The Sundang and other Malaysian art motifs
R.O. Winstedt, the long-serving colonial administrator and scholar of Malay history, published this brief comparative study in 1941, arguing that several characteristic Malaysian art motifs—including the broad sword known as the sundang, parrot- and cockatoo-headed hilts, tiered roof forms, and stylised animal designs on Sumba cloths—bear traces of pre-Hindu, Byzantine, and even prehistoric Central Asian origins that predate the major religious and cultural transformations of the archipelago.
Summary
Winstedt opens by surveying the conflicting dictionary and catalogue descriptions of the sundang—variously called soendang, kalis, keris Suluk, or simply a broad sword—and asks whether the weapon is genuinely Malaysian in origin or a foreign import. His central hypothesis is that a straight-bladed, broad sword of European or Indian provenance reached the archipelago in the early Christian era, possibly alongside Roman beads that reached Celebes, and was subsequently adapted locally: the base was reshaped into kinship with the keris, the cockatoo-headed hilt was added in the east where cockatoos are native, and the wavy blade is a still later Malaysian accretion. He supports this by pointing to the weapon’s appearance in the hands of Rakshasa demons at Chandi Panataran (1329–1350), implying it was already regarded as a barbarian weapon by the Majapahit period.
The article then widens its scope to other motifs. Winstedt identifies a parrot-headed hilt on Byzantine porphyry reliefs outside St. Mark’s, Venice, predating Majapahit, and traces the tiered roof with sky-pointing acroteria—familiar in Norwegian wooden churches, Siamese wats, and Minangkabau houses—back through Carolingian and Byzantine intermediaries to the ridge-pole and upstanding props of Altai-Iran nomad tents. He further connects a Sumba cloth motif (a long-necked bird riding a stag or ibex) to a spouted pottery jug excavated at Syalck near Kashan in Central Persia, possibly dating to the third or fourth millennium B.C., and notes that the stylised cock on Sumba cloths may be a derivative of an original stag design.
Throughout, Winstedt is less a systematic historian than a pattern-spotter, drawing on museum collections, guidebooks, and the recent fieldwork of colleagues such as Dr. Quaritch-Wales (who found early Indian prototypes of Minangkabau brasswork and miniature weapons matching Ajanta and Borobudur reliefs) and Dr. Heine-Geldern (who identified identical patterns on early Chinese bronzes and Maori carvings). His closing observation—that Perak silver-work foliated patterns are identical to those on Borobudur panels, and that the old Sailendra capital may have been in Perak—invites readers to pursue field research into pre-Hindu survivals in Java, Sumba, Celebes, and Borneo.
Key Findings
- The sundang is described across sources as a broad sword “almost the only Malaysian cutting instrument with both sides sharpened” (p. 238), distinct from the keris in size and massiveness, with a cockatoo-headed handle.
- A straight-bladed broad sword widening towards the point is sculpted in the hands of Rakshasa demons at Chandi Panataran, Java (1329–1350), but without the cockatoo crest and without wavy blades (p. 238).
- Parrot-headed sword hilts appear on Byzantine porphyry reliefs (possibly from a late-Roman triumphal arch) outside the Basilica of St. Mark’s, Venice, predating the Majapahit era (p. 239).
- The tiered roof with carved acroteria in Norwegian wooden churches is traced through Carolingian and Byzantine types to nomad tent architecture of the Altai-Iran region, citing Strzygowski’s Altai-Iran und Volkerwanderung (Leipzig, 1917) (pp. 239–240).
- A spouted pottery jug from Syalck near Kashan, Central Persia (reported in Illustrated London News, 15 Dec. 1934), shows a long-necked bird on the back of an ibex—a motif common on Sumba cloths, possibly dating to the third or fourth millennium B.C. (p. 240).
- Foliated patterns in Malay silver-work are identical to carvings on the panels of Borobudur, the Sailendras’ greatest masterpiece; Dr. Quaritch-Wales has located an early Indian prototype of the Minangkabau brass ‘house’ in Kedah and miniature weapons matching Ajanta frescoes and Borobudur bas-reliefs (pp. 240–241).
Conclusion
Winstedt’s definitive takeaway is that the Malayan archipelago’s decorative arts preserve a palimpsest of very old cultural layers—prehistoric, pre-Hindu, and possibly even pre-Byzantine—that have been obscured by the successive arrivals of Hindu, Islamic, and other dominant traditions. He urges that comparative design study be pursued alongside the prehistoric and archaeological research then underway, and that the many illustrated works on the arts of British India, Netherlands India, Indo-China, and China be mined for cultural affinities, with particular attention to old pre-Hindu influences in Java, Sumba, Celebes, and Borneo.
Context
- Winstedt (1884–1954) was a senior colonial administrator in the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States and a prolific author of Malay historical and linguistic works; this article reflects his characteristic method of drawing wide-ranging parallels from European museum collections and travel literature rather than from systematic fieldwork.
- The piece is a product of the 1930s–40s vogue for “diffusionist” and comparative art-history approaches (Heine-Geldern, Strzygowski, Pijoan), in which motifs were traced across continents along hypothesised migration routes; its speculative connections—Byzantium to Sumba, Kashan to the Malay archipelago—would not meet the evidential standards of later archaeological and art-historical scholarship.