Dayak Hudoq Mask

Polychrome, Wood & Rattan Hudoq Mask

This mask is from the Bahau people, a Dayak sub-group, that lives in the Mahakam River region of Borneo. It is of light wood and represents a composite dragon-hornbill spirit. It would have been worn by a dancer at planting, harvest and similar festivals. Young male dancers wearing such masks and cloaks would enter the village at important times connected with the rice growing cycle and would impersonate the spirits who have come down to earth to bless the harvest, a ritual known as the hudoq. Apertures just below the mask’s ‘eyes’ allowed the dancer to see.

This mask comprises the central head element, ears attached by means of rattan ties, a woven rattan basket cap, and two strings of pendant beads that hang from the ear lobes of the mask. The mask is painted in cream, red and black polychrome. The beads are of glass and are trade beads.

The mask has a protruding mouth from which two sets of fangs project. The ears are embellished with two sets of protruding ear ornaments. The eyes are black, semi-spherical and bulging. And the prominent beak juts out almost horizontally.

The mask was worn by fitting the basket cap over the dancer’s head allowing the mask to hang down over the dancer’s face.

Related examples are illustrated in Barbier (1984, p. 80), Maxwell (2010, p. 89), Hardianti & ter Keurs (2005, p. 99), Miksic (2007, p. 226), Capistrano-Baker (1994, p. 32), and Meulenbeld

et al (1988, p. 125).

Masks in museum collections often no longer retain their woven rattan caps.

The example here is in an excellent, stable condition with no losses or repairs. It has a patina consistent with an early twentieth century dating.