Atjeh powder horns — Dutch kruithoorns, “powder horns” — are, in F. A. Wagner’s Sierkunst in Indonesië (1949), the powder horns that the Atjehers (and the Bataks) carved from the original horn-shape, rather than from horn re-shaped into a flat plate. Wagner mentions the Atjeh powder horns in the chapter “Hoorn-, been- en ivoorbewerking” (Horn, bone and ivory working), in the course of his discussion of the regional traditions of horn-carving in the archipelago. The Atjeh and Batak powder horns are the only Sumatran examples in Wagner’s account of horn-carving, and they are the only objects he records as carved from the unaltered horn-form.
The passage in Wagner
In the section on horn, after describing the Javanese practice of sawing the horn, flattening it under a press, and working it into shapes that bear no relation to the original horn-form, Wagner turns to a different tradition: “Op Sumatra treffen wij bij de Bataks en Atjehers voorwerpen aan — bijv. kruithoorns —, die gesneden zijn uit de oorspronkelijke hoornvorm. Interessant zijn de kogelhouders der Karo-Bataks in de vorm van een gebogen snavel; handig is gebruik gemaakt van de veerkracht van het materiaal om de kogels vast te houden.”
The Atjeh and Batak powder horns are thus grouped together as a Sumatran alternative to the Javanese practice. Where the Javanese horn-worker flattens the horn and works it as a flat plate, the Sumatran horn-worker (the Atjeh and the Batak) keeps the horn’s original curved form and carves the object out of that form. The powder horn — a curved, tapering container for gunpowder — is, in this Sumatran tradition, an object whose shape is found in the horn itself: the carver does not impose a shape on the material, but releases the shape that the material already contains.
The powder horn and the Atjeh warrior tradition
The powder horn is, in itself, an accessory of gunpowder warfare — a container for the gunpowder that a musketeer or horseman carries on his person. In the Atjehnese context, the powder horn is thus an artefact of the same warrior tradition that produced the reuntjong (the Atjeh dagger) and that, in the colonial period, produced the Atjeh-oorlog. The Atjeh powder horn is, in this sense, the powder container of the Atjeh warrior — the piece of equipment that supplies the gunpowder to the musket, in the same way that the reuntjong supplies the blade.
The pairing of the Atjeh and Batak powder horns in Wagner’s text is significant: the Batak lands lie immediately south of Atjeh, and the two regions share, in Wagner’s account, a horn-carving tradition that the rest of Sumatra does not share. The Karo-Batak kogelhouders (bullet-holders) that Wagner mentions alongside the powder horns are themselves a related artefact — a curved, horn-work container for bullets, in the form of a curved beak. The Atjeh powder horn and the Karo-Batak bullet-holder are thus two examples of the same Sumatran tradition of working horn into warrior equipment by preserving, rather than flattening, the original form.
The carving tradition and the Atjeh decorative signature
Wagner does not describe the decoration of the Atjeh powder horns in detail, but the technique he identifies — carving from the original horn-form — is, in itself, a decorative as well as a functional choice. The horn’s natural curve and taper are preserved in the finished object, and the carver’s work is the work of releasing the form from the material, rather than the work of imposing a form on it. This is, in a sense, the same restraint that Wagner reads in the anker-motief’s rounded geometry and in the plang’s single-motif austerity: the Atjeh craftsman works with the material’s own form, rather than against it.
The decoration of the powder horn — the surface carving that, in the Batak tradition, often includes human figures, animal figures, and geometric patterns — is, in the Atjeh tradition, an open question. Wagner does not describe it. But the horn itself, carved from the original form, is the Atjeh contribution to the Sumatran horn-carving tradition; and the powder horn, as a warrior’s artefact, is the Atjeh contribution to the material culture of the Atjeh warrior tradition.
Significance
The Atjeh powder horns are, in Wagner’s account, the principal example of Atjeh horn-carving — and the only example he records of Atjeh horn-work that preserves the original horn-form. Their significance in the larger history of Atjehnese material culture is that they place the Atjeh warrior’s equipment within a Sumatran horn-carving tradition that the rest of Sumatra does not share: the powder horn is the same kind of object as the Karo-Batak bullet-holder, and the two together mark a regional tradition of horn-work for warrior use. The Atjeh powder horn is, in this sense, the horn-work counterpart of the reuntjong — the dagger and the powder-container, the blade and the powder, the two pieces of equipment that together define the Atjeh warrior’s kit.
See Also
Source
Sierkunst in Indonesië, by F. A. Wagner, Insulinde — Serie Handleidingen voor de Kennis van Indonesië, Vol. VI (Groningen, Batavia: J. B. Wolters’ Uitgevers-Maatschappij N.V., 1949), p. 110.