natural world is a popular source of designs for the weavers of Southeast Asia. The bands of floating red and blue pilih motifs on this early twentieth-century jacket could only be exactly explained by the weaver who made the jacket. However, the various hooks and spirals have been identified by one experienced Iban weaver to include gourd seeds (igi genok), horse mango (buah bunut), forked roots (akar besimpang), the long rice vessel (tungkus asi panjaz) and diamond patterns (buah lunchong). Similar patterns are repeated on the front. A jacket of this length is worn by a ritual orator (lemambang) while officiating at Iban festivals (gawat).
pua kumbu ceremonial cloth Iban people, Sarawak, Malaysia handspun cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 279.0 x 167.5 cm Australian National Gallery 1981.1097
pua sungkit ceremonial cloth Iban people, Sarawak, Malaysia handspun cotton, natural dyes supplementary weft wrapping 112.0 x 213.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1982. 1296
pua kumbu ceremonial cloth Iban people, Layar River, Sarawak, Malaysia handspun cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 126.3 x 222.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.611
Iban textiles are decorated in the same tricolour as their ancestors' pottery. These three huge, nineteenth-century woven cloths (pua) were used by the Iban in ceremonies invoking the presence of benevolent ancestors and spirits. Such is the power of pua woven by ritually experienced women, that malevolent beings can be kept at bay on such occasions by a display of these fine textiles. The patterns are highly schematic depictions of ideas drawn from the natural world and the shared repertoire of Iban mythical and legendary designs. It is possible that the borders of the ceremonial cloth in Plate 52, which are worked in a different style, were made by a second and younger weaver, a customary way for less mature women to gain textile experience. Clearly from a different district, the motifs in Plate 54 are filled with striking, checkered ikat patterns in black and white forming a strong contrast against the dark maroon ground. While exhibiting similar designs, the pua in Plate 53 is worked in the weft-wrapping technique (sungkit), in which the pattern is established during the weaving process.
gamong ceremonial cloth Ifugao people, Luzon, Philippines bark fibre, natural dyes twill weave Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago 113768-2
(detail) ulos gobar; uis gobar ceremonial cloth Toba Batak people, Silalahi district, north Sumatra, Indonesia cotton, dyes twill weave, supplementary weft, supplementary warp 183.0 x 121.0 em Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden 869-20
These red, blue and white cloths display a similar design structure, as broad warp-orientated bands and a twill-weave pattern of concentric diamonds are the major decorative features of each. Both textiles have an important role in burial rituals. The gamong are specifically made as outer shrouds. For the funeral, one panel of the cloth may be only loosely attached to facilitate the custom of tearing away part of a burial cloth so that other spirits will not disturb the deceased or his living kin out of their jealousy of such a fine fabric. The gobar design is the most prestigious cloth in the north-western district of Lake Toba, and is used in life and in death by the most senior members of a lineage. A carefully structured system of rank applies to all Toba Batak ulos textiles (sometimes also known here by the Karo term uis). They are exchanged on all ceremonial occasions when the alliances forged through marriage between the clans or lineages (marga) are reiterated. Both textiles date from the late nineteenth century.
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Most mat designs show surface patterns achieved by interlacing different coloured fibres; other types of mats are decorated with those ancient ornaments, shells and beads. With such objects, there is no clear division between mats and textiles. The decorative techniques merge, similar designs appear in both media and the objects themselves often serve the same functions. The existence of objects made from both woven cloth and plaited matting further obscures the distinction. The largest examples, the huge beaded mats from south Sumatra, are supported by plaited matting that is covered with handspun cotton cloth and decorated with strands of ancient beads.19 Although little is known about these remarkable objects, the iconography of the beaded designs is closely related to motifs that appear on woven and embroidered cloth from the same region. The use of decorated, sometimes beaded matting for ceremonial paraphernalia is widespread. In particular, the containers for betel-nut ingredients are decorated with beads, and in many places other types of decorative plaited mats, like textiles with similar iconography, are used as hangings, room-dividers, shrouds, and ceremonial seats. Another term for the palepai, the large supplementary weft hangings of Lampung in southern Sumatra, is 'the big wall', sesai balak (Gittinger, 1972: 5). It is probable that, while textiles were eventually used for such purposes, mats had often been used instead in earlier times.
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59,60
The related technique of twining or interlacing with rattan or other vegetable fibres also provides a sturdy garment and a base material for painting or adding shells, beads and other appliqué. Jackets thus made are found throughout insular Southeast Asia. In particular, twined flaps and jackets, sporting split or carved shell discs and other decorative materials as protective scales or armour, were used into the twentieth century by the Toraja of Sulawesi, the Ifugao of Luzon and many peoples of Irian Jaya and Borneo. Often these, like many of the bark and beaded coats, were worn during expeditions and ceremonial activities connected with head-hunting. An affinity also exists between plaiting and the twining technique used in textile decoration in many parts of Indonesia and Sarawak where two wefts are alternatively wrapped over and under the warp threads (Gittinger, 1979: 226). The absence of shed-openers or heddles that serve to open the appropriate warp threads to allow the weft to be interlaced suggests that both these techniques may have been the forerunners of weaving.
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62,63
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It is fairly certain that loom-woven fibre fabrics have had a very long history in the Southeast Asian region,20 although concrete evidence of particular types of looms and cloth is scarce. Fibres and wooden tools in Metal Age tombs have not survived and instances of the use of the foot-braced loom, depicted on some Bronze Age metal sculptures found in certain locations, are rare.21 Nevertheless, other very simple tension looms are found throughout Southeast Asia and into the Pacific region, and the oldest and most widespread of these weaving devices for utilizing local vegetable fibres is the simple back-strap tension loom which uses a continuous circulating warp. The type of looms used in Southeast Asia were also found in neighbouring Micronesia into the twentieth century (Ling Roth, 1918: 64-112), and many of the designs and some of the raw materials that are also used in Southeast Asia enjoy a much wider use in the Pacific are suggesting ancient Austronesian origins.
(detail) selesil; palepai maju (?) ceremonial hanging Paminggir people, Lampung, Sumatra, Indonesia vegetable fibre, handspun cotton, beads, natural dyes interlacing, appliqué, beading 360.0 x 50.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.618
Although some seventy per cent of this object is in its original state, severely damaged sections of the cloth were rearranged in the process of repair before it came into the Australian National Gallery collection. As a result, some of
