The weaving of decorative designs on cloth is almost confined to the
Sea Dayaks. Some account of the designs will be given below.
Shell-work
Shells (chiefly nassas and the flat bases of cone-shells) are sometimes applied by the Iban women to decorate their woven coats, by Kalabits (in concentric circles on their sunhats), and more rarely by other tribes in the decoration of baskets (Fig. 48). Fig. 49 represents a garment decorated in this fashion by Iban women, and worn by them when dancing with the heads of enemies in their hands.
The Decorative Designs
The Kayans make use in their decorative art of a large number of conventional designs. The principal applications of these designs are in tatu, beadwork, the production of panels of wood for the adornment of houses, tombs, boats, and PADI barns, the decoration of bamboo boxes, and the painting of hats, and the carving of highly ornate doors to the rooms. All these applications involve the covering of flat or curved surfaces with patterns either in low relief only or without relief; and many of the designs are applied in all these different ways, and all of them together form a natural group. Besides these surface designs, a considerable variety of designs is used in giving decorative form to solid objects such as the handles of swords and paddles, the ends of main roof-beams in the houses, posts used in various rites and in the construction of tombs, the figure-heads of war-boats. These, with the exception of those used in carving the sword handles, which are highly peculiar, form another group of relatives. The designs chased upon the blades of the swords constitute a fourth natural group distinct from the other two groups. A fifth small group of designs is carved in the form of fretwork. We propose to say a few words about the designs of each of these five groups.
(1) The designs of the first group are the most numerous and most widely applied. A large proportion of them obviously are conventionalised derivatives from animal forms. Of these animal forms the human figure, the dog, and the prawn have been the originals of the largest number of patterns; the macaque monkey and the large lizard (VARANUS) are also traceable. Some designs vaguely suggest a derivation from some animal form, but cannot confidently be assigned to any one origin.
A few seemed to be derived from vegetable forms; while some few, for example the hookpattern, seem to be derived from no animal or vegetable form. The hook-pattern seems to be symbolical of conjunction and acquisition in various spheres.
Of all the designs the derivatives from or variants of the dog are the most numerous and the most frequently applied. The name dog-pattern (KALANG ASU) is given to a very large number; and of these some obviously reproduce the form of the dog, while the derivation of the others from the same original can generally be made clear by the inspection of a number of intermediate forms, although some of them retain but very slight indications of the form or features of the dog. The unmistakable dog-patterns are illustrated by one of the panels shown in Pl. 124; and in Pls. 134 ET SEQ. we reproduce a number of dog-patterns of more or less conventionalised characters. It will be noticed that the eye is the most constant feature about which the rest of the pattern is commonly centred; but that the eye also disappears from some of the most conventionalised. It seems probable that, although the name KALANG ASU continues to be commonly used to denote all this group of allies, many of those who use the term, and even of those who carve or work the patterns, are not explicitly aware in doing so that the name and the patterns refer to the dog, or are in any way connected with it; that is to say, both the words and the pattern have ceased to suggest to their minds the meaning of the word dog, and mean to them simply the pattern appropriate to certain uses.
We have questioned men who have been accustomed to apply the dog-pattern as to the significance of the parts of the pattern, and have led them to recognise that the parts of the dog, eye, teeth, jaws, and so on, are represented; and this recognition has commonly been accompanied by expressions of enlightenment, as of one making an interesting discovery.[67] This ignorance of the origin of the pattern is naturally true only of the more conventionalised examples, whether of the dog or other natural forms. Probably a few who have specially interested themselves in the designs have traced out their connections pretty fully, but this is certainly quite exceptional. Most of the craftsmen simply copy the current forms, introducing perhaps now and then an additional scroll, or some other slight modification.
Some men are well known as experts in the production of designs, and such a man can produce a wonderful variety, all or most being well-known conventions. Their mode of working frequently implies that the artist is working to a pattern, mentally fixed and clearly visualised, rather than working out any new design. For he will work first on one part of the surface, then on another, producing disconnected fragments of the pattern, and uniting them later. Although the women use these patterns in beadwork and in tatuing, they rely in the main on the men for the patterns which they copy; these being drawn on wood or cloth for beadwork, or carved in low relief for tatuing. A Kayan expert may carry in mind a great variety of designs. One such expert produced for our benefit, during a ten days' halt of an expedition, forty-one patterns, drawn with pencil on paper; most of these are of considerable complexity and elaboration.