Borneo's Dayak handicraft, the beauty of ancient tribal arts and handmade crafts
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The Dong-son themes and decorative style probably spreading into Borneo some centuries later. This style displays sequential and geometric arrangements of spirals and curvilineal figures and of animal and human motifs. Dong-son themes include the bird, the reptile or amphibian, the bamboo shoot, the spirit ship, and perhaps the Three of Life.

Bornean Art: Themes and Representations


Art themes are usually linked to, but not always consistent with, cultural themes. New decorative styles and motif names often cause art themes to drift away from the cultural themes to which they were originally related. Cultures have been tentatively distinguished according to the nature and origin of the themes and to styles.

An ancient, probably pre-agricultural culture featured a pantheon including the sun, moon, thunder, and the tiger. The first two have disappeared from the current cults, although they still show through in myths. They are seldom represented in the arts, and the tiger and thunder have been assimilated into more recent deities.

A neolithic culture, related to the arrival of the Austronesians and the advent of agriculture, emphasize fertility and is represented by stylized buffalo heads or horns, human heads and squatting human figures, and simple geometric patterns. The theme of the jar developed later, probably after 1000 BC.

The Dong-son culture emerged in Vietnam in the 7th Century BC, its themes and decorative style probably spreading into Borneo some centuries later. This style displays sequential and geometric arrangements of spirals and curvilineal figures and of animal and human motifs. Dong-son themes include the bird, the reptile or amphibian, the bamboo shoot, the spirit ship, and perhaps the Three of Life. Keys and rhombs and the swastika possibly developed later from the spiral motif.

From the Chinese Shang and Chou dynasties (5th-3rd centuries BC), new themes later came to Borneo, particularly the dragon and dragon face, often depicted in a vivid style with profuse scrolls abd tendrills downplating symmetry. Around the 4th century AD Hindu influences began to spred the lotus and other floral motifs, mainly to coastal regions. Some time later, the monumental megalithic art started flourishing in the northern half of the island. Islamic influences later emphasized plant and floral motifs.

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