1984.587
ceremonial betel-nut bag Sumbanese people, east Sumba, Indonesia cotton, beads beading 35.0 x 56.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1986.1248
alu inu betel-nut bag with lime container Atoni or Dawan people, Timor, Indonesia cotton, bamboo, beads, horsehair, coins, brass bells beading, appliqué 15.0 x 22.0 em 12.0 x 14.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.583
The shape of the beaded betel-nut box from Lampung suggests both the curved roof form of many Sumatran houses, and the ship-of-transition, a motif that also appears in coloured beads on each side against the orange ground of highly valued muti salah beads. Boxes of this shape were also made from brass and precious metals and these containers are placed on or covered by a special textile such as a tampan. This example, like the other Indonesian betel-nut containers, seems to date from the late nineteenth century.
Elaborately decorated textiles and headwork are included among the possessions of the noble families of Sumba and Timor, and ancient symbols such as chickens and reptiles are frequently depicted on these treasures. Red, black and white beads are common in several parts of Southeast Asia but the Atoni betel-nut bag and lime container with its horsehair fringe is also decorated with coins issued by the Dutch trading company (Vereenigde Oostindische Companie, VOC) period in the seventeenth century.
TEXTILES AND THE DUAL ASPECTS OF THE COSMOS
There are certain fundamental aspects of the social order that continue to affect the use of textiles throughout much of the region. Some prehistorians suggest that the concept of cosmic dualism, the division of the universe into two orders, was already formed by the Metal Age (Bellwood, 1985: 156). In societies where this form of dual organization developed, daily routines and ritual activities are ordered into two complementary yet opposing parts basically defined as male and female.
Early political systems were small scale with rank dependent on descent from the founding ancestors and from personal achievements in socially significant activities such as head-hunting, textile-making and agriculture. Status, particularly in groups that focus on unilateral descent, is still established largely according to relative superiority or dependence in marriage relationships, with the wife-giving group, the family of the bride, in a ritually and socially stronger position than the wife-takers, the groom's kin. The wealth exchanged at the establishing of marriage alliances in many Southeast Asian societies is consistent with this dual cosmic ordering and is made up of distinct but complementary male and female valuables.
Since textiles are the products of women, they are understood as tangible representations of the female elements of the bipartite universe. On Sumba this male-female complementarity is encapsulated in the notion of the Highest Being who is the Father Sun-Mother Moon and the Creator of Human Life-Weaver of Human Life (Adams, 1969: 29). Although different cloths are appropriate apparel for men or women, textiles are seen collectively as a female component, along with the Lower World, darkness, inside, left, moon, and death. Cloth is a symbol of the woman's family, the wife-givers, who are ritually superior on ceremonial occasions.47 Female aspects of the cosmos oppose yet complement the male characteristics of the Upper World, light, outside, right, sun, and life. In ritual exchanges textiles are a prominent part of the reciprocal gift for male objects such as metal, ivory, and buffalo from the man's family, whose burden in gift-giving is heavier because of the inferior status of the wife-takers.
In social settings where marriage alliances between families are reiterated, especially at mortuary ceremonies, gifts between marriage partners are very common, and textiles and metal goods or cattle are again exchanged. For example, at a funeral amongst the Lamaholot of east Flores and the Solor archipelago, the family of a deceased male leader will bring ivory to pillow the head of the dead, while the family of his wife will bring grave-gifts of valuable textiles to cover the body. The division of material objects into male and female types at marriages and funerals applies also in non-weaving regions, with textiles as appropriate female presentations from the wife-givers and goods associated with maleness such as metal, sailing equipment, or tusks from the wife-takers.48 Within these two broad, dual categories for objects, further subdivisions into complementary male and female objects may be integrated, with gifts formed, for example, from pairs of male and female buffaloes, or paired men's cloths and women's skirts.
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This pattern of exchange and reciprocity is found throughout much of Indonesia and also in parts of the Philippines. Among the T'boli of Mindanao during the mo 'ninum, the final feast to celebrate a marriage, the groom's family builds an umbrella-like structure known as the tabule, using spears and bamboo decorated with valued heir-looms which are part of the bride-price payments: mats, horse-bridles, gongs, and ancient Chinese plates. Meanwhile, the bride's family hangs the kumo magal from a long bamboo line. This consists of masses of special, three-panel warp ikat cloth (kumo) which will be the reciprocal gift. The culmination of the ceremony involves the groom's family wielding the tabule to symbolically penetrate the kumo wall, after which the remainder of the ceremony and exchange of gifts takes place within the bride's home (Casal, 1978: 82-4). Another Mindanao society, the Maranao, have continued this custom with the bridegroom 'entering' a large canopy to claim his bride (Roces, 1985: 3).
In ceremonial gift exchanges there is often a hierarchy in which some types of textiles of more complicated design and larger size are rated as having more value. The choice of cloth to be presented at Toba Batak weddings, however, is determined by a potential wearer's age and status in the wider family group, the seniority of the giver and by the closeness of the family ties between giver and receiver. The parents of the bride wrap the seated couple in a highly valued cloth such as an ulos ragidup, while distant uncles and aunts of the bride cover them in textiles of lesser ceremonial value (Gittinger, 1975: 22-6; Niessen, 1985a: Chapter 2). Upon the arrival of a grandchild, it is the maternal grandparents who envelop the child in a ritual carrying cloth, the ulos mangiring. As we shall explore below, the use of textiles in these rites evokes their protective qualities, a common and ancient property. None of these cloths is specifically associated with a lineage, a family or even a village of origin and they are all widely used throughout the Toba Batak area.49 For these people, ulos gifts, predominantly textiles, are always associated with the wife-giving group and pis au (knife) gifts, which now include rice and land, come from the wife-receiver's family and each is a sign of the support and protection that the marriage alliance affords each party.
This same male-female dichotomy is symbolically reflected in fine detail by the different directions in which men and women in certain cultures wind their hair, and wrap their head cloths and skirts.50 The diagonal spiral patterns of central Javanese batik, known as parang, are arranged to slope in one direction for men, and in the opposite for unmarried women (Geirnaert-Martin, 1983). In east Sumba the fundamental understanding of these opposing characteristics- male-female, right-left, life-death- results in the inversion of everyday principles for the cloths associated with the dead.51
While these opposing categories are seen most vividly in societies that trace their descent unilineally, the metal-textile dichotomy has wider application in Southeast Asia. Symbolic structures incorporating both male and female elements, such as cosmic trees constructed from metal spears and complementary textiles and mats, are found throughout the region. They are evident, for example, amongst the cognatic peoples of Borneo and the patrilineal Sumbanese. Heavenly staircases of swords and cloth are part of the ritual of both the peoples of south Sumatra who have bilateral family patterns and the patrilineal Mien (or Yao) of northern Thailand.52
Perceptions of cosmic dualism that include the division of the universe into Upper and Lower Worlds inform the ancient depictions of animal life in Southeast Asian art. Birds and flying creatures of the Upper World are juxtaposed with aquatic
