THE CÉLADON
who again have purchased them from the Chinese traders at Singapore or Macassar.
The Dyak representative of the blue-china school, however, goes beyond the European devotee in his veneration of old crockery. Among his greatest treasures are a series of gudji blanga, a sort of glazed jar imported from China, in green, blue, or brown, ornamented with figures of lizards and serpents in relief. These pots are valued at from 100 florins to as much as 3,000 florins (8l. to 240l.) each, according to size, pattern, and above all, old age combined with good condition. According to the native legend, these precious vases are made of the remnants of the same clay from which "Mahatara" (the Almighty) made first the sun, and then the moon. Medicinal virtues are attributed to these urns, and they are regarded as affording complete protection from evil spirits to the house in which they are stored. A very full account of the various legends connected with these gudji blanga is given in Mr. W. H. T. Perelaer's most interesting work, "Ethnographische Beschrijving der Dajaks," pp. 112-120. That author, however, gives them different names, the nearest of approach to that by which I have always heard them called being Balanga.
This China craze among the Dyaks has proved, as in England, an excellent opportunity for the exercise of John Chinaman's skill; and very clever imitations of old vases, with cracks, chips, age-stains, and other indications of antiquity, most exactly reproduced by them, are offered for sale at Samarinda at five florins each; but, unlike many London connoisseurs, your Dyak is never taken in by these spurious gudji blangas, preferring to give hundreds of guilders for a real specimen. Each true plastic relative of the sun and moon has its pedigree, which is passed down from generation to generation.
Borneo, however, offered but a small market, comparatively speaking, for the keramic productions of the Middle Kingdom. Its interest in this context centers in the fact that its story supplies a strong confirmation of the conclusions recorded in previous
71
