COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Zandlopervormige keteltrom TMnr 5977-9

''Moko'' are bronze

kettledrum Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally ...

s from Alor Island, Indonesia. While they have been found in several different locations in

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, they are most famously associated with the island of Alor, where they have long been prized in ceremonial exchanges. Later moko were made in China and

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...

and were brought to Alor in the 19th century. Some scholars identify the design and decorations have their likely origin in Đông Sơn the centre of the

Đông Sơn culture The Dong Son culture or the Lạc Việt culture (named for modern village Đông Sơn, a village in Thanh Hóa, Vietnam) was a Bronze Age culture in ancient Vietnam centred at the Red River Valley of northern Vietnam from 1000 BC until the ...

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. However, it remains a mystery as to how the older Đông Sơn drums arrived in Alor. Local origin stories describe the discovery of mokos buried in the ground, and it is still common to hear of moko being uncovered in this way. In ''The People of Alor,''Du Bois, Cora Alice. 1960. The people of Alor; a social-psychological study of an East Indian island. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. American anthropologist Cora Du Bois describes people burying mokos in hidden locations to avoid surrendering them to creditors or lending them to relatives. Moko remain important symbols of status and are particularly important is their ritual value. Moko are still generally required as part of the bridal dowry, though the short supply of moko today means that moko must often be borrowed or mortgaged for this purpose.

References

Archaeological artefact types Indonesian musical instruments Drums Archaeology of Indonesia {{Membranophone-instrument-stub

See also

References