IMUN AJO'
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FIG. 6 (right):
Hornbill headdress.
Kayan, Central Kalimantan
(Borneo), Indonesia. Before
1927.
Rattan, rhinoceros hornbill (Buceros
rhinoceros) beak and feathers, hide
(possibly Sunda clouded leopard,
Neofelis diardi), red trade fabric,
fiber. W: 21.5 cm.
Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam,
inv. TM-376-1.
FIG. 7 (below): Leopard
canine ear ornaments.
Kayan or Kenyah, East
Kalimantan (Borneo),
Indonesia. Before 1927.
Leopard (Neofelis diardi) canines,
glass beads, horn, rattan, vegetal
fiber.
Tooth length: 9 cm.
Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam,
inv. TM-391-16.
es the bracelets, armlets, garters, and front and
back headdress elements or hair. Since these are
unlikely to all be made of the same three-plaited
material, this may be a convention on the
sculptor’s part to represent texture, and in the
case of the loincloth, likely pleated or wrinkled
cloth. He notes that the garment does not pass
between the legs but also says that this part is indistinct.
Early photos of Dayak men show them
wearing a garment sufficiently similar that there
seems little need to reach out to New Guinea for
comparison (fig. 5).
The figure’s ears are particularly interesting.
They have round openings at the top where a
Kayan man of status would have had a canine of
the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi)—
or sometimes a similarly shaped piece of carved
hornbill casque—pierced through each (figs. 5
and 7). Representation of these is absent from
the figure in its current state. If they were ever
present, they may have gone the way of whatever
he was holding in his hands. The center of the
ear appears bound with bands of either fiber or
metal rings, a convention that is not known today
in Borneo, though as Harrisson points out,
given the Dayak penchant for ear modification,
there’s not much that’s off the table in this regard
(Harrisson 1964: 168). Most important are the
earlobes, which are extremely distended, each
supporting a dozen or so rings. This has long
been a common practice
among various Dayak
groups, though
in the period during
which photographic
images have been
recorded, the use of multiple rings rather than
single weights appears largely to be restricted to
women (fig. 5). It is entirely possible that this
has been a fluid designation over time. As Mark
A. Johnson (Johnson 2018) points out in his upcoming
book on Kayanic sculpture, particularly
old Kayanic woodcarvings sometimes show figures—
usually without defined gender markers—
with distended earlobes weighted by cursorily
rendered rings (fig. 8). For his part, Harrisson,
in his text, adds a telling note from the 1848
publication of the journals of James Brooke,
in which the Land Dayaks (Bidayuh) warned,
“When you meet a Dayak with many rings in his
ears, trust him not, he is a bad man” (Harrisson
1964: 168). Harrisson quotes correctly but fails
to add that here Brooke is referring specifically
to the “Sakarran” and “Sarebas” (Mundy 1848:
235–236), collectively known as the Sea Dayak,
or Iban.
The face of the sculpture has round eyes, a
slightly froggish mouth, and a long flat nose.