PAIR OF TALISMANIC DISCS (KAWARI), SULAWESI, 19TH CENTURY, GOLD ALLOY, 4.8 AND 4.7CM, PRIVATE COLLECTION, SYDNEY – TAASA Review September 2021

resisted by both the general Buginese population as well as the aristocracy ‘who blanched at the idea that all men were created equal in the sight of Allah’ (2012: 215).

Indeed, the conversion of the Buginese to Islam was not universal, with many preIslamic traditions and beliefs continuing to be observed for centuries afterwards into the modern day.

The changing function of artist trade guilds, following the royal conversion in 1605, into bases for Sufis and other mystical orders, however, signalled the gradual spread of Islamic culture and its modification to suit a local Buginese context. The discs demonstrate the synthesis and alteration of Islamic and local Buginese traditions in two ways: first, through the religious symbolism of the medium with which they were decorated, and second, by the ritualistic function of the discs...