Borneo Schematic -

The lattice/tapis motif echoes the woven patterns used in ritual cloths that contain protective spiritual power ( semangat ). Placing such patterns on cave walls may have "activated" the shelter as a ritual locus for rainmaking, head-hunting success, or agricultural fertility.

The Borneo Schematic Rock Art Tradition: Chronology, Symbolism, and Landscape Use in Island Southeast Asia borneo schematic

The repetitive raised-arm figure finds direct analogy among contemporary Kenyah and Iban pelian (healing ceremonies). During trance, shamans ( manang ) adopt the "bird posture" (arms upraised to mimic hornbill flight) to travel to the sky-world. Clusters of identical stick figures may represent successive trance states or the shaman’s spirit retinue. The lattice/tapis motif echoes the woven patterns used

The Borneo Schematic rock art tradition is a long-lived, internally coherent, and symbolically dense expression of Neolithic to Metal Age Austronesian societies in Island Southeast Asia. It is not a primitive scribble but a sophisticated visual language encoding shamanic journeying, territorial boundaries, and cosmological navigation. Future research should focus on residue analysis of pigment binders (to identify plant-based ritual substances) and expanded dating of the enigmatic boat motifs. Understanding the Schematic tradition illuminates not only prehistoric art but the spiritual and political lives of the ancestors of today’s Borneo peoples. During trance, shamans ( manang ) adopt the

Fage, L. H., & Chazine, J. M. (2009). Borneo, Memory of the Caves . Le Kalimanthrope.