Dayak / Bornean vs Polynesian
Dayak / Bornean was influenced by Polynesian — part of the broader Austronesian tattoo lineage.
Dayak / Bornean
Indigenous Bornean tattooing of curvilinear black motifs—spirals, the bungai terung rosette, and dog/dragon forms—hand-tapped over carved wood stencils.
- Dense curvilinear black interlace
- Bungai terung (eggplant-flower) shoulder rosette
- Aso dog-dragon and scorpion motifs
- Carved-woodblock stencil tradition
- Mirrored, space-filling spiral compositions
Polynesian
A broad Pacific tattooing tradition of solid black geometric bands built from repeated motifs encoding genealogy, status, and protection.
- Solid flat-black geometric bands
- Repeated enata (figure) and spearhead motifs
- Niho mano (shark-teeth) triangle rows
- Tiki faces and ocean-wave fillers
- Bands wrapping and following body contours
At a glance
| Dayak / Bornean | Polynesian | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Ancient–present | Ancient–present |
| Discipline | Tattoo | Tattoo |
| Region | Borneo, Sarawak, Kalimantan | Polynesia, Samoa, Tahiti, Marquesas, Hawaii |
| Family | Austronesian, Indigenous | Austronesian, Tribal |
| Formal traits | solid-black, curvilinear, spiral-interlace, mirrored, space-filling | solid-black, geometric-bands, repeated-motifs, symmetrical, contour-following |
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