Mandau pommel representation?

[migueldiaz]

hello all!

i've just finished reading sellato's hornbill and dragon (courtesy of a friend). there's a lot of pics of the mandau in there but the book didn't say what the pommel figure represents.

i've just browsed the articles in this forum but i didn't come across any info as to what the pommel is supposed to depict.

was there a consensus already among experts on the mandau as to what it is, and if yes, what would it be? (e.g., would it be the dragon dog, aso, for instance).

thanks in advance for any answer

the pic below is from oriental-arms of course ...

[Mytribalworld]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

hello all!

i've just finished reading sellato's hornbill and dragon (courtesy of a friend). there's a lot of pics of the mandau in there but the book didn't say what the pommel figure represents.

i've just browsed the articles in this forum but i didn't come across any info as to what the pommel is supposed to depict.

was there a consensus already among experts on the mandau as to what it is, and if yes, what would it be? (e.g., would it be the dragon dog, aso, for instance).

thanks in advance for any answer

the pic below is from oriental-arms of course ...

Hi,

not an easy question to aswer, course in my opinion there's nothing such as " The mandauhilt" . the variations are enourmous due to cultural influences, migrations, wars, etc. actually the mandauhilt is built up from a complex mix of mostly leech motifs, dog/dragon motifs and human/spirit faces.
The overall shape is ( at least in my opinon) not fitting into an dragon,dog or animal head. If we may believe the old work of Hein , the mandauhilt is built up from 3 faces above eachother and indeed that is in many cases recongnizable,but mostly on mandaus from the south east part of Borneo.
Iban ( and a whole lot of other related tribes) carve a whole other mix of scrolls, dragons, nippels etc etc and their variations seems quite endless.

For explanation of these motifs you have to think a little the Dayak way.
The surrounding world is filled by spirits and to frigthen the bad ones and cheer the good onesyou can use several motifs. These motifs are on their way related mostly to symbols of power and strength like, deerhorn,hair,blood

In many cases the hilt has a spirit/human face what is so positioned that it sees forward when the mandau is in the scabbard.You see all over Borneo such faces sometimes very stylistic and totally faded.
According to Heppel ( read also Iban art) these faces represent the spirit of a trophy head.

there are however also totally ( quite scarce) undecorated mandauhilts, "Islamic" mandauhilts with flowermotifs, double headed mandauhilts , etc. etc etc.

I will see if I can find time to picture some hilts in my collection,

best regards,

Arjan

[Maurice]

Lorenz, what an outstanding question!
And Arjan gave an outstanding answer!

The only thing I could add is that I hope there will be time for Arjan taking images of his collection mandauhilts!
Maybe we could start a thread such as the parang face gallery from Michael, but then with different variants of mandauhilts, all over Borneo (face or no face).

But first find out if there is some animo for it, because the reactions on some threads of fabulous blades (of which much could be said) are very low lately.......or am I mistaken?????

Kind Regards,
Maurice

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by mandaukudi

Hi, not an easy question to aswer, xxx I will see if I can find time to picture some hilts in my collection

Arjan, many thanks for your answer

As Maurice also mentioned, it's awesome. Thus, your comments are truly much appreciated.

After reading your comments, I'm beginning to think that perhaps the reason why Bernard Sellato (author of Hornbill and Dragon) did not attempt to explain the symbolism of the mandau hilt was precisely because it was a difficult subject.

We also hope that at your convenience, you can post pics from your collection.

Thanks again for your remarks ...

[Henk]

Originally Posted by Maurice

Lorenz, what an outstanding question!
And Arjan gave an outstanding answer!

The only thing I could add is that I hope there will be time for Arjan taking images of his collection mandauhilts!
Maybe we could start a thread such as the parang face gallery from Michael, but then with different variants of mandauhilts, all over Borneo (face or no face).

But first find out if there is some animo for it, because the reactions on some threads of fabulous blades (of which much could be said) are very low lately.......or am I mistaken?????

