Borneo-Dayak CRAFTS
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Borneo's Dayak handicraft, the beauty of ancient tribal arts and handmade crafts

Traditional Life: Personal Adornment

Personal adornment, beyond the general notion of embellishment, marks wealth and status and at the same time is a protective device. Among the Kayan and Maloh, the use of certain materials - hornbill ivory or tiger fangs - and certain designs - in tattoo as in beadwork - is the prerogative of the aristocratic class.

In more egalitarian societies where wealth, not rank, prevails, no taboo restricts the competition in showing off. On every festive occasion, Iban women display their finery, superposing five or more embossed silver belts, and sporting an elaborate silver head-ornament, besides much other jewelry, and Iban men likewise compete in tattoo display.

Jewelry

Although Borneo has a good historical record of gold production, the Dayak hardly ever manufactured or used any gold ornaments. Rare examples are gold heads and leaves with lamiang heads in Ot Danum ritual necklaces, engraved gold cylinders in the Dusun kamuggi necklace, and gold ornaments on Landak girls' ceremonial hats. The Dayak likely traded the gold dust they panned for heads - which they valued more highly - to the sultanates, centers of gold and silver manufacture under influences from Java, Sumatra or the Bugis. Silverwork techniques diffused to local coastal peoples, for instance around Brunei, and inland to the Maloh, who peddled their ornaments around.

Other groups used bronze and brass ornaments, whether or not they could manufacture them. Women in many groups (Land Dayak, Ngaju, lban, Maloh, and Dusun) wore corsets of rattan strands covered with tiny metal rings. Bracelets were fashioned of metal, metal-inlaid wood, shells, and imported ivory. Beadwork, coins, shells, and bronze hells are made into belts or attached to hats and clothes. While common necklaces are of heads or beadwork, some Dusun women wear wide spirals of brass wire around their necks. Kelahit and Lun Dayeh men wore a carved bone hairpin and western Bajau women display a horn-shaped headdress.

In many groups, adult men wear ear ornaments with the dragon ("aso") motif in brass, deer antler. or hornbill ivory. The Kayan, Kenyah, and Kelahit wear drop-shaped pendants of brass, lead, tin, ivory, gutta-percha, stone, or hardwood. Whereas the upper Mahakam women prefer to wear masses of metal earrings, some Maloh, eastern Sarawak, and lower Mahakam women have large hardwood earstuds. Among Land Dayak and Barito groups heavy bronze wristlets and a cross-belt of tiny wooden statues. fangs, beads, and charms belong exclusively to the on-duty shaman's outfit. Land Dayak neck ornaments of beads and panther fangs - and sometimes human teeth - were most likely restricted to priests.

Tattoo

Although tattooing is losing ground among Borneo's peoples, it gave birth to sophisticated art forms on the most perishable of material, the human skin. Many traditional Asian populations practiced tattooing, from India to Japan. New Zealand. and Polynesia. In Borneo, the Tunjung and the Land Dayak did not tattoo. Among the Iban, and formerly in the southwestern groups, men tattoo heavily, whereas women generally do not, and among the northeastern groups only men tattooed. Conversely, among the Kayan and Kenyah it is the women who were covered with tattoos.

A widespread reason for tattooing is personal embellishment hut, for such addicts as Iban and Murut men, designs on skin are also symbols of manhood, success in war, and a means of identification in battle. A common pattern of tattoo lines on the back of fingers represents expeditions taken part in, or heads taken. Accomplished Iban weavers earn similar tattoos. Kenyah and Kayan women's tattoos mark status, as designs are class-ascribed.

Tattoo designs are magical protective devices to ward off evil among the Iban, and probably also the Dusun and Plains Murut, whose designs represent the shamanic cross-belt as a magical shield. Specific designs cure illness or pain, particularly at arm or leg joints. A complex religious meaning is often attached to tattoo. The Ngaju designs are complementary cosmic symbols, and the complete set identifies its wearer with the cosmic Whole. The Kayan and Kenyah believe that in the next world, where all things are reversed, the black tattoo marks shine brightly in the dark, allowing the deceased woman's spirit to find its way.

Tattooing takes place in the open or on the veranda. Among the Kayan and Kenyah the drawing, either free-hand or with carved stencils, of powerful designs is restricted to elderly men, who receive a bead as ritual salary for the risk incurred, whereas the tattooing itself is done by women. A thorn or needle attached to a handle is gently and repeatedly beaten with a mallet, and pushes a mixture of soot, sugarcane juice, and pig fat underneath the skin. The blacker the tattoo, the better.

The Ot Danum and Ngaju men had their torso, arms, and legs covered with intricate scrolls, and among the Beketan and other minor groups of central Sarawak men were tattooed all over, including their faces (also a Benua' feature). The Beketan tattoo design appeared in the natural skin color against a black background. The Iban male displays on his torso, arms, and legs a panoply of rosettes, dragons, and other designs of dubious identification. The Iban possibly borrowed this custom from the Kayan in the 19th century. Kayan men, however, hardly tattoo at all, whereas the women, like Kenyah and Modang women, tattoo their arms, legs, hands, and feet with scrolls, triangles, dragons, and spirit faces. The Kelahit women display wide zigzag tattoos on their arms and legs.

Physical Alterations

To further enhance personal beauty, the Dayak peoples resorted to body mutilations. Ear ornaments require the piercing of holes, first in the lobe, which extends down to incredible lengths as it carries an increasing weight of jewelry, to the point where women have to cup their earrings with their hands while walking to prevent the lobe from tearing. Esteemed warriors wear a panther or tiger fang in a hole pierced in the upper ear pavilion. A small plug may be placed in another hole in the upper part of the lobe. Body hair in general, and facial hair in particular, was considered ugly, and so beards and eyebrows were regularly shaved or plucked. Even eyelashes could he plucked, and pubic hair removed.

Among the same groups, teeth were filed level, a custom dating hack to Neolithic times. The Land Dayak. lban, and others filed teeth to sharp points, using a stone or sand. Teeth might be drilled and the holes filled with brass studs or colored glass, or capped in copper or gold with pins driven into the teeth to hold the capping, or simply lacquered black. The Dusun used to break off their upper incisors to give a stronger blow in the blowpipe. The pain of such treatments was probably soothed by the betel chew, and the lime with the chew provided some asepsis.

Among Dayak groups, those of Sabah excepted, one or more metal or bone pins - palang - were driven through the glands penis in order to increase its size. This distinctive Southeast Asian feature of penis inserts occurs also among the Batak, Makasar, Toraja. and in Mindanao. Iban men wear a special tattoo to indicate that they are palang wearers. The Melanau used to apply a wooden device to baby girls that flattened their skulls to give it a nicer shape. a trait also found in Mindanao and New Hebrides. Raised scars were restricted to one Punan group. Several Dayak groups use to color their feet and fingertips in red-brown. and some Iban women colored their torso an attractive yellow with turmeric.

Art in traditional life: People at home, Household arts and crafts, Clothes and textiles, Personal adornment, The wider world, The fields, River and forest, Trade, War, headhunting, and sacrifice, Traditional religion, Of Gods and men, Life and ritual, Sickness and shamanism, Death and funeral art, Primary funerals, Secondary funerals, The living and the death.