A thing of beauty

http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2010/10/17/lifefocus/7235678&sec=lifefocus

Sunday October 17, 2010

A thing of beauty

By DIANA ROSE
starmag@thestar.com.my


Beads have literally rolled their way round the world, picking up, along the journey, bits of culture, lore and drama.

HAVE beads will travel. That seemed to be the case back in the days when traders explored new territories to ply their wares.

Research carried out by the American Beads Society shows that beads were brought to Southeast Asia from India via the Silk and the Cardamon routes. American beads expert Jamey Allen concurs with that observation.

“There is no doubt that the vast majority of ancient stone and glass beads were made in India, and distributed to her trading partners. In some instances, the technology (knowledge and skills, and actual workers) was transferred to new locations,” Allen says in a paper presented at the inaugural Borneo International Beads Conference (BIBC) in Miri, Sarawak, last week.

But the earliest evidence of beads can be traced to the Hellenic city of Alexandria (founded in 332BCE), a huge trading centre that had links with the East.

In facts, beads were so treasured that they were often buried with their owners; these tiny possessions are among the most common items unearthed from ancient graves.

In a 1995 interview in Kuala Lumpur, Kamaruddin Zakaria, the-then curator of archaeology at Muzium Negara, said that early beadmakers had settled in Mantai, Oc-eo and Klong Thom (ancient cities in mainland Southeast Asia) and dominated the trade in the first half of the first millenium CE.

Around the sixth or seventh centuries, the latter two sites were abandoned and new sites emerged in Kuala Selinsing and Sating Pra. Around this time, Mantai began producing stone beads.

In olden times, only the aristocrats owned the alai maun or yellow peanut beads, which were a status symbol. – Apoi Ngimat

During the ninth or 10th centuries, beads from the Islamic west penetrated the South-East Asian market, coming through the Malay peninsula and slowly filtering into Borneo and the Philippines.

About 120 delegates attended the two-day BIBC, organised by Sarawak Craft Hub. Among them was World Crafts Council president Usha Krishna of India.

“For the first time the treasures of the indigenous people of Sarawak were put on display on a very personal and passionate level,” Usha says. “I do not do how to do beading or make beads but I love the beauty of it. Thus, I came.

“Now I see beads in a very different perspective. They have become a new world treasure. Just imagine – some of the beads found among the people of Sarawak are thousands of years old. How did they acquire them?”

Eileen Paya Foong says her ancestors obtained rare beads in exchange for a slave girl, and a mother and her child.

The Borneo bead story is as colourful and exotic as it is old. Generally, beads were used in ceremonial rites and rituals, for barter trading, and as jewellery (to denote wealth, power and social standing).

“Beads have played an important role in Dayak society for several centuries. They are not only decorative objects valued just for their aesthetic qualities, but have a deeper cultural value,” says Eileen Paya Foong, a marketing executive at Curtin University of Technology Sarawak, where she is also doing a degree in Borneo studies.

Paya Foong, of Kenyah-Chinese parentage, shares how her ancestors got to possess the Lukut Sekala (eye beads) in her paper titled “Barang Pu’un Mek: An Uma Pawek Family’s Pesaka Beads”. She claims that her family is among only eight in Sarawak that has those precious beads today.

In the past, a single lukut sekala was worth an adult male slave. These beads were usually designed in chevron, swirls, circles or eye style.

According to Paya Foong, one lukut sekala in her family’s possession was a ransom paid in exchange for the lives of a mother and her child during a head-hunting romp.

Another was given to her family in exchange for a slave girl.

Apparently, the Kenyah aristocrats in Uma Pawek in the Upper Baram region of Sarawak were unhappy that one of her ancestor’s had owned a slave girl. This ancestor had married out of the caste and been demoted to commoner, and was thus not allowed to have slave.

So the aristocrats negotiated to take the slave girl as their own; in return, they gave her previous owner a gong and a lukut sekala.

Aristocrat Devong of mixed Kenyah-Kayan parentage of Uma Nyaveng Sungai Asap says the bead treasures she owns are ancestral heirlooms. As far as she knows, some have been in the family for at least seven generations.

