Moko (money)
Moko , also Mokko , is a cult object widespread in parts of the Southeast Asian Lesser Sunda Islands , which was used as bronze commodity money from the 17th to the beginning of the 20th century . A Moko has the shape of an hourglass-shaped drum, which is why it is often referred to as a " bronze drum ". In terms of instruments, the term " kettle gong " is more appropriate. They weren't usually used to make music. Typically there are four handles in the upper area. Mokos were mainly used on Alor , Solor and Pantar , partly also on Java , Bali , Flores and Timor .
background
A moko is made up of two or three cast parts . Its sides are decorated with animal and plant motifs. With a mass between 3.5 and 7 kg, they are between 30 cm and almost 70 cm high. The design and decorations are similar to the bronze drums of the Dong Son culture (around 800 BC-200 AD) from Vietnam . In fact, around 20 bronze drums of the Dong Son culture have so far been found in the Southeast Asian islands, such as the Moluccas , Timor and New Guinea . A well-preserved specimen found in East Timor in 2015 weighed 80 kg and was estimated to be 2000 years old. The first mokos on Alor and Pantar were also found, according to local legends and myths, buried in the earth or it is said that supernatural beings gave the mokos to their ancestors. In this sense, mokos have "always" been on the islands of Alor and Pantar. Mokos were later also made on the islands. From the 19th century, traders brought mokos to the Alor Archipelago as a commodity from Java and China .
On Alor, mokos serve as the bride price ( Aloresis belis ), which the groom pays to the father of the bride. In addition, they were in use until the 1920s as a medium of exchange for heads captured in headhunting and women could also be sold into slavery to outsiders for a certain number of mokos. With the latter, however, Alorese and Pantarese were forbidden to act as buyers. They could only acquire women as brides by showing off their social status through the moko payment, because mokos not only had a monetary function ; their possessions conveyed social prestige beyond their purely material value . Mokos were inherited within families or clans. With their help one believed to be able to establish contact with the dead previous owners.
The exchange value of a moko depends partly on its weight, but also on its age and beauty. The exact value Moko depends on your "arrows". The number of arrows can only be read from the drawings on the body of the drum. Usually only a few old men still have the necessary knowledge. The name of the individual moko must also be known in order to be able to evaluate it correctly. However, the names of many of the drums have been forgotten. A moko pung , as it occurs mainly on Pantar, can, for example, have one, two, five or seven arrows. A value of one to two million rupiah (about 100 euros) is estimated per arrow .
In Bali, mokos were used more as cult objects and placed on pedestals or in temples. On Adonara they are considered a symbol of fertility. Before the harvest, they are fetched from the camp and offerings made to them. Mokos are sacred on both islands, which is why they cannot simply be touched. As sacred objects, mokos are considered animated and they are said to be able to move on their own.
On Lembata , the mokos are venerated as an inheritance from their ancestors. They are supposed to live in the mokos, which is why they cannot be sold outside the clan.
The monetary value of special mokos reached 1,000 Dutch guilders at the end of the 19th century . According to an official census, there were around 20,000 mokos on the island of Alor around 1914. In Europe they became a valuable collector's item, but from 1914 Dutch colonial officials banned mokos as a means of payment. The colonial government of the Dutch East Indies withdrew the mokos for five to six guilders each. Many of the confiscated mokos were melted down, which meant that the remaining ones became increasingly rare and their collector's value increased accordingly. But the destruction was not systematic and they could continue to be used as a bride price. To this day, mokos continue to play an important role in weddings in large parts of the Alor archipelago. In the case of the Diang from Zentralpantar , the traditional handover of a moko at a wedding, for example, cannot be replaced by monetary payments, as is possible today with penalties under Adat law. The male relatives must determine the marriage partner of the daughter, sister or niece. If a moko (or, as an exception, a replacement) is not available, either a moko must be obtained or the bride's family can later demand another marriageable girl back. At least there was a standardization and simplification of payments with mokos, corresponding to the rarity of bronze drums today. Apart from the social status, the bride price was previously based on the bride price of her mother. If the groom paid the mother six mokos at the time, at least seven mokos had to be paid for the daughter. In view of the increasingly rare mokos and the ever increasing prices, men could either never marry or only at a set age. Therefore, the bride price today includes, among other things, only one Moko Male for the father of the bride and two Moko Pung . The groom's parents must be given a moko from the bride's family that is one third of the value of the two moko pung .
Small mokos, carved from wood, were placed in special places such as crossroads among the Diang. You should prevent disease by appeasing the ancestors and spirits. For this purpose, the mini mocos were rubbed on the body of sick people beforehand so that the disease would spread to them. The ancestors and spirits should then take the disease out of the moko.
Classification
There are four different types:
Type I mocos show the same decorations as the so-called moon of Pejang , a 180 cm high kettle gong in a temple in Pejang, Balinese. On the main body of the drum is a human face with a protruding nose, bulging eyes and elongated earlobes with coin-shaped earrings. There was also an eight-pointed star in the center of the drum membrane, wavy lines with knots, geometric decorations and houses. This type was found in Bali, Alor, Flores and Adonara.
Type II mocos came from Flores and Alor. The motifs on these drums come from ancient temples on the island of Java and show figures similar to those in the shadow play , heads of monsters (kala) , flowers and spirals. Because of the motifs, these drums are also referred to as "classic" or " Hindu ".
Dutch and English influences are noticeable in type III mocos by Flores and Alor . The motifs show, for example, Zeus heads , lions, crowns, grapes and leaves.
The type IV mokos date from before the Second World War . They show complex motifs, some with human and animal shapes, others with flowers or geometric shapes. These mokos can be found on Java, Alor and Flores.
Type I from Bali
Type II
Type III
Type IV
literature
- Ambra Caló: The distribution of bronze drums in early Southeast Asia: trade routes and cultural spheres. (= British Archaeological Reports International Series. 1913). Archaeopress, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-1-4073-0396-3 .
- Tyll Kroha: Mocha. In: Lexicon of Numismatics. Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh 1977, p. 280f.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Tyll Kroha: Mokko. In: Lexicon of Numismatics. Bertelsmann Lexikon-Verlag, Gütersloh 1977, p. 280f.
- ↑ Sapo.tl: Tambor Dong Son vietnamita com cerca de 2000 anos found in Timor-Leste , November 18, 2015 , accessed on November 18, 2015.
- ↑ a b c Susanne Rodemeier: "In exchange I will give you my sister's daughter" - research on sculptures in human form from Munaseli (Pantar, Indonesia). In: Paideuma. 57, 2011, pp. 161-183.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Bettina Volk-Kopplin: "... and that's why she died so painfully": Tradition and indigenous modernity among the Diang of the East Indonesian Alor archipelago using the example of how they dealt with death. LIT Verlag, Münster 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-11881-3 , accessed on November 19, 2015.
- ↑ a b c d e f D. D. Bintarti: Prehistoric Bronze Objects in Indonesia. Indonesian National Research Center of Archeology, Jakarta, accessed November 18, 2015.
- ↑ Hyginus Hardoyo: Lightening the dowry burden for the would-be newlyweds of Alor. In: The Jakarta Post. 20th October 2015.
- ↑ John Bastin: Brass Kettle Drums in Sabah. In: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London, Vol. 34, No. 1, 1971, pp. 132-138, here p. 137.