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This is basically a travel report, including very nice black and
white photographs, covering the authors' trip to some remote
longhouse village on the island of (Malaysian) Borneo, histori-
cally an important place for all tattoo devotees, to get some
new ink traditional Borneo handstyle. This, according to one
of the writers rather painful, experience is also put onto pa-
per, unfortunately covering no more than two, three pages...
Of most interest to the working artists reading this are proba-
bly the sketches of traditional Borneo patterns, including brief
explanations on their meanings. Descriptions of this nature, I
must add, should generally be seen as nothing but vague gui-
delines, since different tribes use similar or the same motifs,
the meanings evolving from one village to the next. On my
Borneo trip I realized that if you ask several people about one
design, you will get just as many different answers. They
normally all agree on the basic explanation, but differ when
it comes to details. There are also exceptions, the so-called
"Frog" that you see on men's throats e.g., about which one
will hear very different stories.
One thing all Borneo people seem to feel strongly about is
foreigners abusing their designs and symbols, so please be
respectful and do some proper research before using their
imagery. A very common mistake, btw, is applying a man's
design on a woman, and the other way around.
Even though I keep hearing that this publication was only
printed in a very small number (some say as little as 1500
copies), I seem to come across great quality 2nd hand co-
pies regularly. So, your chances are intact. Let me know if
you are interested; please use the Contact Form to do so.
--> A. A. Canjing
"Basic Iban Design"
Japanese Arts * Fiction * Other * Go to Shop: Books * Magazines