Material: Horn, brass
Style: Bali, Indonesia
Size: Height 23 cm
Order Number: MHSABBP1

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 50-60 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Balinese Betel Pounder 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass, wood
Style: Bali, Indonesia
Size: Cylinder: Height 24 cm, Diameter 3 cm; Pounder: Height 24 cm, Diameter (at top) 5 cm; Stick: Height 23 cm
Order Number: MHSABBP2

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Balinese Betel Pounder 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Burma
Size: Height 8 cm, Diameter 4 cm
Order Number: MHSABLC18

The basic ingredients of a betel quid are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime containers, hinged cutters, similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

This solid engraved brass lime container held powdered lime for the betel quid.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Burmese Lime Container 18 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass, beads
Style: China
Size:  Height 5 cm, Width 3 cm
Order Number: MHSACA1

The tradition of jewelry-making in China goes back at least to the Neolithic Period, and silver work at least as far back as 300 BC. Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912) silversmiths combined usefulness with elegance, grace and beauty.

All the ethnic groups shared the same concerns> Everyone wanted a happy marriage, health, prosperity and a long life. To help achieve this they made offerings to the gods – and relied on the power of special amulets.

This amulet is in the shape of double fish – which was for marital bliss and double abundance.

Late 19th century – Early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Chinese Amulet 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Wood, brass
Style: China
Size: Height 9 cm, Width 21 cm
Order Number: MHSACOS1

Around 3400 BC the opium poppy was cultivated in Lower Mesopotamia and called the ‘joy plant’.  It was passed along to the Assyrians, then the Babylonians and then the Egyptians. The opium trade flourished during the reigns of Thutmose IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen.  They traded with the Phoenicians and Minoans, who sold it to Greece, Carthage and Europe. In 330 BC Alexander the Great introduced it to Persia and India.

Opium was introduced to China by Turkish and Arab traders during the T’ang dynasty (618-906 AD) in the late 6th or early 7th century as a medicinal herb, atrade item. It was used in small amounts until the 17th century, but was generally regarded as barbaric and subversive. 

Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed pod of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. It was classified in 1753 by Linnaeus, the father of botany.

In the 1600s Portuguese merchants carried cargoes of Indian opium through Macao to China. and the Dutch brought Indian opium from Java and taught the Chinese in Taiwan to mix it with tobacco and smoke it. The Dutch had a trading post at Tainan on the south coast of Taiwan. The Ming Emperor Wan Li, who ruled from 1573 to 1620, was addicted to it. 

In 1641 the last Ming Emperor Chung Cheng banned tobacco smoking on pain of death and people started smoking pure opium. The opium pipe must have been invented around this time, as a tobacco pipe could not be used.

Early in the 18th century the Portuguese imported large quantities opium from their colony Goa on the west coast of India and sold it to China for a huge profit. In 1729 the Emperor of the Manchu Ching dynasty tried to ban the import and sale of opium by strangulation of the owners of any place where opium smoking was carried on (except under licence for medical use), but it was still smuggled in and the ban had no effect.

In 1750 the British assumed control of Bengal and Bihar, the two main opium growing areas in India. By 1773 the British East India Company became the leading suppliers, dominating the trade out of Calcutta to China, and bought tea with the proceeds. England was addicted to Chinese tea, which was a Chinese monopoly. The British tried to ban tea but riots on the streets of London ensued. Paying for it in silver was threatening to bankrupt the country, but trading Indian opium, produced at very little expense, for tea came to the rescue. Opium was sold on the Chinese black market for silver and used to buy the tea from official Chinese sources in Canton. Now the Chinese were being drained of silver, which led another ban on the import of opium in 1799, which was ignored.

In China smoking opium was as popular as coffee or cigarettes are now – millions smoked it and amongst all levels of society from the humble rickshaw puller to the emperor. Women smoked it too.

It produces feelings of contentment, well-being and euphoria. The practice is highly addictive and wrecked people’s health. It gave rise to the expression ‘pipe dream’, which described an unobtainable ambition.

