Throughout Indonesia, the primary means of achieving patterns in textiles is by the tying and dyeing of warp or weft yarns or both before weaving begins. This process is known in English as ikat, from the stem of the Malay-Indonesian word mengikat, which means to tie or bind.

During his travels collecting artifacts for the Berlin Museum für Volkerkunde in 1888, expedition leader J.A. Jacobsen was pleasantly surprised when he came across shiny "medallions" on Kisar. He described them as round plaques of precious metal, thin as paper, which were used as chest pendants.

Around 1930, the Dutch missionary Petrus Drabbe produced a series of beautiful portraits of Tanimbarese as part of a large-scale ethnological study. The people portrayed proudly show their most valuable treasures: golden jewelry in a variety of shapes and sizes.

Avidly sought by museums and private collectors, gold and silver earrings (mamuli) from Sumba are perhaps the most widely admired type jewelry from eastern Indonesia.

In the Lesser Sunda Islands, the use of turtle shells for crafting items of personal adornment is not uncommon. On the island of Sumba, however, striking women's combs were fashioned from this precious and beautiful material.

In an 1892 publication, the Dutch missionary N. Rinnooy writes about his exploration of a pagan "sanctuary" on the small island of Kisar. The rectangular construction had an attic room, which was accessed by climbing a steep staircase and opening a hatch that divided the room in two. "The front section of the attic," according to Rinnooy, "is the place of the gods.

One of the most noticeable basic forms in the traditional arts of Island Southeast Asia is the squatting position of carved anthropomorphic figures: the knees are raised in front of or to the right and left of the body. At one time, this sculptural form was widespread and could be found in Taiwan, the Philippines, parts of Borneo and Sulawesi, and—very prominently—in the Southeast Moluccas.

In Indonesia, the chewing of betel nut was once a ubiquitous tradition. Betel can be consumed in many ways, including in conjunction with tobacco to heighten its effects.

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