upper side. Finer threads of hoté, sometimes mixed with wild pineapple fibres, were also woven into fabric that was used to make long gowns for men and tunics for women. Because narrow loom widths of fabric were joined in many parts of Southeast Asia to make larger objects, design similarities can often be distinguished in the textiles of neighbouring regions. This hanging is thus similar in structure and motif to the large batik hangings made by the Toraja living further to the south in Sulawesi.
tawit'ng doyo ceremonial textile Benuaq people, east Kalimantan, Indonesia doyo fibre (Curculigo latifolia), natural dyes warp ikat 207.0 x 98.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1985.386
This nineteenth-century example of a Benuaq ceremonial cloth is formed from two large panels. While the structure of this cloth is similar to the well-known Iban pua kumbu, the central section and the motifs displayed there are stylistically related to both Iban and T'boli warp ikat designs. The natural colours are soft, yet sharply defined, indicative of precise tying of the warp threads of the doyo fibre before dyeing occurs. Little is known of the function of these cloths although their structure and size suggest that they were used as ceremonial hangings.
A Benuaq woman in east Kalimantan knotting dried lemba or daun doyo fibres (Curculigo latifolia) into long strands to make thread for warp ikat skirtcloths (ulap doyo). The woman wears a long wrap-around skirt of more modern decorative technique, embroidery and appliqué on commercial cotton fabric, although the structure of the garment is similar to the ancient fibre ikats.
kumo a pair of ceremonial cloths T'boli people, Mindanao, Philippines abaca fibre, natural dyes warp ikat 65.0 x 220.0 em; 62.0 x 220.0 em Australian National Gallery 1984.1228
These two identical textiles in red, black and natural colours would probably be stitched together to form a ceremonial hanging (kumo). Separately, they may have functioned as women's skirts. The main diagonal grid motif is the snake or python pattern (sawo), a popular and powerful design throughout Southeast Asia, where a variety of ikat motifs are so named. The intervening zigzag lines are known as sigul. During the t'muke kumo ceremony, a protective warp ikat (t'nolak) cloth is placed over the bride, to be removed later by one of the groom's family (Casal, 1978). The same symbolism is evident after the settlement of bride-wealth agreements, when children who are betrothed are blanketed with these abaca ikat. Early twentieth century
A Filipino woman preparing abaca fibres before they are woven into fabric in 1920. The fibre is rolled into yarn on her thigh.
70 Women on the island of Solor in eastern Indonesia spin locally grown cotton using a wooden drop-weight spindle as they stroll to the fields to carry out routine agricultural tasks.
74
The fibre used in many parts of eastern Indonesia as the resist-binding for ikat is obtained from the Corypha palm. While today it is rarely the basic fibre for woven fabric,26 it continues to be used to produce the material for sails in some of the oldest sea-going cultures of insular Southeast Asia.27 The Southeast Asian textile traditions were probably spread to Madagascar from Indonesia early in the first millenitim AD by seafaring travellers using the Corypha sails (Bellwood, 1979: 124; Mack, 1987).
1
One of the most important stages in the preparation of textiles is the dyeing of the woven fabric or, in the case of many ancient forms of decorative textiles, the dyeing of the threads before weaving. Many strong natural dyes and mordants are available to the peoples of Southeast Asia. Of the range of naturally-obtained materials found in the region, dyestuffs used to make blue-black and pink-red-brown colours predominate.28 These include mud29 and varieties of indigo for blue-black colours,30 and barks or roots such as Morinda citrifolia, Caesalpina sappan, and Pelthophorum ferrugineum (saga) for red-brown. Stick lac, the residue obtained from insect deposits in tree bark (Coccus lacca), is the most widely used red dyestuff in mainland Southeast Asia (Prangwatthanakun and Cheesman, 1987: 45). Some art historians believe that indigo has a far longer history in Southeast Asia than red dyes (Buhler, 1941), although indigo has generally been replaced by the red dyes of Morinda citrifolia and stick lac as the preferred dye for ceremonial textiles. Brown soga dyes, like those associated with fine hand-drawn wax-resist batik from central Java, seem to be a later development. The tricolour of red, black and white has symbolic significance for many Southeast Asian peoples, and these are the colours found on very old types of textiles such as the abaca warp ikats of Mindanao, the banded cloths of eastern Indonesia and the bark tunics of the Toraja.
ceremonial hanging, skirt (?) Toraja people, central Sulawesi, Indonesia handspun cotton, natural dyes supplementary warp weave 151.0 x 139.0 em Australian National Gallery 1983.3692
(detail) woman's skirtcloth (?) Benuaq people, east Kalimantan, Indonesia doyo fibre (Curculigo latifolia), natural dyes supplementary warp weave, staining 173.0 x 73.0 em Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Leiden 427-26
There is remarkable similarity in the technique and design of these two nineteenth-century fabrics although they were woven on different islands and with different thread. Little is known about the function of either textile since a knowledge of the supplementary warp technique appears to have died out in these areas during the last century and very few extant examples of these textiles remain. However, this technique is still practised in isolated regions of eastern Indonesia. The red, white and blue-black colour combinations are also similar for both textiles, although the black patterns have been painted on to the white supplementary warp bands of the Benuaq textile, said to be a skirtcloth (Jager Gerlings, 1952: Fig. 17).
(detail) hom non woman's skirt Kisar, south Maluku, Indonesia handspun cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 125.0 x 130.0 em Australian National Gallery 1985.382
This woman's cylindrical skirt is woven from fine blue, red and natural handspun cotton thread. The many key designs are carefully arranged in narrow bands. The textiles of the islands in south Maluku (south Moluccas) are often woven from other materials, including the fibres of lontar palm-leaves (a substance also widely used as a binding thread for warp ikat throughout Southeast Asia). This example probably dates from the early twentieth century.
lamba mena (?) shroud; canopy; room-divider Sakalava people, west Madagascar raffia fibre, natural dyes warp ikat Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, Lei den 4927-5
Early in the first millenium AD, sailors from the Indonesian archipelago had already begun to roam the Asian world in pursuit of trade and adventure. The contacts and settlements that resulted also left their mark on the culture of the island of Madagascar. The language is Austronesian, and the textile arts reflect those of Borneo from where prehistorians suggest the voyages originated. This provides additional evidence for the antiquity of complex warp ikat in the Southeast Asian region. Some Madagascar banded warp ikat patterns include stylized human figures, although the dyes available there produce different shades of brown from those found in Southeast Asia,
