In my Pokok Pauh Janggi performance at Kappalorek Artspace the embroidered Eagle motif on a Western Bib shirt becomes a signifier for the Giant Burong Roc.
Burong Roc 5
Tag: Rukh
Burung Roc 4
In this late career engraving by Dutch painter Johannes Stradanus (1523-1605) commerating Ferdinand Maggellen’s discovery of the passage around the globe, there is a representation of the ‘Roc.’ In his essay analysing this complex collection of realistic, emblematical, and mythological representations, Rudolph Wittkover makes two references that locate the abode of the creature in what must be the South China Sea. He notes that Maggellen’s companion and chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, locates its home in the “Chinese Seas”. Indeed, as the ship in the illustration, is coming out of the Magellen Straits and facing the open Pacific Ocean, the South China Sea might be located in the North Westerly direction from whence the Roc could be interpreted as approaching the scene. Wittkover also cites the Maghrebi explorer and scholar, Ibn Batuta, who tells how, again, in the Chinese Seas, a massive form that he and his fellows thought was a flying mountain, turned out to be the Roc. These accounts tie in with the notion that the Roc nests in the Pokok Pauh Janggi at the center of the Pusat Tasek, located somewhere in the South China Sea.
https://www-jstor-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/stable/pdf/750014.pdf
Burung Roc 3
This centrepiece from a 19th Century Malay wedding showing fabulous birds and dragons. As the dragons face-off in the lake, the birds occupy the tree-tops. Walter Skeat, who collected this piece at the end of the 19th Century, notes three types of bird – the Roc (of Middle Eastern origin) which he equates with Garuda (Lord Vishnu’s vehicle), Jintayu (or Jadayu from the Ramayana) and the Walimana which he equates with the Harpy (of Greek mythology). This display evidences how the, now less familliar, Burung Roc was once an integral part of Malay folklore and material culture.
The Koboi Project 
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