Kind Regards,
Maurice

Maurice,

I think this can become a wonderful and interesting thread.
I hope Arjan can find some time to make some pictures of his collection. It would be nice if he could add also the tribe and the place of origin to the hilts. I surely hope that next to Arjan other knowledgeable members will follow with their hilts.

Migueldiaz,

Thank you for starting this thread.

[Maurice]

Originally Posted by Henk

It would be nice if he could add also the tribe and the place of origin to the hilts.

Henk that is a nice idea, but also a hard one to find...
I posted these images already in another thread, but I think they belong in this one also.
Here an Iban hilt and an Iban warrior with a similar one.

[asomotif]

Pfew....

I am glad that Arjan already replied.
That was exactely what I wanted to write

But seriously. The global shape of mandau hilts, in my opnion, is largely dictated by the shape of the antler from which it is cut/carved.

There are various shapes, but in most cases they are following the natural shape of the antler of the sambar deer.

Probably the various tribes will have their own names for different mandau hilt shapes. But in this respect I would like to recommend "the Womans Warpath" by Traude Gavin.
This is a book about textiles / Pua and Miss Gavin points out the fact that in our western minds we often want designs to be depicting something.
So if a design is called "centipede" or "leech" design, we start searching this design for features that resemble a cetipede or leech.
While in certain cases realting to Pua/textiles, the name of the design is just a name, because the woman wanted to give a certain design a recognisable name in order to be able to discuss it or to recall or reproduce it.

Take for instance a "stanley knife" in our culture.
The knife does not look like a person called stanley.
But with this name we all know what type/shape and function we are talking about.

In mandau hilts, we often see that the protruding ends of the hilt ar hollow and decorated with fangs. IMHO most probably to depict an ASO/Dragon.
But to take such a hilt and than decide that it depicts a dragon will probably be to easy.

Anyway, a veryinteresting thread. Thank you Miguel for starting it.
I would like to join Maurice in his hope that somemore forumites wil join the discussion and contribute with odd or scarce examples of hilts.

BTW, of course we already have a very large number of pictures on this fourm with quite scarce and rare mandau hilts.
Lets do our best to add some more

Best regards,
Willem

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Henk

Migueldiaz, Thank you for starting this thread.

Thanks too, Henk. And I do hope that with the heads of forumites put together, but still attached to the shoulders though the 'mystery' of the mandau hilt's design would be lifted a little.

Originally Posted by asomotif

This is a book about textiles / Pua and Miss Gavin points out the fact that in our western minds we often want designs to be depicting something ...

Thanks too Willem for your further elaboration on the subject. And I think it's a very good point you mentioned, among others -- taking the proper perspective (the various tribes' own viewpoint), would be key in understanding better the subject matter.

I am now browsing Quer Durch Borneo. Per some of the pics I saw in there (below), I've now come to the conclusion that, (a) these folks really know how to make swords, and (b) I was born into the wrong tribe

[Battara]

Originally Posted by migueldiaz

(b) I was born into the wrong tribe

Oh..I don't know about that. The Philippines has a long tradition of great carving as well. Take a look sometime at the okir tombstones of the Sulu islands. And then there are the Maranao building carvings in okir.

I don't know if you are a Tagalog, but at one time we may have had such artwork too.

I also noticed in the pictures there were women that looked like they were doing a version of tinikling dance. Truly they are cousins to Filipinos.

[migueldiaz]

Originally Posted by Battara

Oh..I don't know about that. The Philippines has a long tradition of great carving as well. Take a look sometime at the okir tombstones of the Sulu islands. And then there are the Maranao building carvings in okir.

I don't know if you are a Tagalog, but at one time we may have had such artwork too.

I also noticed in the pictures there were women that looked like they were doing a version of tinikling dance. Truly they are cousins to Filipinos.

