Terminologies of Indonesian Objects in the NMVW

Premise

• in many cases, Dutch titles & names for objects are not translations of Indonesian titles & names --> often, the Dutch terms are applied in hindsight, merely describing the kind of object from a Dutch lense)

• cultural & linguistic diversity on one hand and colonial simplification & confusion lead to competing terminologies and conflated and imprecise concepts

• consequences of that are:

  • general intransparency about what is present in the collection and which groups of objects are seen by the collection as belonging together (relatedness is vague)
  • original Indonesian terminology often does not find all Indonesian objects & the coverage is unclear
  • objects and their cultural values and functions are misrepresented (e.g. saying simply "pot" when the object in question has spiritual value)

• Indonesian terminologies are (partly) present in the thesaurus and linked to objects, meaning that objects can be found in such cases --> however, the object titles and descriptions often don't reflect this, don't mention those same terms and therefore are not transparent about these connections that do exist

First Steps

• gather objects that are findable with known Indonesian terminologies
• identify objects that may correspond, e.g. via Dutch terminologies, places, etc
• gather Dutch terms used on Indonesian objects (& investigate differences)
• inventorise NMVW thesaurus (and of other institutions?)

Immediate TODOs

• find objects that have Indonesian translations (titles)
• expand set of case studies

To Move Further

• write up report of issues:
  • enriched examples to set goal
• think of strategies, using computational aid to use human knowledge effectively

Need

• richer & more Indonesian terminologies
• (at least) examples of objects that are titled, named & described with proper Indonesian terminology (and translated into Dutch?)

Case Studies

Sirih

Also occurs in the spellings 'sireh' and 'sereh'; also called 'pinang' (sometimes spelled 'penang'). Refers to what in Europe is mostly referred to as 'Betel nut' ('betel' from Malayalam via Portugese); there is confusion about terms used for the nut itself (from the Areca palm), the leaves of the Betel plant used to wrap the nut and the consumption as a whole.

Objects in the collection are mainly sets of dishes, tools and containers used for the storage and consumption of the nut (and any other ingredients). Thus, these are often referred to by terms related to sets, dishes, containers and tools. The terms 'betel' 'sirih' and 'pinang' sometimes seem to be used interchangeably and rarely occur together; differences in usage are: 'sirih' is more used for the consumption as a whole and the Betel leaf, 'pinang' mainly refers to the nut itself and 'betel' is noticeably less specific.

Some objects:

• "Betelstel - papangadjaiyang": https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/592495 --> Description: "Sirihstel met bakjes voor resp. pinang, gambir, sirihbladen en kalk." --> found with term "pinang"

• "Sirihdoos - ": https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11840/738119 --> one of the recently restituted objects; part of the so-called "Treasure of Lombok" --> contains the description "Een sirihpruim bestaat uit stukjes pinang, de noot van de arecapalm, tezamen met kalkpasta - vaak gemaakt van schelpen - en het sap van de gambirplant en eventueel nog tabak. Deze ingrediënten worden in een betelblad (= daun sirih) gewikkeld."

sirih

pinang

betel

Table with Terms from the Thesaurus

Martavan

Also spelled 'Martaban' and 'Martavaan'; also known as 'tempayan' (is it the same kind of object? what's the difference?).

martavan

tempayan

Table with Terms from the Thesaurus

General Observations & Outcomes

• the NMVW thesaurus does not contain links between concepts (except for a broader/narrower hierarchy), so it cannot be determined from thesaurus that two terms refer to the same (similar) concepts