It was a highly profitable trade. in 1767 the British East India Company imported 2,000 chests of opium a year. Poppy growers in India were forbidden to sell to anyone else in 1793. By 1820 there were an estimated 2 million addicts in China, which guaranteed a constant demand.

In 1819 the poet John Keats experimented with opium and in 1821 Thomas de Quincey wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

In 1830 Jardine Matheson & Company takes over the Indian opium trade from the British East India Company.

Addiction became so bad that the emperor Tao Kuang decided to take action in 1836. He appointed a commissioner to take charge in Canton. In 1838 Lin Tse-Hsu, ransomed 300 Britons for their opium and ordered all foreign traders, mostly British, to surrender their opium, more than 20,000 chests , which the Chinese threw into the Pearl River. They burnt down warehouses where opium was stored and set fire to British ships waiting to unload opium.

Queen Victoria sent in the British navy, launching and winning the First Opium War 1839. Under the peace treaty, the Treaty of Nanking 1842, to China’s shame, Britain acquired Hong Kong in perpetuity and China had to open up five new trading ports, Canton, Amoy, Foochou, Ningbo and Shanghai, on mainland China to British trade, and pay a huge indemnity of 21 million dollars.

In 1852 the British annex Lower Burma and import large amounts of opium from India and sell it through a government monopoly.

In 1858 under the Treaty of Tientsin after the Second Opium War (1856-1858) the Chinese had cede Kowloon, open up another dozen ports, pay another huge indemnity and make the importation of opium legal. Domestic cultivation of the opium was rapid and resulted in 15 to 20 million addicts by the end of the 19th century. China became the largest grower and consumer of opium in the world. The British had stolen a few tea shoots from China during the 1890s and were growing it around Darjeeling and were able to greatly reduce the opium trade with China.

The discovery of gold in California in 1849 brought many Chinese to the country seeking a fortune. They arrived at the port of San Francisco and established the first Chinatown in America. Thousands followed. Opium dens were built in the basements of businesses, such as Chinese laundries. When the gold ran out, the Chinese migrated and got jobs building railroads and canals and on farms and trading. Within 20 years the opium habit had spread all over North America as far afield as Chicago and Manhatten.

Governments all over the world now tried to ban it. San Francisco in North America was the first with public bonfires in the 1870s. In 1878 Britain enacted the Opium Act in India to try and reduce consumption by restricting the sale to registered Chinese opium smokers  and Indian opium eaters. The Burmese were prohibited from smoking opium. In 1890 the US imposes a tax on opium and morphine. In 1911 the Manchu dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China founded. The same year Britain banned shipping opium to China in British ships. Indians in Calcutta and Jewish merchants from Baghdad continued to supply it and growing and consumption flourished inside China. Shanghai became the focal point for trade and consumption and the city was built on it.

There was a huge bonfire in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1914. Fortunately the best opium pipes and accessories were rescued by San Francisco’s mayor James Rolph and placed in the Golden Gate Museum.

During the 1920s and 1930s it was popular among jazz musicians and blues singers, who called it hip after the position of lying down when smoking it. Later giving rise to hipster and hippie.

Chinese migrations to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa brought recreational opium smoking to those countries. The habit was restricted to the Chinese and it did not really catch on in Europe, except in France, and there were numerous opium dens in the East End of London during the late 19th century.

Anti-opium legislation was enacted in Canada in the early 20^th century. There were opium eradication campaigns in Manila in the 1920s and thousands of opium pipes were confiscated in Hawaii and other US Pacific possessions. In 1925 there was a US federal ban on opium, which gave rise to a thriving black market in New York’s Chinatown. In Indonesia entry to a licensed opium den was permitted by showing an identity card proving the person was ethnic Chinese.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949) broke out between Chiang Kai-shek’s  Nationalist government and Mao Tse-tung’s Communist party, which won. The Communist regime immediately banned the sale and consumption of opium and closed the dens and all opium pipes and equipment were burned in large bonfires.  It was forbidden to make the equipment too. The eradication was successful.

