A RARE WOOD SOULSHIP ''TELUN''

Description:

Borneo, Kalimantan, Dayak
H. 60 cm / L. 96 cm
A rare, ritually significant object. The soul ship is made of wood and depicts a dragon with bared teeth and an outstretched tongue. Armed warriors in full regalia stand on deck. The applied figures, the soul house on deck, the mast and the rudder are made separately. The wooden surface is covered with black pigment. The dragon symbolises the ancestral community. The soul ship(telun) is an ancient concept of the Dayak on Borneo, which probably originally goes back to the Egyptian sun barque of Ra. It was believed that, like the sun, souls rise from the underworld in the east and "set" in the west, entering the underworld apulagan. The dead person travels on a river, which first begins wide and then leads through a narrow gorge with a whirlpool of fire at the end into the realm of the dead. The soul stays in the little house, the objects hanging on the frame are precious pusaka, heirlooms, which were given to the deceased. They light the way to the afterlife, which is why they are important for the journey. The second burial, the tiwah festival(festival of redemption), takes place months or even years after the person's death. While the deceased awaits redemption in the afterlife, their soul remains in a wooden board on which a ship of the dead is painted and which is located at the house of the deceased. The long period between the two funerals is due to the fact that the tiwah festival is a very elaborate and expensive celebration and can last up to a month. Nowadays, several deceased people are therefore often celebrated together. Blood was also believed to strengthen the sun or the boat along the way, probably originally because of its red colour when it rises and sets. This also includes headhunting, for which the Dayak used to be notorious. Headhunting was essential for the burial of nobles. The ships with a hornbill bow are called ba-nama tinggang ("big/high name") and always represent nobles, while the dragon bow(aso) is the "standard model".
From an old German private collection, assembled since the 1950s - Minor traces of age
Lit.: Sellato, B. (1992): Hornbill and Dragon. Arts and Culture of Borneo. Sun Tree Publishing. - Taylor, P. M. / Aragon, L. V. (1990): Beyond The Java Sea. Arts of Indonesia`s Outer Islands. New York. - Steinmann, A. (1939/40): Das kultische Schiff in Indonesien. Berlin