Ceremonial string winder
Artwork Details
- Title: Ceremonial string winder
- Artist: Kisar Island artist
- Date: 19th–early 20th century
- Geography: Indonesia, Kisar Island, Maluku Tenggara
- Culture: Probably Kisar Island
- Medium: Wood
- Dimensions: H. 9 3/4 × W. 1 × D. 1 in. (24.8 × 2.5 × 2.5 cm)
- Classification: Wood-Implements
- Credit Line: Gift of Fred and Rita Richman, 1988
- Object Number: 1988.143.107
- Curatorial Department: The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
Audio

1723. Ceremonial string winder, Kisar Island artist
Aone van Engelenhoven
AONE VAN ENGELENHOVEN: The boat builders were the ones who were really real magicians.
My name is Aone van Engelenhoven. I'm a university lecturer at Leiden University, and my research is on storytelling, specifically in East Indonesia. I am originally from Southwest Maluku.
KATERINA TEAIWA (NARRATOR): This string winder helped the people of Maluku to build both houses and boats. The string that once wrapped around it acted as a measuring tape.
AONE VAN ENGELENHOVEN: So in order to build a boat in a certain moment, they would destroy their clan house, make that into a boat, then ask the women to make a sail. And before they would destroy the house, these winders that we see, they would measure the house, how big it is.
KATERINA TEAIWA: Once the string winder was used to measure the old, dismantled house…
AONE VAN ENGELENHOVEN: ...you would take it along on the boat, and then you would go out and find a new place to stay. If you have found a new place to stay, then you take out the winders and you build the house again.
KATERINA TEAIWA: In a culture where moving from island to island was common, this was a way to bring your house, history, and culture with you.
The carving at the top of the winder depicts an important ancestor. Some Islanders trace their ancestry all the way back to the very first arrivals.
AONE VAN ENGELENHOVEN: The people that live here consider themselves to be somehow descendants of an old continent that doesn't exist anymore.
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