Dr Cheah Hwei Fen, a lecturer on Asian art and textile history at the Australian National University, presented a paper on “Beadwork (Penang, Singapore, Malacca)”, shared visuals on Nyonya beadwork and explored Peranakan Chinese ideas about fashion, identity, change and women’s lives in the late 19th and 20th centuries

She was amazed by how highly the people in Borneo value their beads. “In the Peranakan community, beads and beadworks are appreciated for their aesthetic beauty. That’s about it. The Peranakans do not share such a passionate link to beads as the people here.”

Jamey Allen helping to authenticate beads brought to him at the Borneo International Beads Conference held in Miri.

Dr Cheah thinks it is possible to fan appreciation for beads by having creative innovations and using the old techniques to create contemporary designs.”Nyonya beadwork has been sustained through museum displays and beadwork classes. The challenge for Nyonya beaders is to embrace beadwork as a mode of contemporary artistic creativity and imagination, drawing on history as an inspiration without being inhibited by past models.”

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak senior lecturer (Department of Anthropology and Sociology) Poline Bala, who hails from Sarawak’s Bario highlands, says: “We Kelabit are very passionate about our material culture, including our beads.

“We do not care where they are made, but we value the story behind each bead, how it got to be in our possession, the arduous, and at times dangerous, journeys people took to acquire it and the beauty of beads.”

Speaking about “Old beads and new beads among the Kelabit of Sarawak: Their changing social role and significance”, Poline says the highland community is toying with the idea of issuing certificates of origin to separate treasured heirlooms from replicas, which are actively traded throughout Borneo. Most of the latter are made in Java, Indonesia.

Datin Devong Anyie of Uma Nyaveng of Asap Belaga is a fine example of Sarawakian Orang Ulu whose passion for beads has not waned with the years.

“Some of the replicas are so good that it has become quite difficult to distinguish them,” she says, adding that the Kelabits prize the “bao rawir, alai, adan and lukut sekala.” A Kelabit woman’s bead cap (called the pala) can fetch up to RM30,000 apiece.

Yekti Kusmartono, one of Indonesia’s foremost bead scholars, relates how bead artisans in East Java make high quality replicas of “old” Venetians beads using recycled perfume and liquor bottles. These beautiful replicas are made into costume jewelleries at hefty prices.

Her passion for beads started in the 1970s, after she saw strings of antique stones and glass beads on display in shops in Jakarta. The majority of the beads were from East Java.

“This triggered my interest as my home town is in East Java. Before realising it, I had entered the world of beads, and began designing and stringing them!” Yekti recalls.

“Then I embarked on something even more fascinating – learning about the history and tradition of beads.” As antique beads became rarer and more expensive, she then explored the possibility of copying them.

“With the skills of the bead-makers in East Java we started reproducing them,” adds Yekti, whose replicas, which fetch thousands of ringgit per piece, have found their way to Europe.

“That’s how precious beads are, no matter whether they are antique or replicas of an antique. We’re literally producing art from shard.”

Allen, a researcher, lecturer and specialist on antique beads, especially multi-layered Rosetta beads, elaborated on The Heirloom Beads of Island Southeast Asia in his paper.

He notes that while ancient and antique beads are cherished throughout the world, it is only in this region that one can find substantial traditions that sustain interest in these artefacts, which are made mainly of glass, agate and metal and probably date back 2,000 years.

“Beads are usually thought to be older, rarer, and more valuable than is often the case in reality. Most of the heirloom beads in Borneo have Middle Eastern and Indian origins.

“There are also Chinese beads, copied versions of 16th or 17th century Venetian beads, bohemian beads and some of unknown origins.”

“This conference has given us an opportunity to discover, at a more personal level on how the people of Borneo value their beads. It is also good that the people here name each bead – it is easier to identify them,” said Allen, who was surprised to find that the natives in Borneo have male and female versions of the lukut sekala.

Indeed, the story of beads reveals many interesting facts wrapped around the survival of material culture, and lore.

As Heidi Munan, organising chairman of the Borneo conference, puts it:

“Beads really got to travel around, from one continent to another, from the coast to the highland, from one generation to another. They are resilient.”

She can add that beads are beautiful and definitely here to stay!