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Lot 667
Betel container "kapuh sirih"
Estimated Value:
1.000 € - 1.500 €
Result:
incl. Premium and VAT
Description:
North Sumatra, Toba-Batak, 19th cent.H. ca. 19 cm
Yellow cast metal (cast in a lost mold, reworked). A brass container that was used to prepare the “Betelbiss”. The lidded container with hinge is skillfully cast in several parts in a lost form and shows a squatting ancestor figure on the lid as the main motif. The body is decorated with raised hospital and circle motifs in the typical Batak style. In its overall composition, the container embodies the dualism between the upper world (gods, deified ancestors) and the underworld. (Container; vessel; fertility. The earth or aquatic sphere is the origin of all fertility, which must be fertilized by the upper domain. In this respect, the conscious opening and closing of such containers is an everyday reminiscence of divine processes of renewal.
Collected from an old German private collection since the 1950s - Minim. signs of age
Betel is a popular stimulant throughout Southeast Asia. The unripe betel nuts are usually cut into small pieces with special scissors, crushed and rolled into leaves coated with slaked lime, which do not come from the betel palm, but from the betel pepper (Piper betle), which is then known as betel bites (sirih). The crushed betel nut, which has a vasodilatory effect, was mixed with lime paste to make awls and chewed. This vessel was used to “prepare” the betel paste. Because of the bitter taste, spices such as peppermint, liquorice or chewing tobacco were often added. Betel containers were usually made of horn or bamboo, but could also be made of brass, as in this example. As they were usually carried in skin bags (salipi), such elaborate decoration was often dispensed with. The squatting posture of the figure on the pedestal structure is remarkable; in this constellation it appears almost Javanese and is often found on temple bells of the “classical period” of Java.
