traditional dayak tatto

for many outsiders the name has been synonymous with a forbidding and isolated wilderness, a steamy rain-soaked place, dangerous and forlorn. While it was among the first lands in Asia to be visited by Europeans, it remained among the last to be mapped.

Borneo is the third largest island in the world. Six major, and numerous minor, navigable rivers traverse the interior and function as trade and communication routes for the indigenous peoples who live here, namely the Dayak. Dayak, meaning "interior" or "inland" person, is the term used to describe the variety of indigenous native tribes of Borneo, each of which has its own language and separate culture. Approximately three million Dayak - Ibans, Kayans, Kenyahs and others - live in Borneo. Most groups are settled cultivating rice in shifting or rain-fed fields supplementing their incomes with the sale of cash crops: ginger, pepper, cocoa, palm oil. However several hundred Penan, nomadic hunter-gatherers, continue to follow a traditional lifestyle in the jungle, one that is rapidly vanishing.

Aside from a few scattered reports of missionaries, traders, and a handful of explorers in the mid-19th century, almost nothing was known about the Dayak and their customs. To these outsiders only one thing was for certain: that the island was inhabited by "primitive" peoples who worshipped pagan gods and spirits and whose knowledge and skills made this land their home.

By 1900, however, anthropological interest in Borneo peaked and became the focus of several museum expeditions by the Dutch and British. With the many ethnological accounts that followed, some of the most interesting material that was generated focused upon the traditional tattooing practices of the Dayak. Tattooing was believed to be a sacred activity that was connected to many aspects of traditional Dayak culture, especially spirit worship and headhunting.

The most important symbol marking participation in the headhunt was tattoo (Iban: pantang). Among the Kayan, anthropomorphic figures were tattooed onto the fingers and were known as tegulun. Although they denoted having taken a head, tegulun possibly represented a sacrifice to a helper spirit that in former times was propitiated by killing a slave upon the construction of a new longhouse. Other tattoos covered the entire body. For example, this elder Dayak man photographed in 1896 

 (fig. 1 - click for larger image) 

Possesses a style no longer seen in this era of modernity. The central tattoo motif on his chest represents the trunk of the Garing tree; adjoining it above are the two outstretched wings of the hornbill - a messenger of the Iban war god, Lang Singalang Burong. Garing trees are believed to be immortal and invulnerable while the hornbill, marking rank and prestige, is believed to provide protection against the intrusion of evil spirits living in the jungle. Interestingly, images of the hornbill (Iban: tenyalang) were oftentimes carved and propitiated with sacrifices of pigs and human heads prior to them being mounted on display poles, since the spirit of the tenyalang was believed to leave its wooden body, fly to the longhouse of an enemy, and weaken the spirit of the headhunters living there. The tattooing that appears down the arms and over the shoulders represents the leaves of the areca palm, considered as another effective weapon against malevolent spirits. In a sense, then, Dayak men of this time were covered with a visual canopy of the creatures and plants that lived within their jungle domain. However, and when combined together, tattoos performed as an indelible form of camouflage acting upon the malevolent forces encountered in the jungle - headhunters and evil spirits. In the past, it seems that tattoo was one of the primary devices for completion - holding the body and its constituent parts together in a dangerous world - and maybe this is why the Ngaju Dayak say, "the tattooed man is the perfect and sacred man, and only such may receive the perfect tattooing."

Just as a great warrior was tattooed to mark his achievements in the human hunt, women were tattooed as proof of their accomplishments in weaving, dancing or singing - as well as for protective purposes. Following ritual precautions, weavers communicated with their spirit helpers before initiating a design. It was thought that this action would prevent irritating other spirits represented in a new weaving. Textile work, a hazardous undertaking recognized by the Iban as "women's war" (kayau indu'), was both socially and ritually marked by tattoo. Among the Kayan, tattoo (tedek) was handtapped onto the fingers of women in various patterns 

(fig. 2), 

  
 










although black spikes running from the knuckles to mid-digits was a fairly common design

For Borneo's Dayak peoples, spirits embody everything: animals, plants, and humans, Krutak explained. Many groups have drawn on this power by using images from nature in their tattoos, creating a composite of floral motifs using plants with curative or protective powers and powerful animal images. 

