Borneo-Dayak CRAFTS
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The Tomb-Womb Jar

An immediate association of the jar, a major underworld symbol, is with death. For 3,000 years jars have been used in Borneo as burial containers. But the jar is also a symbol of the female sexual organs and, in a tomb-and-womb symbolism, the body buried in the foetal position in a jar awaits rebirth.

The jar, containing the primeval waters, is the source of life and, often capped with a gong, it is always represented as the foundation of the Three of Life, which is thus sometimes a potted plant. With its high mana value, the jar is equated to a slave and is part of the gravegoods, bridewealth, and fines payments. As a funeral item it is often "killed" - that is, broken - and jars of rice beer are substitutes for a head or a human sacrifice. The consumption of the contents of the jar - the elixir of life - secures fertility.

The elixir of life can be equated with mana, and it is the gods who bestow it on humans. But female deities handle it: the god's wife pours the elixir on the deceased Ngaju's spirit to make it regain consciousness. Similarly, the Iban creator god could not give life to his human prototype in clay until his wife covered the image with a pua cloth.

The Iban pua, as well as the bundle of isang leaves of other groups, both used for wrapping human heads, are mana containers closely related to the jar. Glass beads, because of their shape and high mana value, may also be equated with the jar.

In coastal Indianized regions and among the Land Dayak and some Barito groups, the lotus motif is the equivalent of the jar - and some Land Dayak transferred the attributes of the lotus to the Rafflesia flower. Both the lotus center and the jar contain the elixir of life, the Indian soma.

In formerly Hindu Brunei, the Sultans bestow fertility on his subjects with the water of his scred jar. The lotus symbolizes the cosmic egg which, in Hindu tradition, derives from the pure light impregnating the inert primeval waters. While an egg is the mythical origin of the Indianized kings of Brunei, east coast kingdoms trace their origin back to an egg and a section of bamboo giving birth to two royal children. The egg-and-bamboo myth is also found among the Tunjung, and the Kayan have a mythical hero born of the oval durian fruit.

Bornean arts: The dragon and the underworld, The Tomb-Womb-Jar, The hornbill and the upperworld, The tree of life, The squatting slave and other anthropomorphs, The old tiger, The spirit ship, Plant and geometric motifs.