Smoking continued outside China, where there were expatriate Chinese communities, such as in Hong Kong. In the 1940s the Golden Triangle of Burma , Laos and Northern Thailand became a major player for tribes, especially the Hmong, and warlords in the opium trade, aided by the French, and later by the US in the 1950s, who wanted them as allies in their efforts to limit the spread of Communism.

It was finally banned in North Vietnam in 1954, Thailand in 1959 and Burma in 1962.  The last legally licensed opium den in the world was in Thailand and the largest one, with 5,000 boarders, was in New Road in Bangkok called Heng Lak Hung. In 1975 South Vietnam and Cambodia fell to communist regimes which banned it. The last remaining opium den in Laos, in Vientiane, was closed down in 2004.

Rich Chinese kept a room in their houses reserved for smoking and entertained special guests there. A maid or house boy was trained to prepare the pipes. The poor Chinese frequented public opium dens, but only men. Women smoked at home. It was a habit for the middle-aged and elderly, not young people, and imbued with Taoist philosophy.  The ideal for health was to balance yin and yang. Opium was yin, cold, and feminine, slowing respiration, lowering blood pressure and decreasing appetite. It had to be balanced with yang foods, such as fatty meats, shrimps and mushrooms, herbal tonics, such as cinnamon, and beverages when they smoked. Plenty of tea was served as a minimum.

Opium dens, once prevalent in the Chinese districts of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, where the Chinese emigrated), allowed low-grade opium to be smoked on woven bamboo mats in simple surroundings for a very small cash payment, but they are now all gone. Food, snacks, hot Chinese tea, mahjong and prostitutes were all available.

The Chinese refined opium smoking into a sophisticated art form, which reached its zenith in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The equipment used was often extremely artistic, but the art was destroyed when opium was banned and very few items remain, except in a number of museums, such as in Hong Kong and Chinatown, San Francisco.

Opium smoking still exists in Nagaland, and among tribal people, such as the Hmong, Akha and Mien, whose ancestors migrated south from Yunnan in China in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Three items are essential: the pipe (about 56 centimetres or 22 inches long and 2.5 centimetres or 1 inch diameter), the oil lamp and the needle. A wad of opium about the size of a pea is balanced on the end of the needle, which is placed over a tiny hole in the pipe bowl. The pipe bowl is shaped like a door knob.

Heat from the short lamp vaporizes the opium pellet at a low temperature. Just the right amount of heat has to be channeled on to a very small surface through the funnel chimney. It should not be burned. The smoke is then breathed into the smoker’s lungs from the pipe. Several pills of opium were smoked at a single session lasting several hours depending on the smoker’s tolerance to the drug. The effects could last twelve hours.

The most popular material for a pipe stem was bamboo. There were also ivory pipe stems, but they were not so good. Ivory mouthpieces, however, were the best, better than ox or water buffalo horn, which were alternatives. For show, but hardly used, mouthpieces were made of jade and stems were sheathed in turtle shell, silver, enamel and porcelain.

The pipe bowl was attached to the stem by a metal saddle, usually brass, but it could be silver or an alloy, two-thirds the way down from the mouthpiece. Pipe bowls of the late 18^th to early 19^th centuries were made of fragile fired clay. Later ones were porcelain and even jade or silver. They were designed to be easily removed for frequent cleaning by special scraping tools that looked like screwdrivers. All smokers owned at least one scraper as a pipe bowl would become full of dross after ten to twenty pipes. Constant cleaning eventually damaged the bowl which would have to be repaired. Pipe bowls were incised with designs and vivid decorations.

Although they were used to weigh opium, they could also be used to measure other items, such as herbal medicines.

In Opium-Smoking in America and China (1882), Harry Hubbell Kane described an ‘opium den’ in which stood ‘a pleasant-faced Chinaman who, with scales in hand, was weighing out some opium.’

