Product Description
Antique Kalimantan Rice Cutter Ani-Ani 2
Material: Wood, iron blade
Style: Kalimantan, Indonesia
Size: Height 12 cm, Length 23 cm, Handle: Width 11 cm
Order Number: MHSRC2
Rice is the world’s most important crop and the staple food of half the world’s population. In most parts of Indonesia rice is the staple food. Rice cultivation is accompanied by many rituals and beliefs and the tools were decorated by the rice farmers or specialists.
The fields must be kept flooded while the plants are growing. Yellow-green shoots sprout up in the silvery water. The rice grows tall and green. When the tops droop, the plants are mature and ready to harvest.
Rice cutters were used to cut the ears of rice at harvesting time. They cut the ears of grain (padi) one by one very carefully, and tried not to lose any grains. They were then tied into bundles and stored in the granary.
They used the hand knife so that it did not hurt or frighten the rice or be offensive to the rice goddess. Now rice is harvested with a sickle, but some farmers still have a special field in the corner for traditional rice and harvest it with the hand knife.
The carvings are the hornbill and naga or water dragon. Many Borneo groups in Kalimantan represent the upper world god as a hornbill and the underworld goddess as a naga. Their dynamic opposition expresses their unity and source of life.
The hornbill is a large white and black bird with a striking red beak. For the Barito group, Borneo’s largest group, covering the southern half of the island, it is the upperworld male supreme deity. For the Iban of Sarawak, Kenyah and related groups of Sarawak and East Kalimantan it is the messenger of the remote high god.
The female water-dragon provides protection to mankind in everyday life. She guards the dead and eases the passage to the next life. She is portrayed in almost all artifacts from kitchen utensils to funerary monuments.
Early – mid 20th century.
Girl going home after picking rice with an ani-ani in her hair (1935).
Map of Kalimantan.
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