TITLE: Dayak Hudoq
TYPE: face mask
GENERAL REGION: Oceania
COUNTRY: Indonesia
SUBREGION: Borneo
ETHNICITY: Dayak
DESCRIPTION: Hudoq Mask
CATALOG ID: OCID001
MAKER: Unknown
CEREMONY: Agriculture; Purification
FUNCTION: Agriculture; Purification
AGE: ca. 1980s
MAIN MATERIAL: wood
OTHER MATERIALS: wicker; nails; paint
The Hudoq is part of a ceremony to drive pests away from fields during planting season and ensure a fertile harvest. The Hudoqs, wearing brightly colored masks and costumes made from banana leaves, try to frighten the spectators, who represent pest-spirits. As such, the more grotesque masks were favored. Heavy bronze earrings would dangle from its ears to add further motion and sometimes noise to the Hudoq’s movements. They were worn with a wicker cap filled with hornbill feathers (missing on this specimen) and held to the face using a bite stick. They dance in large groups to drums.
Hudoqs might also be enlisted by shamans for healing rituals, to scare away the source of illness.
Hudoqs take different forms. This one is part hornbill and part demon, and is a well known mask type among the Dayak.
