Part 12 (2/2)
The only striking peculiarity of the loom is its extreme simplicity. The upper ends of the web are looped over a stout bar which is fixed to a pair of uprights about a yard above the floor. The lower ends of the web are looped over a stout rod, to the ends of which a loop of cord is tied. The woman sits on the ground, (see Pl. 121) with this loop around her waist, and thus stretches the web and maintains the necessary tension of it. The manipulation of the shuttle and of the threads of the web is accomplished without other mechanical aids than the rods to which the one set of webthreads is tied by short threads.
CHAPTER 12
Decorative Art
All the tribes of Borneo practise a number of decorative arts. Some of the Klemantans, notably the Malanaus, excel all other tribes, in that they attain a high level of achievement in a great variety of such arts; but each tribe and sub-tribe preserves the tradition of some one or two decorative arts in which they are especially skilled. Thus some of the Klemantan tribes specially excel in the finer kinds of wood-carving (E.G. the decoration of paddles); the Kayans in tatuing and in chasing designs on steel; the Kenyahs in the painting of s.h.i.+elds and in the production of large designs carved in low relief on wood and used for adorning houses and tombs; both Kayans and Kenyahs excel in the carving of sword-handles in deer's horn; the Barawans and Sebops in beadwork; the Kalabits and Ibans in tracing designs on the surface of bamboo; Punans in the decorative mat-work; Kanowits and Tanjongs in basket-work.
Wood-carving is the most generally practised and on the whole the most important of the decorative arts. Much of it is done on very hard wood; and the princ.i.p.al tools are the sword, the small knife carried in the sword-sheath, and adzes and axes of various sizes. The blade of the knife is some three inches in length, resembling in general shape the blade of the sword; it is wider in proportion, but has the same peculiar convexity of the one side and concavity of the other in transverse section. The shaft is sunk into the end of a rod of hard wood and secured with gutta and fine rattan las.h.i.+ng. The handle of hard wood is about a foot in length, half an inch in diameter, and slightly bowed in the plane of the blade, the convexity being in the direction of the cutting edge of the blade. The b.u.t.t end of the handle is cunningly carved in the shape of a crocodile's head, or prolonged in a piece of carved deer's horn. The blade of the knife is held between the thumb and finger of the right hand, the cutting edge directed forwards, and the long handle is gripped between the forearm and the lower ribs; the weight of the body can thus be brought to the a.s.sistance of the arm in cutting hard material. With this knife most of the finer carving is done, the adze and sword being used chiefly for rough shaping.
The adze consists of a flat blade of steel in the shape of a highly acute-angled triangle (Pl. 111). The slightly convex base is the cutting edge. The upper half of the triangle (which may or may not be marked by a shoulder) is buried in the las.h.i.+ngs by which it is attached to the wooden haft. The haft is a small bough of tough, springy wood, cut from a tree, together with a small block of the wood of the stem; the latter is shaved down until it forms an oblong block continuous with the haft and at an angle to it of 70[degree] -- 80[degree]. The upper half of the metal blade is laid upon the distal surface of this block and lashed firmly to it with fine strips of rattan. A piece of skin is often placed between the metal and the las.h.i.+ngs; this facilitates the removal of the blade, and enables the craftsman to alter the angle between the cutting edge and the haft. Commonly the blade is laid in the plane of the haft, and the implement is then what we should call a small axe; on turning the blade through go', it is converted to a small adze; and not infrequently the blade is turned through a smaller angle, so that its plane forms an acute angle with that of the haft.
Carved woodwork is commonly painted with black and red paint, prepared respectively from soot and iron oxide mixed with sugar-cane juice or with lime; the moist pigment is applied with the finger on larger surfaces, and the finer lines and edges are marked out with the aid of a chisel-edged stick of wood.
Beadwork
Old beads are much valued and sought after by all the tribes except Ibans, especially by the Kayans. There are few families of the upper cla.s.s that do not possess a certain number of them.
Many varieties are well known, and some of the Kayan women are very expert in recognising the genuine old specimens, and in distinguis.h.i.+ng these varieties from one another and from modern imitations.
Formerly these old beads were one of the princ.i.p.al forms of currency, and they still const.i.tute an important part of the wealth of many families.