Made of two carved wooden parts that pivot open at one end, which close together with a  strap. Inside are the original items – the base holds the folding scales – double brass bowls.

19th century – early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Chinese Opium Scale 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Wood, brass
Style: China
Size: Height 9 cm, Width 20.25 cm
Order Number: MHSACOS2

Around 3400 BC the opium poppy was cultivated in Lower Mesopotamia and called the ‘joy plant’.  It was passed along to the Assyrians, then the Babylonians and then the Egyptians. The opium trade flourished during the reigns of Thutmose IV, Akhenaton and King Tutankhamen.  They traded with the Phoenicians and Minoans, who sold it to Greece, Carthage and Europe. In 330 BC Alexander the Great introduced it to Persia and India.

Opium was introduced to China by Turkish and Arab traders during the T’ang dynasty (618-906 AD) in the late 6th or early 7th century as a medicinal herb, atrade item. It was used in small amounts until the 17th century, but was generally regarded as barbaric and subversive. 

Opium is dried latex obtained from the seed pod of the opium poppy, Papaver somniferum. It was classified in 1753 by Linnaeus, the father of botany.

In the 1600s Portuguese merchants carried cargoes of Indian opium through Macao to China. and the Dutch brought Indian opium from Java and taught the Chinese in Taiwan to mix it with tobacco and smoke it. The Dutch had a trading post at Tainan on the south coast of Taiwan. The Ming Emperor Wan Li, who ruled from 1573 to 1620, was addicted to it. 

In 1641 the last Ming Emperor Chung Cheng banned tobacco smoking on pain of death and people started smoking pure opium. The opium pipe must have been invented around this time, as a tobacco pipe could not be used.

Early in the 18th century the Portuguese imported large quantities opium from their colony Goa on the west coast of India and sold it to China for a huge profit. In 1729 the Emperor of the Manchu Ching dynasty tried to ban the import and sale of opium by strangulation of the owners of any place where opium smoking was carried on (except under licence for medical use), but it was still smuggled in and the ban had no effect.

In 1750 the British assumed control of Bengal and Bihar, the two main opium growing areas in India. By 1773 the British East India Company became the leading suppliers, dominating the trade out of Calcutta to China, and bought tea with the proceeds. England was addicted to Chinese tea, which was a Chinese monopoly. The British tried to ban tea but riots on the streets of London ensued. Paying for it in silver was threatening to bankrupt the country, but trading Indian opium, produced at very little expense, for tea came to the rescue. Opium was sold on the Chinese black market for silver and used to buy the tea from official Chinese sources in Canton. Now the Chinese were being drained of silver, which led another ban on the import of opium in 1799, which was ignored.

In China smoking opium was as popular as coffee or cigarettes are now – millions smoked it and amongst all levels of society from the humble rickshaw puller to the emperor. Women smoked it too.

It produces feelings of contentment, well-being and euphoria. The practice is highly addictive and wrecked people’s health. It gave rise to the expression ‘pipe dream’, which described an unobtainable ambition.

It was a highly profitable trade. in 1767 the British East India Company imported 2,000 chests of opium a year. Poppy growers in India were forbidden to sell to anyone else in 1793. By 1820 there were an estimated 2 million addicts in China, which guaranteed a constant demand.

In 1819 the poet John Keats experimented with opium and in 1821 Thomas de Quincey wrote Confessions of an English Opium-Eater.

In 1830 Jardine Matheson & Company takes over the Indian opium trade from the British East India Company.

Addiction became so bad that the emperor Tao Kuang decided to take action in 1836. He appointed a commissioner to take charge in Canton. In 1838 Lin Tse-Hsu, ransomed 300 Britons for their opium and ordered all foreign traders, mostly British, to surrender their opium, more than 20,000 chests , which the Chinese threw into the Pearl River. They burnt down warehouses where opium was stored and set fire to British ships waiting to unload opium.