Hey Battara, I was just being cute when I said I was born into the wrong tribe

That remark of mine is supposed to refer (tongue in cheek) to the pic where we see two men, very relaxed, while being attended to by their sweethearts.

Each region in southeast Asia is of course known for their own unique (but interrelated) culture. And each can be very proud of his/her heritage.

And a little off-topic, yes I am a Tagalog (Batangas on my mother's side and Pampanga-Nueva Ecija on the paternal side) ... and as a Filipino I am very proud of the history and culture of the country

Back to the topic ... as you also mentioned the links amongst the various southeast Asian ethnolinguistic groups are very intimate.

Again, I'd like to cite as evidence linguistics -- the Philippine word for headhunting or raiding or warfare (i.e., kayaw, pronounced kah-yao, the last syllable rhymes with cow) is almost the same throughout the region (Taiwan, Phils., Malaysia, Indonesia, etc., i.e., the Austronesian world), as we can see in this excerpt from a paper:

*maN-: PAn or PMP??-II

Blust (1999: 68, footnote 14): “Prominent examples include Puyuma [Taiwan aborigine] /mangayaw/ ‘to hunt heads’, a form which is synchronically unanalyzable, but is seen to have a historical prefix *maN- by comparison with Isneg ['Igorot'/ Phils.] /kayaw/ ‘headhunting’: /ma-ngayaw/ ‘to hunt heads’, Western Bukidnon Manobo [Mindanao, Phils.]/kayew/ ‘be in readiness of fight, be in array’: /me-ngayew/ ‘a raider’: /pe-ngayew/ ‘to raid a house or village in order to kill someone’, Kayan (Uma Juman dialect) [Borneo, Indonesia portion] /kayo/ ‘post-harvest ceremony for the ritual purification of weapons’: /ngayo/ ‘go to war, hunt heads’, Iban [Sarawak, Malaysia] /kayau/ ‘raiding, war, foray because of a feud, head- hunting’: /ngayau/ ‘make war on, go on a foray’, and POc [proto-Oceanic] *panako ‘steal’, a form which is synchronically unanalyzable in many Oc [Oceanic] languages, but which is seen to have a historical prefix *paN- by comparison with Aklanon [Panay Is., Phils.] /takaw/ ‘steal’: /pa-nakw/ ‘theft’ or Toba Batak [northern Sumatra] /tangko/ ‘theft’: /pa-nangko/ ‘thief’.”

*maN-: PAn or PMP??-III ␣ Isnag / Isneg [northern Luzon, Phils.]

(a) ŋáyaw ‘headhunting’ (Rudy Barlaan, pers. comm. 2008)

(b) agngangáyaw (< ag-CV-ngáyaw): ‘the time of headhunting’ (Vanoverbergh 1972)

Bugkalot / Ilongot [northern Luzon, Phils.] (Liao 2008)

(a) sit (t)a ŋáyo(v)an: one Lig headhunting; ‘a group of people going for headhunting in one place’ [Belance, Quirino, Aurora]

(b) ŋáyo(v)ɨn=dɨ=ydɨ no: buvat. headhunt=Gen.3p=Nom.3p Lcv tomorrow ‘They will headhunt against them tomorrow.’

The above dump is a bit jumbled but in essence, kayaw is almost the same word with the same meaning in Malaysia and Indonesia (i.e., in Borneo).

Which leads us back to the mandau and its hilt form, as it relates to headhunting, which headhunting activity was not unique to Borneo, but was widely practiced in the southeast Asia portion of Austronesia.

Thus when I posed the query as to the possible representation of the mandau hilt, I was also thinking of its possible explanatory power to the hilt forms of the wider formerly-headhunting Austronesian world

PS - Does anybody know the root word or meaning of the Bornean word, Ngaju? Perhaps it's also related to ngayaw (verb form of the noun kayaw).

[Battara]

Oh....I misunderstood....glad to hear it (I am Tagalog on my father's side).

BTW - thank you for the wonderful pictures.