Ornamental Prow Figures from the Boats of Borneo
Ornamental Prow Figures from the Boats of Borneo
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month, Art of the Ancestors illustrates a small yet diverse group of canoe prow ornaments from Sarawak, housed in various global museums. These include the Borneo Cultures Museum in Kuching, the British Museum, the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Penn Museum.
When I gaze out of my window onto the waters of British Columbia's Haro Strait, one can easily imagine a Haida war canoe rounding the cove where I live with several dozen or more armed paddlers. As a student in New Zealand, I was also always awed and enamored by the beautifully carved Maori war canoes (waka taua), particularly one named 'Te Toki-a-Tapiri' that anchored the Maori Court in the Auckland Museum. The awe and fear that all these boats must have once inspired as they glided across the water is almost palpable.
Dugout canoes were used throughout the Austronesian-speaking diaspora as well as in Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Important crafts were cut with great ceremony by experts from well-chosen trees. In general, a combination of felling tools and careful adzing was employed to create war canoes and smaller riverine craft. Smoking the wood was also sometimes applied to the process to release a tree's sap to harden a boat's surface further. Long and narrow braces and stays were inserted during the creation of larger dugouts or keel plank craft to ensure against their expansion or the warping of the wood.
In Island Southeast Asia, war canoes such as karakoa or salisipan from the Philippines, the kora-kora of the Moluccas, or the large dugout canoes from the Asmat peoples of West Papua were formidable. Add to this select group the war canoes or riverine boats of diverse Bornean groups, particularly the prahu pengayuh or bangkong of the Iban Dayak of Sarawak, that were, by any boatwright's standard, finely wrought and resulted in efficient craft.
Boats fashioned in Sarawak or in Kalimantan were traditionally hewn from one of the hardest and most resilient woods on earth. As the name implies, ironwood or belian (Eusideroxylon zwageri), which is locally known as ulin, possesses a disease-resistant surface. The hardness and the firm structure of this wood allowed it to withstand the demands of heavy use, even in rocky or low-draught conditions, and thus able to survive both turbulent longshore or powerful river currents. Less durable, lighter woods were also employed, such as Resak (balau or keruing bab) or Bangkerai (from the shorea genus), which was also utilized for boats as well as for their upper planking and platforms.
The largest Dayak war boats measured up to 90 feet in length (27 meters) and could be manned by as many as 60-80 warriors. (Marryiat: 1848: 64) More specifically, Iban warships were not purely dugout canoes, but were of keel plank construction as carefully described by the missionary Andrew Horsburgh (1858: 36).
"The ledges of the keel-plank (the hollowed out log), and that of the first side plank, are then pierced, a firm rattan lashings passed from one to the other. The lower edge of the second side-plank is in like manner laid upon the ledge of the first, and these two planks are lashed together in the same way as the first was lashed to the keel."
Planks or side gunnels were then caulked with various combinations of rattan strips, pithy bark, and compacted mosses to render them water-tight. Horsburgh goes on to comment: "In the construction of their boats they not only employ no nails, treenails or bolts, but even no timbers — nothing but planks ingeniously lashed together." The lashings were then easily dismantled, like the boats themselves, for portage, storage, and the stealth needed for successful raiding. An illustration of a Dayak war prahu from the Skrang River (Ling Roth: 1896: 247) depicts this sort of craft with a fighting platform and the addition of a small swivel gun or Malay cannon (lela) on the fore-bow of the ship.
Raiding Iban warriors positioned themselves on the craft's thwarts for efficiency and to increase its speed. They were said to be able to paddle for up to 18 hours at a clip, or slightly more than 100 miles per day. (Hugh Low: 1848: 221/Ling Roth: 1896: 249) Other early observers describe that the boats of the "Sea Dayaks" were painted with white lime and the pounded seeds of the annatto tree (Bixa orellana), which was then mixed with palm oil to produce a stunning red ochre. A boldly colored, most likely Iban prow ornament, now housed in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, utilizes this palette. It is carved in the form of a Naga, or mythological dragon-like creature. The figurehead was given to the museum by William Furness III in 1898.