Queen Victoria sent in the British navy, launching and winning the First Opium War 1839. Under the peace treaty, the Treaty of Nanking 1842, to China’s shame, Britain acquired Hong Kong in perpetuity and China had to open up five new trading ports, Canton, Amoy, Foochou, Ningbo and Shanghai, on mainland China to British trade, and pay a huge indemnity of 21 million dollars.

In 1852 the British annex Lower Burma and import large amounts of opium from India and sell it through a government monopoly.

In 1858 under the Treaty of Tientsin after the Second Opium War (1856-1858) the Chinese had cede Kowloon, open up another dozen ports, pay another huge indemnity and make the importation of opium legal. Domestic cultivation of the opium was rapid and resulted in 15 to 20 million addicts by the end of the 19th century. China became the largest grower and consumer of opium in the world. The British had stolen a few tea shoots from China during the 1890s and were growing it around Darjeeling and were able to greatly reduce the opium trade with China.

The discovery of gold in California in 1849 brought many Chinese to the country seeking a fortune. They arrived at the port of San Francisco and established the first Chinatown in America. Thousands followed. Opium dens were built in the basements of businesses, such as Chinese laundries. When the gold ran out, the Chinese migrated and got jobs building railroads and canals and on farms and trading. Within 20 years the opium habit had spread all over North America as far afield as Chicago and Manhatten.

Governments all over the world now tried to ban it. San Francisco in North America was the first with public bonfires in the 1870s. In 1878 Britain enacted the Opium Act in India to try and reduce consumption by restricting the sale to registered Chinese opium smokers  and Indian opium eaters. The Burmese were prohibited from smoking opium. In 1890 the US imposes a tax on opium and morphine. In 1911 the Manchu dynasty was overthrown and the Republic of China founded. The same year Britain banned shipping opium to China in British ships. Indians in Calcutta and Jewish merchants from Baghdad continued to supply it and growing and consumption flourished inside China. Shanghai became the focal point for trade and consumption and the city was built on it.

There was a huge bonfire in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1914. Fortunately the best opium pipes and accessories were rescued by San Francisco’s mayor James Rolph and placed in the Golden Gate Museum.

During the 1920s and 1930s it was popular among jazz musicians and blues singers, who called it hip after the position of lying down when smoking it. Later giving rise to hipster and hippie.

Chinese migrations to Australia, New Zealand and South Africa brought recreational opium smoking to those countries. The habit was restricted to the Chinese and it did not really catch on in Europe, except in France, and there were numerous opium dens in the East End of London during the late 19th century.

Anti-opium legislation was enacted in Canada in the early 20^th century. There were opium eradication campaigns in Manila in the 1920s and thousands of opium pipes were confiscated in Hawaii and other US Pacific possessions. In 1925 there was a US federal ban on opium, which gave rise to a thriving black market in New York’s Chinatown. In Indonesia entry to a licensed opium den was permitted by showing an identity card proving the person was ethnic Chinese.

After Japan’s defeat in World War II, the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949) broke out between Chiang Kai-shek’s  Nationalist government and Mao Tse-tung’s Communist party, which won. The Communist regime immediately banned the sale and consumption of opium and closed the dens and all opium pipes and equipment were burned in large bonfires.  It was forbidden to make the equipment too. The eradication was successful.

Smoking continued outside China, where there were expatriate Chinese communities, such as in Hong Kong. In the 1940s the Golden Triangle of Burma , Laos and Northern Thailand became a major player for tribes, especially the Hmong, and warlords in the opium trade, aided by the French, and later by the US in the 1950s, who wanted them as allies in their efforts to limit the spread of Communism.

It was finally banned in North Vietnam in 1954, Thailand in 1959 and Burma in 1962.  The last legally licensed opium den in the world was in Thailand and the largest one, with 5,000 boarders, was in New Road in Bangkok called Heng Lak Hung. In 1975 South Vietnam and Cambodia fell to communist regimes which banned it. The last remaining opium den in Laos, in Vientiane, was closed down in 2004.

