The following essay is from the 1989 publication American Furniture in the Bybee Collection, by Charles L. Venable.

Batik is a wax-resist process for dye-decorating cloth. The wax resists the dye, preventing it from absorbing into the cloth and producing a design in the negative.

This penji (gravestone) in the Dallas Museum of Art collection is one of finest surviving stones outside Sumba (see also 2004.57). Although weathered, its beautiful and sensitive use of line and form clearly indicates the hand of a master sculptor.

Talented artists of Flores created sculpture, beautiful jewelry and items of personal adornment, and exquisite textiles. These textiles were not, however, universally admired from an early Western point of view.

The following essay is from the 1989 publication American Furniture in the Bybee Collection, by Charles L. Venable.

Exotic jewelry has always received a great deal of attention in first-contact situations (between foreign cultures). Tanimbar was no different in this respect.

The term megalith, from the Greek words for "large" and "stone," refers to rock-cut tombs, stones seats, terraces, cairns, stone-built platforms, crudely shaped statues of men and animals, cylinders, stone urns, rectangular sarcophagi, and stone slabs with cup holes.

Until recently, those who traveled through Maluku Tenggara and were fortunate enough to witness the opening of a so-called pusaka basket (a basket filled with family heirlooms) would have been astounded.