SUMBA, INDONESIA, 19TH CENTURY

Mamulis were initially meant as ear pendants. In the Sumbanese spiritual and ritual life mamulis hold great powers and are key to the communication with the spiritual world and central to gift exchanges. They were gathered by clan elders, kept in the village treasury and considered communal property. Firmly connected to fertility, they however also encapsulate powerful male iconography as shown in the New York City Metropolitan Museum's example from East Nusa Tenggara (Accession number 1990.335.4). The birds borne by our mamulis are closely connected to the soul and the 'upper world' as opposed to the snake pattern (naga) linked to the 'underworld' (Bruce W. Carpenter, Ethnic Jewellery from Indonesia: Continuity and Evolution, Singapore 2012, p. 46).