Rich Chinese kept a room in their houses reserved for smoking and entertained special guests there. A maid or house boy was trained to prepare the pipes. The poor Chinese frequented public opium dens, but only men. Women smoked at home. It was a habit for the middle-aged and elderly, not young people, and imbued with Taoist philosophy.  The ideal for health was to balance yin and yang. Opium was yin, cold, and feminine, slowing respiration, lowering blood pressure and decreasing appetite. It had to be balanced with yang foods, such as fatty meats, shrimps and mushrooms, herbal tonics, such as cinnamon, and beverages when they smoked. Plenty of tea was served as a minimum.

Opium dens, once prevalent in the Chinese districts of Southeast Asia (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia, where the Chinese emigrated), allowed low-grade opium to be smoked on woven bamboo mats in simple surroundings for a very small cash payment, but they are now all gone. Food, snacks, hot Chinese tea, mahjong and prostitutes were all available.

The Chinese refined opium smoking into a sophisticated art form, which reached its zenith in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The equipment used was often extremely artistic, but the art was destroyed when opium was banned and very few items remain, except in a number of museums, such as in Hong Kong and Chinatown, San Francisco.

Opium smoking still exists in Nagaland, and among tribal people, such as the Hmong, Akha and Mien, whose ancestors migrated south from Yunnan in China in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Three items are essential: the pipe (about 56 centimetres or 22 inches long and 2.5 centimetres or 1 inch diameter), the oil lamp and the needle. A wad of opium about the size of a pea is balanced on the end of the needle, which is placed over a tiny hole in the pipe bowl. The pipe bowl is shaped like a door knob.

Heat from the short lamp vaporizes the opium pellet at a low temperature. Just the right amount of heat has to be channeled on to a very small surface through the funnel chimney. It should not be burned. The smoke is then breathed into the smoker’s lungs from the pipe. Several pills of opium were smoked at a single session lasting several hours depending on the smoker’s tolerance to the drug. The effects could last twelve hours.

The most popular material for a pipe stem was bamboo. There were also ivory pipe stems, but they were not so good. Ivory mouthpieces, however, were the best, better than ox or water buffalo horn, which were alternatives. For show, but hardly used, mouthpieces were made of jade and stems were sheathed in turtle shell, silver, enamel and porcelain.

The pipe bowl was attached to the stem by a metal saddle, usually brass, but it could be silver or an alloy, two-thirds the way down from the mouthpiece. Pipe bowls of the late 18^th to early 19^th centuries were made of fragile fired clay. Later ones were porcelain and even jade or silver. They were designed to be easily removed for frequent cleaning by special scraping tools that looked like screwdrivers. All smokers owned at least one scraper as a pipe bowl would become full of dross after ten to twenty pipes. Constant cleaning eventually damaged the bowl which would have to be repaired. Pipe bowls were incised with designs and vivid decorations.

Although they were used to weigh opium, they could also be used to measure other items, such as herbal medicines.

In Opium-Smoking in America and China (1882), Harry Hubbell Kane described an ‘opium den’ in which stood ‘a pleasant-faced Chinaman who, with scales in hand, was weighing out some opium.’

Made of two animal carved wooden parts that pivot open at one end, which close together with a  strap. Inside are the original items – the base holds the folding scales – double brass bowls.

19th century – early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Chinese Opium Scale 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Dayak, Borneo (Kalimantan), Indonesia
Size: Height 6.5 cm, Width 3 cm
Order Number: MHSADE1

Many Dayak cultures live in Kalimantan. They live in long houses, wear feather headdresses, tattoo their bodies, and wear heavy earrings, which extend their earlobes by four or five inches. Extended earlobes are a sign of beauty.

Big earrings on elongated earlobes were a sign that a woman  was marriageable.

There is a similar pair of earrings in the Collection of the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Geneva shown in Power and Gold, Jewelry from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, Prestel-Verlag, 1985, page 280 and a photograph from The Sarawak Museum showing a lady with elongated earlobes wearing a pair on page 117.

