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NHM-HT.127-2014

Parts

Object number

NHM-HT.127-2014

Object type

hat

Identification

Description

Woven rattan Berawan hat, covered in coloured textiles, feathers and beads

Comments

Display label:
'Berawan hat
This large hat from the Baram River, Sarawak, is as functional as it is decorative. When spending all day in a narrow dugout on the river, alternately scorched by the tropical sun and deluged by torrential rain, they are a lifesaver. Made from nipah palm leaves, the adornments are coloured shells and beads in time-honoured patterns. The hornbill feathers denote, we were told, that the owner had taken a head. Headhunting was abolished by the Rajahs Brooke in the early twentieth century, and only briefly resuscitated in the battle to remove the Japanese at the end of World War II. It seems therefore unlikely that this hat, albeit quite old, had been owned by one who had taken heads in his youth.'

Description

Material

organic

Production

People

Place

Sarawak

History and association

References

• Hanbury-Tenison, R., Beauty Freely Given: A Universal Truth. Artefacts from the Collection of Robin Hanbury-Tenison, Garage Press, 2012 (p. 45)
image 77536
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