Pusaka, traditional heirlooms of Malaysia and Indonesia, are familial and cultural property of the past. Important among them, on the island of Borneo, were large stoneware jars. Most were imported from China and Southeast Asia, were simple in outline and tended to be conservative in pattern. Known as Martaban to outsiders, they have been inadequately described.

To secure fresh attributions for their diverse sorts, the Bornean perspectives of large jars were studied from three main points of view, each one covering a different time-period.

Potters, who currently make jars in Sarawak and Sabah, were interviewed and observed at work. This identified their origins in China, their production techniques and their ability to reproduce any jar faithfully, a fact which had prompted, since before 1900, the spread of reproductions and the sale of heirlooms on the island.

The extrinsic perspective of heirloom-jars were mainly examined through the literature. References which disclosed details of their trade, local criteria of type and style, judgments of patterns and names of jars were investigated. An impression of the volume, the value and character of the jar-trade, as it existed during the 19th century, was gained. An understanding of native expertise of jars resulted, as well as interpretations and attributions for a number of jar-patterns.

Archaeological fragments from a Brunei site, an entrepot and fort during the 15th and 16th centuries, when jars from Thailand were the most common imports, were also examined. Critiques of their formal properties and of methods leading to meaningful classifications of fragments were formulated.

Descriptions of the diversity of jars are presented in conclusion. They are based on jars preserved in musea, particularly former heirloom-jars in the Brunei and Sabah collections. Approximate origins for seven classes of jars from China, Vietnam, Thailand and Borneo are proposed. The jars concerned range in date from the 9th century onward up until the 20th.