Most of these valuable old beads are of foreign manufacture, though a few made from sh.e.l.l and agate are of the country. The old foreign-made beads were probably imported by Arab and Chinese traders at various dates. Some of them are probably of Chinese manufacture, others probably came from the near East and even from Venice. Some are of gla.s.s curiously marked and coloured, others of stone inlaid with bits of different colours, others of some hard substance whose composition defies description. Certain rare kinds are especially valued and can hardly be bought at any price; they are reckoned to be worth at least 100 dollars apiece. The most valuable of all is known as the LUKUT SEKALA; the owners.h.i.+p of each such bead is as accurately known throughout a large district as the owners.h.i.+p of the masterpieces of ancient art in our own country. The wife of a rich chief may possess old beads to the value of thousands of pounds, and will wear a large part of them on any occasion of display (Pl. 130). These old beads are worn threaded together to form necklaces and girdles, being arranged with some reference to harmony of size and colour and to value, the most valuable being placed in the middle where they will be shown to best advantage. A single rare bead is sometimes worn on the wrist.
A woman who possesses a good stock of such beads will seldom be seen without some of them on her person. She will occasionally exchange a few for other varieties, and is generally eager to add to her collection; she may occasionally make a present of one or two to some highly esteemed friend or relative, and will generally a.s.sign them, but without handing them over, to various female relatives before her death.
Besides these valuable old beads there are in use among all the tribes many small gla.s.s beads of modern European manufacture. These are threaded to form a variety of designs, generally in two colours, the combination of black and yellow being the most commonly preferred. These strips of beadwork are put to many decorative uses: they are applied to the women's head-bands, to the centre of the sun-hat, to sword sheaths, to cigarette boxes, to the war-coat at the nape of the neck, and, by some Klemantans, to the jackets of the women.
The designs worked in this way are but few, and most of them are common to all the tribes. The thread used is prepared by rolling on the thigh fibres drawn from the leaf of the pine-apple; it is very strong and durable. The design to be reproduced is drawn or carved in low relief on a board. A thread is fixed across the end of the board and others are tied to it at short intervals; on these the beads are threaded, neighbouring threads being tied together at short intervals; and the colours of the beads are selected according to the demands of the pattern over which they are worked.
Besides these designs on the flat, ta.s.sels, girdles, necklaces, ear-rings, and cigarette rings are also made of these beads. The modern imported beads used for these purposes are sometimes improved by being ground flat on the two surfaces that adjoin their neighbours; this is done by fixing a number of them into the cut end of a piece of sugar-cane and rubbing this against a smooth stone. This treatment of the beads gives to the articles made of them a very neat and highly finished appearance.
Bamboo Decorations
The working of designs on the surface of pieces of bamboo is done very simply, but none the less effectively. Among the bamboo articles generally decorated in the way to be described are the native drinking-cup, the tobacco-box, and tubes for carrying flint and steel and all sorts of odds and ends.
The pattern to be produced is outlined with the point of the knife upon the surface of the bamboo, the artist working from memory of the desired pattern and adapting it to the proportions of the surface to be covered. The Iban works more freely than others, working out the pattern and modifying it to meet the exigencies of his material, section by section, as he goes along. Others plan out the design for the whole surface before working out any part in detail. It is probable that in no case does a man sit down and produce a new pattern; but the freer mode of working of the Iban leads him on to greater modifications of the traditional designs; and it is probably partly for this reason that a much larger variety of designs is applied in this way by them than by the other tribes, among whom they are very limited in number. But the greater variety of designs worked by the Ibans is due also to the readiness with which he copies and adopts as his own the patterns used by other tribes. The Kayans and Kenyahs use almost exclusively varieties of the dog pattern and of the hook and circle (see Fig. 47).
The design outlined by the point of the knife is made to stand out boldly from the ground by darkening the latter. This is achieved in two ways: (1) the ground is covered with parallel close-set scratches, not running continuously throughout the larger areas of the ground, but grouped in sets of parallel lines some few millimetres in length, the various sets meeting at angles of all degrees; (2) the hard surface of the bamboo is wholly sc.r.a.ped away from the ground areas to a depth of about half a millimetre. In either case the black or red paint is then smeared over the whole surface with the finger, and when it has become dried the surface is rubbed with a piece of cloth (Kayan), or sc.r.a.ped lightly with a knife (Iban). The pigment is thus removed from the intact parts and remains adherent to the lines and areas from which the hard surface layer has been removed. The design is thus left in very low relief, and is of the natural colour of the bamboo upon a black or dark-red ground, or on a ground merely darkened by the parallel scratches (Pls. 126, 127).
Las.h.i.+ng
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