Kalimantan, Borneo, Indonesia [mamapas pali] depicting a
hornbill soul ship 26.0 (h) x 171.0 (w) x 5.0 (d) cm National
Museum of Ethnology, Leiden The ship is an ancient recurring
image in Southeast Asian art. A powerful symbol of transition,
especially from this world to the afterlife, it appears on grave
goods and trade items from the Bronze Age until modern times.
The earliest coffins discovered across Southeast Asia are boat-
shaped. Ships are still found on textiles, mats, sculptures and
paintings that symbolise and celebrate the most important
transition in a person’s life, the journey of the soul to the
realm of the ancestors. In its most overt form, the boat depicts
the vehicle in which the spirit of the deceased travels to the
other world. Ship imagery is also displayed at other ceremonies
of the lifecycle when an individual moves from one social or
spiritual state to another, including initiations into adulthood
such as tooth-filing, and at weddings.