Bark Cloth association with death among Dayak of Borneo

Vanishing Tattoo website by Lars Krutak.

Bark-cloth is described as an item that the dead and their mourners wear.  On other occasions, it is an item for warriors also for ceremony.

"Although the apotropaic aspect of Dayak tattoo has been discussed, specifically as a remedy against supernatural possession resulting in disease, tattooing was also an initiation rite involving the entire community longhouse.  Tattoo operations were not carried out in the longhouse itself, rather they took place in a specially built hut among some groups.  During the entire ritual, the male members of the family dressed  in bark-cloth.  Bark-cloth was normally placed on the corpses of village leaders at their funerals or worn by widowers.  At other times, headhunters used bark-cloth during ceremonial occasions.  Therefore, it seems that the association between tatto and bark-cloth indicates that tattooed individuals pass through a communally recognized symbolic death in order to pass into a new stage of life.  Not surprisingly, each Dayak community is comprised of individuals both living
and dead, since those members who left this world forever now dwell in the community of the ancestors - the village of the dead.  It is here, [...] that each Dayak individual yearns to be in the afterlife. "

Shaman, Sickness, Land of the Dead; http://www.vanishingtattoo.com/borneo_tattoos_1.htm

Comparison of motifs and patterns found in Polynesian desig

Tanguian Decorative Designs, Fig. 23, p430

Tinguian Decorative Designs, Fig.22, p430

source: gutenberg.org, free eBook project
file address < http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12849/12849-h/12849-h.htm#d0e9830 >

commonly seen modernTourist Siapo (is this authentic?)
I noticed that the pattern is no prevalent in older tapa cloth.  Where present it is used with less dominance as a pattern.

From on-line retailer origins Unknown.


Excerpt from Tinguian Paper:

Decorative Art

In decorative art the Tinguian offers sharp contrast to the Igorot and Ifugao, both of whom have developed wood carving to a considerable extent. They also have their bodies tattooed, while the colored lashings on spear shafts, pipe stems, and other objects show a nice appreciation for color and design. In all these the Tinguian is deficient or lacking; he does no wood carving, tattooing is scanty, while his basket work, except that from two small regions, is plain. At times he does make some simple designs on canes, on bamboo rice-planters and weaving sticks, on lime boxes and pipe stems, but these are exceptions rather than the rule. In the region about Lakub, he decorates his jars by cutting the ends of sticks to form small dies which he presses into the newly fashioned clay (Fig. 22, No. 8), while in Manabo and some other villages the pipe makers cut the bowls of the clay pipes in floral designs or inlay small pieces of brass to form scroll patterns (Fig. 22, Nos. 4–7). These last mentioned designs are so restricted in their manufacture, and are so different from those found elsewhere in Abra, that they cannot be considered as typical.

The figures incised in bamboo show some realistic motives, such as the fish, birds, and flowers in Fig. 23, No. 1; the snake and lizard in No. 2; the man in No. 5; but the strictly geometrical is dominant in nearly every case. Probably the most typical of this class of work is shown in Nos. 3 and 4 and Fig. 22, Nos. 1, 2, and 3. It should be noted, however, that, where one decorated object is seen, many more entirely plain will be found. In short, ornamentation is uncommon and of minor importance.