art. The patterning found on prehistoric pottery and metal-work includes rhombs, keys, spirals and double spirals, circles and crosses, meanders, T shapes and triangles. These designs became part of the art heritage of the entire region and despite the passing of more than two thousand years, they are still important elements in present-day textile ornamentation. While continuity with the past is maintained, novel combinations of these ancient motifs are now evident and new motifs are often developed to incorporate them.
CLOTHING AND IDENTITY
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While textiles are woven for other purposes the making of clothing is niost significant. In the past the main types of Southeast Asian garments were simple and depended on each culture's definition of modesty. Certain basic social divisions- sex, age, marital status and family affiliation - are often reflected in the structure and design of clothing. There is usually a clear division between male and female, no matter how simple the structure of the textile or its decoration,43 and these distinctions are indicated by the shape, size and structure of the garments for each sex. Formerly, men usually wore the loincloth and women wore skirts, either short or to the ankle. Clothing for the upper body was rare, although men often used shawls and wraps, and sometimes elaborate jackets for festive occasions. Babies were carried in slings and shawls, and in basketry packs. Children often went naked until they approached the age of puberty when they adopted clothing appropriate to their age and unmarried or uninitiated status. Elaborately decorated fabrics were usually intended for important occasions: as ritual objects, as clothing for significant ceremonies, or as ritual gifts.
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In some places decorative technique seems to have been gender specific. The supplementary weft weaving and tapestry weave of the Toraja appears only on men's loincloths while shell and patchwork appliqué are found only on women's tunics. The use of motifs to delineate gender is less common and cloths used by men and women for everyday occasions are often similar in materials and decorative technique. In some instances certain motifs are restricted to particular textiles. For example, the warp ikat skirts of Iban women do not display powerful deities, as these are considered more appropriate motifs for their sacred ceremonial hangings. For the neighbouring Maloh, however, this is clearly not the case since the dangerous and unpredictable water serpent frequently appears on women's beaded skirts and jackets.
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In many cultures, while certain motifs and colours are appropriate for different ages, these distinctions also depend upon the social and ritual maturity of the wearer. As many new patterns have begun to appear in recent decades, it is often only elderly women who continue to wear the older and thus more traditional styles of cloth while young women are allowed to experiment with motifs and designs. In the Sikka region of Flores in eastern Indonesia, all women's skirts were once very long and composed of four panels. These are now rarely worn, and only by elderly women from remote mountain villages. Two-panel skirts, waist to ankle in length, are now worn by everyone throughout the Sikka domain, although the long multi-panel skirts are still widely valued as an important form of bride-wealth in Sikka and neighbouring Lembata.
The manner of wearing traditional clothing and the choice of textiles to be worn, varies according to age and experience, and these are important factors for determining status in many societies. In eastern Flores and the Solor archipelago, young unmarried women wear their skirts tied by a string around the neck or pinned at the shoulders, young married women wear their skirts up around the breasts and mature women fold them around the waist (Maxwell, 1981: 62). Similar rules often apply to particular garments. Among the Kankanay of Luzon, while jackets are appropriate for young women, new mothers do not wear them because this would indicate that they do not care for their offspring or their new status (Ellis, 1981: 237). Similar ways of differentiating between garments according to age and status are also found in mainland Southeast Asia.
Ritual experience and wisdom, to a large part a function of age, is sometimes indicated by distinctive textile decoration. The colour, the structure of the designs and the use of ritually important motifs are often related to a strict hierarchy in the making of cloths. Only those women of social and ritual maturity may attempt to create certain motifs, perform certain types of weaving, or process particular dye-stuffs (Vogelsanger, 1980; Maxwell, 1981: 53; Maxwell, 1985: 145-53). Such restrictions are especially important in the case of ritually significant textiles.
In the early twentieth century some more remote peoples of Laos and Cambodia were still wearing the same type of clothing as their ancestors -the loincloth for men and the cylindrical or wrapped skirt for women. This photograph taken in Laos shows a Kha man and woman wearing these garments.
(detail) kain kebat woman's skirt Iban people, Sarawak, Malaysia handspun cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 51.5 x 117.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1982.2305
Within the warp ikat traditions of Southeast Asia, the length of women's cylindrical skirts varies considerably. Some garments are worn folded, while others allow maximum movement and reach only to the wearers' knees. The lban skirt falls into this latter category and is held in place with hoops of rattan, and on festive occasions with silver belts and coin chains. On this early twentieth-century example the clarity of the red, brown and natural warp ikat indicates the work of an already accomplished weaver, although the weaving of a kain kebat usually occurs at an early stage in a woman's career before she undertakes the more prestigious and ceremonially important pua. The motifs on these skirts are selected from nature and usually include various small creatures and plants. Although this skirt consists of only a single woven panel, it still displays a common Southeast Asian design feature - a central section enclosed by narrow striped bands.
utang lian tipa woman's skirt; ceremonial gift Sikka people, lwangete district, Flores, Indonesia cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 219.0 x 135.5 cm Australian National Gallery 1981.1144
Four-panel, bride-wealth cloths are a category of Sikka textiles generally known as utang wiwir wanan or utang wata hutung ('four joined together') and are still made in some parts of the Sikka domain. This example, from the mountainous Iwangete area, has narrow, banded, warp ikat designs which are in marked contrast to the larger, wider, ikat patterns on two-panel skirts. The widest of the bands (ina gete) contains several different motifs including the lizard (teké), the circle under a plate (pigang uben), the pineapple flower (petan puhun) and the spinning-wheel (jata seter). Another motif appears to be a human figure with a child. The patterning of this skirt (utang) is apparently associated with the spirit of the snake, suggested by its special name!ian lipa ('the snake-like pattern'). Twentieth century
The two-panel Sikka skirt is generally known as an utang hawatan (a single skirt, as distinct from the double length of the older style utang wata hutung). The shorter skirt is now widely worn with a blouse. The skirt has a number of design structures each with its own name.
(detail) petak karen; kewatek nai telo woman's skirt; bride-wealth gift Lamaholot people, south Lembata, Indonesia handspun cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 153.0 x 115.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.1239
These long skirts of southern Lembata are no longer prominent as women's ceremonial costume.
