More than 13,000 islands stretching 3,500 miles from Sumatra to Irian Jaya make up the country of Indonesia. The people call their country “Tanah Air Kita”, which means “our land-water”, as much of the country is actually water. Since the 1945 it has become the world’s fifth most populous state and about ninety percent of the population lives on the three islands of Sumatra, Java and Bali with the rest being sparsely spread between Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumba, Savu, Rote, Flores and Timor. There is a great diversity of culture as the Indonesian archipelago lies at the crossroads of the great trading civilisations of China, India, Arabia and Europe, continual waves of merchants, missionaries and colonisers passing through, bringing with them outside influences which have made a marked impact on the manufacture of textiles.

Women have traditionally produced most of Indonesia’s finest textiles with men manufacturing textile tools, such as metal stamps or wooden looms. Weaving is widespread across Indonesia. Most garments are composed of rectangular cloths of which there are four main types: kain which wrap around the waist and legs; sarongs made of a smaller kain sewn into a tube shape; selendang breast and shoulder cloths; and selimut large wrap-around mantles of blankets.

Textiles have a ritual significance, which far outweighs the need for everyday clothes and accounts for the extra production of cloth. To the Indonesians, the Universe is a spiritual world of an upper realm of gods and ancestors and a watery lower realm of crocodiles and lizards. Man lives between these worlds and must maintain harmony between them, especially at the crucial stages of life, such as birth, first hair-cutting, filing down of incisor teeth (essential for a favourable rebirth), circumcision, marriage and death. At these times ‘male’ gifts, such as money, weapons and animals and ‘female’ gifts, predominantly textiles are given. Many textiles have motifs symbolising death, such as birds representing the soul on the textiles of Timor or a ‘ship of the soul’ on the long, narrow palepai supplementary-weft cloths of Sumatra. These cloths are often used to drape over a corpse or used to form an enclosure for a widow in mourning. The Toraja make cloths called sarita which are long ritual banners hung from gables of clan houses and from tall bamboo poles at important funerals and are also worn as sashes and turbans by shamen or wrapped around the heads of wooden effigies of the dead. In Sumba, dead kings used to be wrapped in many hinggi mantles, as shrouds. Motifs such as the tree of skulls, found on Sumban hinggi, represent trophy skulls, directly connected with headhunting, as are the textiles of the Iban Dyaks of Sarawak. In Bali, long, narrow lamak banners of woven cloth or palm-leaf are hung from tall poles or at temple entrances. The sacred double-ikat geringsing cloth woven at Tenganan Pegeringsingan is used all over Bali for weddings, first hair-cutting and tooth-filing ceremonies. Patola cloth is used to decorate Balinese temples and scraps are burnt to release magical properties. In Java patola are worn by the bride and groom on their wedding day. In Java batik cloths are copiously spread around the bed and in Sumatra the same is done with songket brocaded cloth, to promote fertility and wealth.

Embroidery is mainly done in the coastal areas, which have been settled by Islamic Malay peoples, having a long association with the Chinese. Apart from some mirror-work most embroidery is couched metal-thread work. Most of the gold thread work on bright silk comes from Sumatra. In the mountainous interior, the Paminggir use white embroidered bands with designs of men, ships, snails, octopuses and mythical beasts worked in satin stitch against a brown warp-ikat background on their sarongs. The wealthier Paminggir of the coastal regions make tapis with designs of men, horses and riders couched in golden thread against a striped background. The women of the Kauer people use tiny cermuk mirrors combined with an embroidered scroll motif in bands around their tapis sarongs. All over Indonesia, shells, some of great value, are used as embellishment. In Sumba chain stitch human figures are embroidered and the Dyaks of Borneo use appliqué. Beads, worked with a needle by the Toraja are fashioned into belts and the Maloh tribe of Kalimantan import beadwork skirts and waistcoats woven by the Iban, whilst in Irian Jaya, beadwork dance aprons with lizard motifs are made. Although Indonesia is a fast-changing country due to its increasing contact with the outside world and machine-made textiles have overtaken hand produced textiles, it is still part of an upper-class Javanese girl’s education to learn the techniques and aesthetic qualities of batik.