In Focus

The Simbang Terabai, or Shields Aslant, motif is one of the first designs a young apprentice weaver creates. On a technical level, it is a study in learning to tie and form straight lines and negotiate curves, bends, and various shapes that make up complex elements and forms in the vast repertoire of pua kumbu designs.

Reptiles such as monitor lizards, crocodiles, pythons, and water serpents on Iban ritual textiles always suggest two things to the Iban eye. First, the beholder would perceive tua, or spirit familiars of warriors—guardian spirits who take the form of reptiles or certain other animals to help, protect, advise, and warn men through dream encounters when they go to war.

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

The Maloh populate the upper Kapuas River basin of West Kalimantan.

In the Baleh region where the woman's skirt (1983.135) originates, the central motif of the cloth's design is known as the Aji Bulan or Moon Rat. Anthony J.N.

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.