Sumpitan (Dayak Blowpipe)

Because of its barrel-shaped mouthpiece, wood construction, and style of decoration, this blowpipe is likely of Dayak manufacture. In this example, both the inner and outer pipes along with their bindings are clearly visible. Since it does lack the bayonet-like sight that is common to nearly all Borneo blowpipes (which also serves as a spear for finishing off quarry), it cannot be definitively identified as such.

In Borneo, blowpipes (sumpitan) are generally made of wood. Traditionally, a roughly hewn piece of wood was lashed vertically and a "chisel", formed from a long iron rod, the end of which was sharpened, was fixed in such a way that it could be brought down continually at the same spot on the end of the length of wood. By prolonged chipping, a bore was formed, and this was then smoothed by drawing a length of rattan back and forward through the tube. Finally, the outside of the tube was rubbed down and a spearhead and foresight lashed to the muzzle. The dart butts could be made of either tightly bound fiber, as these are, or of wood pulp, as in the previous examples.

In both the Malaysian peninsula and Borneo, the darts were, and occasionally still are, poisoned with the latex-like sap of the ipoh tree, from which the Malaysian city of Ipoh derives its name. Ipoh latex has been found to contain cardiac glycosides that can cause heart failure; however, it has to be introduced into the blood stream to be effective. Even so, it is not itself usually a deadly poison and is often mixed with the latex of another plant, strychnos ignatii, which contains strychnine, to make it more potent. The combination is concentrated by heating over a fire. The tips of blowpipe darts are armed by dipping them into the sticky concoction, producing a stable poisoned tip that causes rapid cardiac failure in birds and small mammals but which, once the animals are bled, poses little danger to humans.

Blowpipe: wood, waxed twine, 137 x 4cm; Darts: wood, fiber, 21 x 1.5cm.