18 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XII. 



historical standpoint, while active explorers, particularly on Borneo, 

 have brought to light considerable material in the way of specimens. 

 For the Philippines , little had been done in this direction, and it is the 

 merit of Mr. Cole to render accessible to students a representative 

 collection of that pottery which may be designated as "second period," 

 and which is of the highest interest as palpable evidence of the inter- 

 course between China and the Philippines during the Ming period. 



The establishment of the two periods is reflected also in the tradi- 

 tions of the Malayan tribes. Mr. Cole (p. 12) relates that the Magsawt. 

 jar was not made where the Chinese are, but belongs to the spirits or 

 Kabonlan. There are other jars clearly recognized as Chinese by the 

 natives. In regard to the latter, the tradition is still alive; the former 

 are of a more considerable age or were made in a period, the wares of 

 which could no more be supplied by the Chinese, so that the belief 

 could gain ground that they had never been made by the Chinese, but 

 by the spirits. Among the Dayak of Borneo, this state of affairs is 

 still more conspicuous. There, the oldest jars have been connected 

 with solar and lunar mythology. Mahatara, the supreme god, piled 

 up on Java seven mountains from the loam which was left after the 

 creation of sun, moon and earth. Ratu Tjampu, of divine origin, used 

 the clay of these mountains to make a great number of djawet (sacred 

 jars) which he kept and carefully guarded in a cave. One day when 

 his watch was interrupted, the jars transformed themselves into animals 

 (compare Cole, pp. 12, 13) and escaped. When a fortunate hunter kills 

 such game it changes again into a jar, which becomes the trophy of the 

 hunter favored by the gods. According to another tradition, the god 

 of the moon, Kadjanka, taught the son of a Javanese ruler, Raja Pahit, 

 to form jars out of the clay with which Mahatara had made sun and 

 moon; all these jars fled to Borneo, where they still are. 1 I do not 

 believe that these traditions point to Java as a place from which pottery 

 found its way to Borneo; Java has merely become a symbol for the 

 mysterious unknown. This mythical pottery attributed to the action 

 of gods, it seems to me, is to be identified with Chinese pottery of the 

 Sung period, while that accompanied by mere narrative traditions 

 seems to correspond to that of the Ming period. This sequence of 

 myth and plain story has its foundation in long intervals of time and 

 in many changes as to the kinds and grades of pottery introduced from 



1 A. R. Hein, Die bildenden Kunste bei den Dayaks auf Borneo, p. 134 (Wien, 

 1894), an d F. S. Grabowsky, Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, Vol. XVII, 1885, pp. 121- 

 123. Grabowsky is of the opinion that Perelaer, to whom the second tradition is 

 due, can never have heard it from the lips of a Dayak, but simply ascribed to them 

 this tradition originating from Java. 



