Reflections on the Human Condition - Api-fellowships.org

6
SESSION I
had well developed shoulders and upper bodies from
rowing or paddling their boats and were narrow and
little muscled from the waist down. Water, both oceans
and rivers, were their highways. The land-moving people
had well developed legs and hips and lightly developed
upper bodies. For them, the rivers and oceans tended to
be barriers. My interest has been primarily in the water
people. The people of Southeast Asia living along rivers,
the coasts and on the islands were primarily water people.
There were two different kinds of earthenware pottery
used by most people in Southeast Asia. The ordinary
and most common pottery is for everyday use in eating,
cooking and storage of liquids and dry food. This has
little if any decoration and simple, rather standardized
forms. The best method for studying them is mineralogical
to identify their temper, if any, combined with chemical
analysis of their clay to identify its source. This requires
a trained specialist with expensive scientific equipment.
The second kind was ceremonial and much less common.
It was usually decorated and had a greater variety of
shapes. Of most importance to the archaeologist is the
pottery associated with burials which often is decorated
or the forms made for display. These are also used for
special occasions such as ceremonies connected with
special food for weddings, betrothals, birthdays, etc.
These decorations and forms are traditional and passed
on from mothers to daughters or from older potters to
related young girls.
The elements and variety of decorations were used not
only on pottery but also on cloth, including bark cloth,
basketry, mats, tattooing, body painting, architecture in
wood, wood carving, etc. Almost all of these materials
are organic and do not last long in an archaeological site
unless they are under water. Previous to the invention
and use of metal, pottery was virtually the only material
that would last for a long time in an archaeological site
and therefore the only reliable source of information on
the art of the people. Sculpture in stone was rare. Thus,
earthenware pottery which is usually common at virtually
all archaeological sites of the last several thousand years
is of major importance for comparing archaeological
sites. This is where my specialty on earthenware pottery
comes in.
I, and others, have traced back the different kinds of
pottery made and used by the people using Gua Sirih
for burials and at times for living. The different patterns
and methods of surface treatment are not invented at
each new site; they are patterns and methods that have
been passed on for many generations, with some changes
and additions over time and space. The decorations,
Ref lections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity
The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows
forms and methods of surface decoration recovered
from Gua Sirih have been recovered from sites scattered
all over Island Southeast Asia, to India and Madagascar
off the west coast of South Africa, to Korea, Japan, and
the Pacific, as well as in the mainland portions of Southeast
Asia. Many of the patterns on pottery from Gua Sirih
and many other sites in Southeast Asia from the last
several thousand years are still being used on cloth and
other organic materials today. I have written many articles
on the relationships of these decorations over the last 50
years (see References for a very small listing of these as
well as by other authors. The best source for this information
will be my book (NDa) due to come out on the 18 th of
March 2006).
With that I stop here adding only that the origin for all
the elements of pottery presented here as found at Gua
Sirih is southern and central Viet Nam. This coastal portion
and small offshore islands of present day Viet Nam was
occupied by the Cham (a largely maritime oriented people)
until the Vietnamese took over about a thousand years go.
The exact routes between Vietnam and Gua Sirih can
not be determined as there were many of them, some
possibly direct but others by way of one or more other
island sites in eastern Island Southeast Asia brought
through the agency of the NMTCN.
The Bau-Malay pottery that was commonly made by
Moslem Malays soon after Islam as a religion arrived in
Southeast Asia already had a long existence before any
of the potters became Moslem and many non-Moslem
peoples have continued until the resent days to make
the carved-paddle pottery. As I see it, the ancestry of the
so-called Malay peoples, both Moslem and non-Moslem
are directly involved with the Cham.
POST-SCRIPT
Is there any relevance of this beyond the origin of the
people who had used Gua Sirih? Yes, there is. All of
the many different ethnic groups of Southeast Asia in
all of the countries of Southeast Asia are closely related.
The widespread sailing of the NMTCN moved and
scattered Southeast Asian genes and elements of culture
throughout Island, coastal Mainland, and up the major
rivers of Southeast Asia. This mixing held in common
by all Southeast Asians going back about 12,000 years,
extended throughout the Pacific, north along the coast
of China to Korea and Japan, west to India and on to
Madagascar off the cost of southeastern Africa. The
Nusantao, ancestors of the people of Gua Sirih, were
the greatest mariners the world has even known.