, in and around graves, on stone platform altars, and in secluded spots in the forest where one prayed to their founding ancestors for renewal, ritual advice, and protection (See Alpert: 264 EOTA). Three very different examples are pictured here that are fashioned from chalk calcite or limestone. They include an evocative head from the Museum Nasional Indonesia in Jakarta, coupled with a powerful columnar figure from the Brignoni collection in the Museo delle Culture (Lugano, Switzerland) and a simple yet elegant statue with black jet eyes from the Netherlands' Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen. It is one of a pair of founding figures notated as being collected by 1939 at Halilulik village in Central Timor.
No introduction to Timor would be complete without the inclusion of the island of Atauro. The island lies less than 16 miles off the coast of Dili, the capital of Timor Leste. There are a few very rare idols, funerary statues, charms, decorated wooden adze shafts, and a superb figurative shield in addition to the much more common itara, individual ancestor figures that have survived from this locale. Itara were once hung, sometimes singularly, often paired in couples, or occasionally bunched in clusters like hanging fruit from a forked post that was always placed at the rear of a traditional dwelling. Statues were named and invoked during ritual recitals to entreat the blessings of the ancestors (see Alpert: 269/269 EOTA). This particular itara, with its almond eyes and sensitively rendered head, is one of the finest and largest known. Although photographed by Father Jorge Duarte in the 1950s and discussed in Timor: Rito e Mitros Atauros (1984), these items were largely unknown and not to be found in museum exhibitions or depots until the 1970s. Since then, and for both Timor and Atauro, there are traditions that have been re-invented or reinvigorated for tourism and collector consumption.
Prior to the region's conversion to Christianity, a divine couple reigned supreme among the inhabitants of Atauro. Baku-Mau and his female consort, Lebu Hmoru, were worshipped as important fertility deities. There is one famous pair of posts from an outdoor shrine near Mount Mano-Koko representing these deities that remain in a private collection. From the public domain, housed in the Dallas Museum of Art and the Indiana University Art Museum there is a compelling pair from an indoor sanctuary (ruma-lului). The positioning of the 'children' is critical to the identity of each figure. Baku-Mau boldly presents his forward-looking children to the outer world in a gesture of masculinity. In contrast, his counterpart, Lebu Hmoru's pair of children look inward while being breastfed and nurtured by the goddess.
The most articulately rendered antique Atauro pieces are often singular survivors. Most came from the last pre-Christian enclaves in the remote southern interior around Macadade to Makili on the southeastern coast. Coming from the former is an intriguing and well-carved charm or amulet from a Dugong's tooth, inscribed with shallow lines and copper inlaid eyes. Her stylish bun and prominent breasts indicate a high-ranking female, perhaps even Lebu Hmoru, "The bearer of unripe coconuts, who ensures the fecundity and regeneration of all things." (Alpert: 270-271 EOTA). In the same tradition is a hunkered wooden memorial figure, the sculptural pride of Yale's assemblage of this area's material. Also, similar to the Dugong charm, this effigy has inlaid copper eyes and a similar rendering of an exposed spinal column and raised scapula on the statue's reverse. This category of statue was always placed outside of the house near or on a burial enclosure.
Ritual water-bearing forms, ceremonial spoons, and ladles are common in various cultures throughout Indonesia. The greatest amount of variation and applied artistry in spoon-making is found among the Atoni and Tetun of Timor. Here, ritual spoons (nura dikun) were most often made from heated and oiled buffalo horn to make the material more pliant before being shaped and sometimes carved with intricate designs that might include birds and human figures. A spoon's color could range from translucent amber to burnt umber and all manner of playful reddish-browns to black. The philologist and missionary Pieter Middlekoop, who arrived in Timor in 1922, wrote that such spoons "were exclusively used during a farewell meal for the deceased." During this ritual feast (kenduri), the souls of the departed became birds while in the process of terminating their relationship with the living. Among the Atoni, the name for a spoon in their ritual language, kol kotin, means the "backbone of birds." Humorous yet with an underlying gravity, this is an unusual example of an Atoni spoon. It depicts a hands-on-hips human figure whose head is a bird in the act of grooming itself.
For its size, artistry, and sophisticated interaction between the souls of men and that of birds, another feasting spoon is also illustrated. This large spoon once belonged to the kings of Mandeu in Belu. It is one of the greatest nura dikun extant. The front and reverse mirror one another. Its forepart depicts three figures whose bodies and framing are bound by what at first appears to be overlapping horizontal shingles or design devices. These also can be understood as layered feathers extending to the outer edges of the spoon, where they merge into the heads of five birds. The net visual effect of these layered motifs is processional, akin to that of smoke rising — and synonymous with change — where the three bent-kneed figures at the peak of the spoon dance or stand to receive or acknowledge the spirits of those metamorphosing below.
Ending this introduction is one of the most beautiful and enigmatic of all Eastern Indonesian items. It's a very old (ca. 17th century) ceremonial ivory spoon that once belonged to the renowned collector James Hooper. Hooper kept it in his desk drawer. Both he and his grandson, Dr. Steven Hooper, always felt it was of Indonesian origin at a time when early, singular pieces from Atauro were still largely unknown. This figure contains all the salient elements that one finds in early Atauro pieces, namely its stacked topknot, its unique scapula and exposed spinal column, mid-mandibular appendage, overall facial structure, and old repairs using hammered copper rivets. It also contains stylistic elements that range from Tanimbar all the way to West Papua. Today, it is considered to be of Eastern Indonesian origin.
