Timor Mask Carvings

Timor Mask Carvings Overview : Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, also known as West Timor. Constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Within West Timor lies an exclave of East Timor called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of 30,777 square kilometres . The name is a variant of timur. Malay for "east". It is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Mainland Australia is less than 500 km away, separated by the mentioned Timor Sea (wikipedia)

History of Timor

The earliest historical record about Timor island is the 14th-century Nagarakretagama,. Canto 14, that identifies Timur as an island within Majapahit's realm. Timor was incorporated into ancient Javanese, Chinese and Indian trading networks of the 14th century as an exporter of aromatic sandalwood, slaves, honey and wax, . and was settled by both the Portuguese. In the end of the 16th century, and the Dutch, based in Kupang, in the mid-17th century.

As the nearest island with a European settlement at the time, Timor was the destination of William Bligh and seamen loyal to him following the infamous Mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. It was also where survivors of the wrecked HMS Pandora. Sent to arrest the Bounty mutineers, landed in 1791 after that ship sank in the Great Barrier Reef.

The island has been politically divided in two parts for centuries. The Dutch and Portuguese fought for control of the island until it was divided by treaty n 1859. But, they still did not formally resolve the matter of the boundary until 1912. West Timor, was known as Dutch Timor until 1949. When it became Indonesian Timor, a part of the nation of Indonesia which was formed from the old Netherlands East Indies; . While East Timor was known as Portuguese Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975. It includes the exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno in West Timor.

Meaning of timor mask carvings

Timor Mask carving meanings that represent and describe the way of life, experience, and beliefs. Like Circle shape represent wind, triangle shape represent mountain/earth, wave shape represent water. When someone become an adult man, their father thought him how to make carving, because family believed that carving is a life skill and how to human appriciate to mother nature for everything.

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