19th century or early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Dayak Earrings appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Holland
Size: Height 52 cm, Diameter 7 cm (top)
Order Number: MHSADC1

Brass candlestick with a circular drip pan, baluster stem and domed base. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Probably owned by a Dutch family in Java.

Early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Dutch Candlestick appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Holland
Size: Height 26 cm, Diameter 4.5 cm (top), 15 cm (base)
Order Number: MHSADHC1

Brass candlestick with a circular drip pan, baluster stem and round domed rimmed base in the 16th century Dutch ‘Heemskerk’  style, named after Jacob van Heemskerck. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Probably owned by a Dutch family in Java.

Jacob van Heemskerck (1567 – 1607) was a Dutch explorer and admiral. In 1596 he led a mercantile voyage from the Netherlands to try and find a northern passage to China. The fleet ran into trouble in the Arctic Ocean and had to spend the winter on the archipelago of Nova Zembla in the Arctic north of Russia. The voyage was abandoned, and a large amount of goods,  including pewter candlesticks, were left behind.

Nearly three centuries later in 1876, they were discovered by Dr. Gardiner from Goring, Oxford, England who returned them to Holland. They are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Jacob van Heemskerck later served as a Vice Admiral from 1598 to 1600 in the Second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia under Admiral Jacob van Neck, which led to the establishment of the Dutch East India Company. The First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia was under Cornelis de Houtman.

Early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Dutch Heemskerk Candlestick 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Holland
Size: Height 26 cm, Diameter 4.5 cm (top), 15 cm (base)
Order Number: MHSADHC2

Brass candlestick with a circular drip pan, baluster stem and round domed rimmed base in the 16th century Dutch ‘Heemskerk’  style, named after Jacob van Heemskerck. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Probably owned by a Dutch family in Java.

Jacob van Heemskerck (1567 – 1607) was a Dutch explorer and admiral. In 1596 he led a mercantile voyage from the Netherlands to try and find a northern passage to China. The fleet ran into trouble in the Arctic Ocean and had to spend the winter on the archipelago of Nova Zembla in the Arctic north of Russia. The voyage was abandoned, and a large amount of goods,  including pewter candlesticks, were left behind.

Nearly three centuries later in 1876, they were discovered by Dr. Gardiner from Goring, Oxford, England who returned them to Holland. They are in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

Jacob van Heemskerck later served as a Vice Admiral from 1598 to 1600 in the Second Dutch Expedition to Indonesia under Admiral Jacob van Neck, which led to the establishment of the Dutch East India Company. The First Dutch Expedition to Indonesia was under Cornelis de Houtman.

Early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Dutch Heemskerk Candlestick 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Holland
Size: Height 11 cm,  20 cm (to top of handle), Diameter 15 cm, Width 22 cm (to end of spout)
Order Number: MHSADK1

In the 19th century kettles or teakettles were made out of tough materials such as brass, copper, stainless steel or cast iron. They were made to last.

This kettle of globular form has a bird-beak spot and the handle folds down for easy storage.

By the beginning of the 20th century,  kettles began to be made out of cast aluminum. In the 1920s and 1930s electric kettles became popular.

19th – early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Dutch Kettle appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Indonesia
Size: Cylinder: Height 14 cm, Diameter 2.75 cm; Pounder: Height 14 cm, Diameter (at top) 2.5 cm
Order Number: MHSAIBP1

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Indonesian Betel Pounder 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass, wood
Style: Indonesia
Size: Cylinder: Height 13 cm, Diameter 2.75 cm; Pounder: Height 16.5 cm, Diameter (at top) 5 cm
Order Number: MHSAIBP2

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Indonesian Betel Pounder 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Iron, brass, wood
Style: Java, Indonesia
Size: Height 23 cm
Order Number: MHSABBP4

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 50-60 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Javanese Betel Pounder 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Silver, brass, wood
Style: Java, Indonesia
Size: Height 26 cm
Order Number: MHSABBP5

