ART in situ 110 More than 100 years ago, in 1911, the geologist and geographer Dr. Johannes Elbert was the first to report on the “most interesting, magnificent grave markers,” which he encountered during his Sunda expedition when he crossed from Pasarwajo to Bau-Bau in 1909 (around 30 km as the crow flies) on the southern part of Buton Island, today part of Sulawesi. The wooden posts, up to two meters tall and carved from ironwood with a depiction of a dwelling or a boat on top, were called “maïàsa, maïèsa, or maïnjàsa” (Elbert 1911). The poles were anchored in the graves, which consisted of 1–1.5-meter-tall accumulations of coral blocks. Today, two of these sculptures with boats on top that were collected by Elbert are in the collection of the Facing page, top to bottom FIG. 2: Pile-dwellings in the Hendeya region, Buton Island. Photo: Volker Schneider, 1992. FIG. 3: Men’s graves with two mayasas, each with a boat. Kombeli, Buton Island, 1910. Photo from Johannes Elbert, Die Sunda-Expedition, Frankfurt: Minjon, 1911, table 21. By Thomas Keller Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt (Cipolletti 1989). In 1925, Hendrik H. Juynboll, former director of the Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde in Leiden, mentioned a wooden grave marker with a boat on top that had been given to that museum in 1916 by the former Royal Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences (Juynboll 1925). The next reference did not appear until almost sixty years later. Johan W. Schoorl, professor of social anthropology at the Vrije University in Amsterdam, during his fieldwork on Buton in 1981 on reincarnation beliefs, described “wooden graveside poles decorated with wood carvings,” which he called “mayasa,” in a village called Hendeya (Schoorl 1985). Again about ten years later, based on Elbert’s work, Dr. Volker Schneider was com- FIG. 1: Maps showing Buton Island. The region where mayasa sculptures were found is indicated in yellow. Adapted from Elbert, 1911. Mayasa Grave Sculptures ON BUTON ISLAND IN SULAWESI
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