Another figurehead of note is the Kenyah canoe prow ornament (hudo alud) from Cambridge. It appears to fuse elements of a powerful crocodilian form with those of a Chinese qilin and a celestial dragon. Here, a mixture of tradition and imported mediums feature two Chinese porcelain trade bowls that were affixed to create bulging, all-seeing eyes. This prow ornament is from Long Ulai on the Tinjar River. It was collected in situ by Charles Hose, a larger-than-life district officer (under Rajah Charles Brooke, 1884-1904). He is remembered as an able administrator, zoologist, and noted amateur ethnologist who authored several important books. The Pagan Tribes of Borneo (1912) is still regarded as a meaningful contribution to the area's ethnology. Hose also supplied many museums with diverse artifacts, drawing on his many years of observations and expertise. This included selling his largest single collection to the British Museum in 1905. Hose was also directly or indirectly responsible for five of the seven canoe bow ornaments in this feature, including the two illustrated from the British Museum.
Prow ornaments from Borneo are quite rare. Few have survived the vicissitudes of time. Undoubtedly, the two finest remaining examples of the genre are housed at the Borneo Cultures Museum in Kuching, Sarawak. These were collected not by Hose but by Sir Hugh Low, a naturalist, colonial administrator, and confidant of Raja James Brooke, who resided in Sarawak from 1844 to 1846. His ethnographic material was largely sourced from the Baram River area and given to the Sarawak Museum in 1886. His notes and journals were reorganized and became the basis of Henry Ling Roth's classic two-volume work, The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo (1896). Both of the Kuching Museum's admirable canoe prow ornaments represent wide-jawed mythological creatures. One is bent-kneed, hunkered, and long-snouted, while the other boasts a beast with large flaring nostrils that are decorated with deeply cut spirals. Here, the beast has wide-open jaws and is in the midst of devouring a hapless, twisting victim — as if to project a prayer for victory that projects the annihilation of the crew's enemies.
Thanks to a young and adventurous trio — William H. Furness III, Hiram M. Hiller, and Alfred C. Harrison — the University of Pennsylvania preserves a number of fine canoe prow ornaments. From 1896 to 1898, through three privately funded journeys, the Furness-Hiller-Harrison collections eventually grew to some 2,000 cultural items. Their story is well documented by Adria Katz and is a must-read for anyone interested in early Borneo collections.(See: “Borneo To Philadelphia: The Furness-Hiller-Harrison Collections” by Adria H. Katz). Many items were collected in the then-recently pacified areas along the Baram, Apoh, and Tinjar Rivers. Furness and Hiller journeyed past the Kayan village of Lawa, beyond the rapids and the headwaters to the remote Pata River, and on to Long Lutin, where the famous Kenyah chief, Tama Bulan, lived. The canoe and the introductions provided for this trip were carefully orchestrated by Charles Hose. The great chief proceeded to lavishly entertain the young adventurers. Word spread as villagers and varying local tribes soon brought in artifacts for the group's inspection and purchase. There, Furness and Hiller found themselves "in the midst of a regular bargain day at Wanamaker's [A famous Philadelphia department store which is today a National Landmark]. 'The chief and some of his men contributed shields, spears, and blowpipes', "but we bought right and left and feeling under obligations to the men for bringing us up, we did not haggle with our old friends on the prices." (Katz: 1988)
Three ornaments from this area are each distinctive examples of the genre. One depicts a fanged mythical beast with its arms clasped over its head, while another portrays a long-snouted creature with its limbs akimbo. It is also overpainted with a blackened, soot-derived pigment to highlight salient details. One of the great delights in looking at this material was to discover a unique survivor amid prow types. This one is in the form of a large, ornamented bowsprit with a raised, splayed, and well-endowed human figure in rounded high relief. Lastly, a canoe strut ornament used as a spear rest is decorated with two animated creatures: one's gaze is looking off and away, while the other stares directly at its counterpart.
The legacy of mighty canoes populated with warriors lives on today in the annual canoe race competitions and regattas that attract both locals and an increasing number of travelers and tourists. The most famous is the annual Sarawak Regatta. The race was first organized all the way back in 1871. As an important event, races were established as part of the peace-making process. A famous one was held for the Baram River area in Marudi in 1899. Organized by Charles Hose, canoe racing was transformed into a means to underscore the cessation of old enmities and blood feuds. Replacing endemic raiding with a powerful yet peaceful way to compete was encouraged as a colonial-era governmental device to persuade tribes to give up headhunting. Today, such races underscore community skills, artfulness, and identity while fostering civic cooperation and national unity. Dragon boat races and regattas are truly exciting events.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