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

About 50-60 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Javanese Betel Pounder 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass, wooden tray
Style: East Java, Indonesia
Size: Large bowl: Diameter 30 cm; 3 Small bowls: Diameter 10 cm; Pestle: Length 11 cm; Lime Pot: Height 5 cm, Diameter 8.5 cm; Betel Leaf Container: Height 12.5 cm, Length 13 cm, Width 8 cm (top), Length 7 cm, Width 5 cm (base)
Order Number: MHSAJBS1

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

This would have been owned by a member of the royal family.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Javanese Betel Set 1 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: East Java, Indonesia
Size: Bowl 1: Height 4.5 cm, Diameter 8.5 cm; Bowl 2: Height 6 cm, Diameter 6.75 cm; Bowl 3: Height 5.25 cm, Diameter 8.5 cm; Lime Pot: Height 5 cm, Diameter 5 cm; Betel Leaf Container: Height 10 cm, Width 5.5 cm (top), Length 5 cm, Width 3.5 cm (base)
Order Number: MHSAJBS2

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

This would have been owned by a member of the royal family.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Javanese Betel Set 2 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: East Java, Indonesia
Size: Large Bowl: Diameter 16 cm; Bowl with lid: Height 5 cm, Diameter 4.5 cm; Bowl without lid: Height 3.5 cm, Diameter 5.5 cm; Lime Pot: Height 3.5 cm, Diameter 5 cm; Pot: Height 5 cm, Diameter 5.5 cm (top)
Order Number: MHSAJBS3

Betel chewing was widespread in Bali and offered to guests as a sign of welcome. It was – and is still – offered to the gods and ancestors in ceremonies.

The basic ingredients are betel leaf, areca nut and lime powder. Gambir and tobacco may be added  to make it more fragrant.

The containers and implements included boxes of various shapes and sizes to store the betel nuts,  betel leaf holders for the already prepared betel quid, lime pots, hinged cutters , similar to scissors, to cut the hard areca nut, knives to cut the softer nuts, pounders to crush the nut, salve boxes to hold beeswax for the lips, spittoons, tobacco pouches and trays on which they all were displayed.

The betel pounder was like a mortar and pestle. It came in various sizes and its purpose was to crush the areca nut into a soft substance for the elderly or those who had no teeth and could not chew the hard nut. The pounder was a long metal instrument with a handle and sharpened tip, which pressed down on the nut inside a tall hollow cylinder.

This would have been owned by a member of the royal family.

About 80-90 years.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Javanese Betel Set 3 appeared first on Murni's in Bali.

Material: Brass
Style: Nagaland, India
Size: Height  cm, Width  cm
Order Number: MHSANBH1

Nagaland is landlocked in the north east of India, one of India’s 28 states, created in 1963, with a population of about 2 million people from 16 Tibetan Burmese tribes, who have nothing in common with the vast majority of Indians. Nobody is quite sure where they came from – the Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organisation says Mongolia in the 10th century.

Each Naga tribe has its own language or dialect. The villages are independent of each other, and self-sufficient.

The Nagas were enthusiastic headhunters. The British criminalised it in the 1920s, but it continued well into the 1960s and even 1980s, although there was mass conversion to Christianity in the late 19th century largely by American missionaries.

  

1937 photo of Naga Warrior wearing Classic Trophy Necklace and a hat decorated with hornbill beaks and boar’s tusks taken by Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf in The Nagas, Hill People’s of Northeast India, Julian Jacobs, Thames & Hudson, 1990, page 69.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

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Material: Brass
Style: Turkey
Size: Height 11.5 cm, Length 10 cm, Depth 3 cm
Order Number: MHSATCC

Rectangular pointed shape, with hinged lid, with repoussé decoration consisting of a central intricate floral bouquet within a medallion bordered by a dense floral ground, the lid with similar decoration, and a belt-loop.

19th century – early 20th century.

Please ask for the price (or make an offer).

The post Antique Ottoman Turkish Cartridge Case appeared first on Murni's in Bali.