Thursday, 10 March 2016

PANTANG FOR IBAN

Pantang is a tattoo that Ibans community make for many reason especially to show rites of passage. As iban believes, they performed with a new tattoo near the wrist to conceal the person from the evil spirit. Iban tattooing was also served as vital elements of beauty for woman. The tattoo is features of nature denoted spiritual assistance, protection, prestige and tribal identity among other things. There has a specific design of tattoo to particular parts of body, such as a images of jar is on the neck, binjal flower on  a forepart of shoulder, scorpion  on hand and others part such as backs, legs and throats.


figure 3 pantang on male iban body


figure 4 design of pantang 'bingai terung'


Pantang is made up by using an ancient dye-recipes and special tools with one or more sharp points embedded in native rubber on the one end. To image it on the body, it hammered against the tool with a wooden stick to pierce the body, resulting on feel pain. After that, rice-flour paste are used to cool the tattooed areas. The picture show the tool that they use to make a pantang.


figure 5 special tools to make pantang

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