 

Tattoos are created by artists who consult spirit guides to reveal a design. Among Borneo's Kayan people, women are the artists, a hereditary position passed from mother to daughter. Among the Iban, the largest and most feared indigenous group in Borneo, men apply the tattoos.

These tattoos are blue-black, made of soot or powdered charcoal, substances thought to ward off malevolent spirits. Some groups spike their pigment with charms—a ground-up piece of a meteorite or shard of animal bone—to make their tattoos even more powerful.

For the outline, the artist attaches up to five bamboo splinters or European needles to a stick. After dipping them in pigment, he or she taps them into the skin with a mallet. Solid areas are filled in with a circular configuration of 15 to 20 needles.

A Spiritual Artform

Dayak tattoo is a spiritual artform that merges images of humans, animals, and plants into one unit, expressing the proliferation of life and the integration of living and spiritual beings in the cosmos. Death and fertility were the primary axes around which tattoo creativity spiraled. Tattooing offered visual testimony to the refusal of Dayak individuals to accept the finality of death and assert the indestructibility of their being. By emulating the life of the gods in everyday ritual, the Dayak procured their own form of divine power that ensured the perpetuation of human life in a continuum of eternity. Therefore, tattoos were articulating symbols inscribing implicit Dayak ideologies of existence upon the living canvas of human flesh.

Ritual Tattooing

Traditionally, Dayak tattooing was performed in a sacred ritual among gathered tribe members. Among the Ngaju Dayak, Krutak said, the tattoo artist began with a sacrifice to ancestor spirits, killing a chicken or other fowl and spilling its blood.

After a period of chanting, the artist started an extremely painful tattooing process that often lasted six or eight hours. Some tattoos were applied over many weeks.

For coming-of-age tattoo rituals, the village men dressed in bark-cloth. This cloth, made from the paper mulberry tree, also draped corpses and was worn by widows.

Tattooing, like other initiation rites, symbolized both a passing away and a new beginning, a death and a life. 

Head-hunting Tattoos

One Dayak group, the Iban, believe that the soul inhabits the head. Therefore, taking the head of one's enemy gives you their soul. Taking the head also conferred your victim's status, skill and power, which helped ensure farming success and fertility among the tribe.

Upon return from a successful head-hunting raid, participants were promptly recognized with tattoos inked on their fingers, usually images of anthropomorphic animals.

Head-hunting was made illegal over a century ago—but even today, an occasional head is still taken.

Tattooed Women

In past times, just as Iban men were tattooed to recognize their prowess in hunting or warfare, Iban women were adorned for accomplishments in weaving, dancing, or singing. Adolescent Kayan girls were tattooed at puberty to render status as an adult, to attract men, and to provide protection against evil spirits.

As they grew older, women were often covered by a weave of inked images spreading around their legs, across the tops of their feet, forearms, and fingers.

But only very wealthy Kayan women sported these intricate tattoos, Krutak said—"only aristocracy who could pay with a sword, a gong, pigs, or old trading beads." Only aristocratic women were allowed to use particular designs, because only these women were powerful enough to resist any negative magic associated with the designs themselves, he said. Slaves were forbidden to tattoo.

Marking Perfection

Tattooing was done in stages over many years and was governed by various taboos. Once a Ngaju man had acquired some wealth and reputation, his shoulders were adorned with a star and his arms decorated with rooster wings and plant patterns.

"But later in life, perhaps at the age of 40, only 'perfect' men would be allowed to receive the complete form of Ngaju tattoo," Krutak said. These were men who had distinguished themselves by living their lives according to ceremonial law, participating in head-hunting expeditions and the offering of a human sacrifice—and who had acquired wealth.

This "complete" tattoo was applied over many days. The man's arms were covered with images of areca palm fronds that were said to protect him from malevolent jungle spirits. Then his torso was tattooed with a design of the Tree of Life, an everlasting symbol of strength and divinity that protected him from his flesh-and-blood enemies. He was then considered godlike, perfect and sacred, and it was believed that in the next world he would receive a golden body. 

Among the Iban, the chests and backs of older, venerated warriors were completely decorated with a collage of powerful images. The hornbill was a favored motif because the bird was seen as a messenger of the war god Lang and also marked rank and prestige. Other favorites were the scorpion and the water serpent, which protected the wearer from evil spirits lurking in the jungle.