A Superb Paiwan/ Rukai Tribe Chiefly Grain Storage Container from Taiwan Formosa Island Late 19th to early 20th Century

A Superb Paiwan/Rukai Tribe Chiefly Grain Storage Container called Puludru from Taiwan Formosa Island Late 19th to early 20th Century 

This superbly carved Grain Storage Container called Puludru was used solely by chiefly households for safe storage of their grain. This large Grain Storage Container is carved from a single piece of hardwood, the designs are carved in very high relief which makes the figures look three-dimensional, and there is an encrusted patina from long use over generations.

The Paiwan or Rukai people’s grain barrels are large containers used in all households to store unprocessed food such as millet, sweet potatoes, and taro. Most of these large grain barrels are made by simply hollowing out a solid tree trunk into a cylindrical shape, most household items are not decorated with carvings, but only those used solely by Chiefs or nobles would be carved with patterns such as ancestor figures & snakes like this fine example.

The main crops of the Paiwan people in the early days were millet, taro, sweet potato, peanut, and tree beans, later, due to frequent contact with the Han people, they also began to grow rice.

The main iconography on this container is a powerful figure of a Chief or Deified Ancestor along with the important Two Hundred-Pacer Snakes which are above him and on his chest. The Hundred-Pacer Snakes (Agkistrodon acutus) which is one of the most important characters in Paiwan mythology, and is generally considered to be the pro-creator of the Chiefs and nobles.

The legs of the Storage Container are carved heads which the Chiefs are standing on this relates to the ancient practice of headhunting. The Paiwan is one of the most well-known of the several indigenous peoples living in the mountainous interior of Taiwan. Paiwan society is hierarchical, divided into high nobles, minor nobility, and commoners. In former times, only the high nobility was entitled to create or commission certain forms of human images, which portrayed important ancestors (tsmas). The ancestors, whose supernatural influence was controlled by the nobility, had the power to either help or harm the community, depending on whether their spirits received proper respect through ritual observances and offerings. The houses of Paiwan nobles were both the physical and artistic centres of ancestral power and imagery.  The remains of noble ancestors were buried within the houses of their descendants, and their images adorned the doorways, house posts, and other architectural elements and ritual objects like this fine old Grain Storage Container

Provenance: Old Collection  Taiwan, The Todd Barlin Collection of Oceanic and Asian Art.

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