During the late 17th century, documents attest to the northern Sultan of Tidore giving permission for flotillas of his subjects, ranging from Papuans and Raja Empat islanders to raid as far south as Timor annually. In this region, time-honored interactions between islanders appear to have contracted with the enforcement of regional Dutch hegemony.
That so many styles and artistic variations can be ascribed to individual groups in Timor is impressive. It reminds one that the area's artistic creations were in part fostered and enriched by age-old notions of 'exchange.' Exchanges are expressed in the realm of 'wife-givers' and 'wife-takers' as regards to dowry goods to circulate items of prestige. There was also the traditional notion that persons of standing, such as aristocrats, big men, and rulers, were compelled to give more than they received when exchanging gifts of stature. Lastly, there is the influx of ideas, forms, and new materials resulting from the area's unique history that affected and transformed elements within local styles. Many of the Timor and Atauro items pictured along with the Hooper spoon in terms of their age, singularity, craftsmanship, and diverse materials remind us that universal beauty should be tenderly honored — as we have lost, neglected, or destroyed far more knowledge of humankind's material past than we will ever manage to rediscover or fully understand.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
References
Waterson, Roxana: The Living House: an Anthropology of Architecture in South-East Asia.
Hicks, David: Art and Religion on Timor, Islands and Ancestors, pp 138-149.
Hicks, David: Timor: Arts of the South Seas: Island Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia, pp 130-139.
de Jonge, Nico: Eyes of the Ancestors. Traditional Art in Timorese Princedoms, pp 244-251.
Alpert, Steven: Eyes of the Ancestors, The Arts of Island Southeast Asia. Timor and Atauro: pp 252-273.
Alpert Steven: An Early ivory spoon with Stylistic Connections to Indonesia Tribal Arts: 2003, pp 100-107.
1
House Door
Musée du quai Branly
Paris, France
Early 20th-century
Timor
Tetum peoples
Wood with black patina and bone
Formerly in the collection of Musée Barbier-Mueller
70.2001.27.487
2
Rice Pestle
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
Late 19th-century - early 20th-century
Timor
Wood with rattan
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.159
3
Ceremonial Lime Container | Ahumama
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
19th or early 20th-century
Belu, West Timor
Tetum people
Sandalwood
The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, 1996.205.A-B
4
Ceremonial Mask | Biola
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
18th-century - 19th-century
Timor
Probably Atoni peoples
Wood with fur, hide and iron nails
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.430
5
Ceremonial Mask | Biola
Musée du quai Branly
Paris, France
20th-century
Timor
Atoni peoples
Light wood, crusty soot patina
Formerly in the collection of Musée Barbier-Mueller
70.2001.27.362
6
Ceremonial Mask | Biola
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
19th-century
Belu, West Timor
Tetum people
Wood, chalk, lime, resin, nails, and shell inset for eyes
The Roberta Coke Camp Fund, 1994.254
7
Ceremonial Mask | Biola
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th-century
Timor
Atoni peoples
Wood
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.429
8
Carved Panel
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th-century
Timor
Atoni peoples
Wood
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.622
9
Ancestor Figure with Offering Bowl
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
The Netherlands
Before 1918
Timor
Atoni peoples
Wood, cotton fiber, coconut shell, pigment
TM-77-84
10
Ancestor Figure
Museon
The Hague, Netherlands
19th-century - 20th-century
Timor
Wood
48894
11
Ancestor Image | Ai Tos
Museum Nasional Indonesia
Jakarta, Indonesia
Timor
Stone
12
Ancestor Image | Ai Tos
Museo delle Culture
Lugano, Switzerland
Timor
Stone
13
Ancestor Image
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen
The Netherlands
Timor
Tetum peoples
Chalkstone
RV-2380-275
14
Shrine Figure of a Deity | Baku-Mau
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
Late 19th-century or early 20th-century
Atauro Island
Wood
Gift of Helen Bankston, Sally Brice, Ginny Eulich, Margaret Folsom, Mary Ellen Fox, Betty Jo Hay, LaVerne McCall, Judy Tycher, and an anonymous donor, 1983.49
15
Shrine Figure of Deity | Lebu-Hmoru
Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
ca. 1900
Atauro Island
Wood
82.32
16
Ancestor Figure | Itara
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
Early 20th-century
Atauro Island
Wood, fiber, and cloth
The Art Museum League Fund, 1981.15
17
Seated Ancestor Figure
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th-century
Atauro Island
Wood
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.524
18
Standing Charm Figure
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
19th-century
Atauro Island
Dugong tooth, copper
Gift of Steven G. Alpert and Family, 2001.355
19
Ceremonial Spoon | Nura Dikun
Yale University Art Gallery
New Haven, Connecticut
19th-century
Timor
Atoni peoples
Buffalo horn
Promised gift of Thomas Jaffe, B.A. 1971
ILE2012.30.439
20
Ceremonial Spoon | Nura Dikun
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
19th-century
Belu, West Timor
Tetum people
Buffalo horn
Promised gift of Sally R. and William C. Estes to the Dallas Museum of Art, PG.2013.9
21
Ceremonial Spoon
The Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, Texas
c. 17th-century
Eastern Indonesia
Ivory
Promised gift of Steven G. Alpert and Family, PG.2013.7
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of the attributed museums.