Borneo-Dayak CRAFTS
indonesia exporter of dayak tribe's handmade crafts & tribal arts

Borneo's Dayak handicraft, the beauty of ancient tribal arts and handmade crafts

Traditional Life: Clothes and Textiles

Traditional materials from the Bornean forests, like animal skins and tree bark, were used to make war jackets and shamans tunics. The bast of several species of trees was beaten in water with a short wooden pestle, and the resultant bark cloth was fashioned into shirts, petticoats, and loincloths, all later ornamented with paintings, appliqué, beadwork, or embroidery. Some people still wear plain undecorated bark cloth as mourning attire.

The Islamized Dayak groups of Sabah use plait work with appliqués and embroidery to make a colorful cloth mat. In the western half of Borneo, strong plant fibers were twined into thick war jackets, some sporting elaborate paintings. Thinner fibers were woven into textile fabrics. The Barito groups, the Iban and Kantu', most Sabah groups, and some Land Dayak used the Iemba plant, but other fibers were obtained from barks, palms, pandanus, banana leaves, lianas, and orchids.

Those fibers are not used any more, except for the lemba among the Benua', and rare bark and liana fibers among the Aoheng. Cotton has replaced them, and pre-spun thread is now easing home-spun cotton out. Some groups dye their thread, or practice the tie-and-dye or ikat, technique. Traditional dyes for textiles, including yellow turmeric, red dragon blood, indigo, and others made of bark or leaves, are now losing ground to pre-dyed threads and aniline dyes.

Three types of looms are found in Borneo. Inland Iban, Kayan, Kenyah, or the Barito groups use a back strap loom with a continuous warp. In the West and South, local back strap looms with discontinuous warp allow for the weaving of very long pieces. The Malays, along with some Iban and Bajau, use the framed treadle loom. Pieces of the loom, such as swords and breast beams, are often finely carved, as are cotton-gins and spinning wheels.

The Kayan, Kenyah, and upper Mahakam groups wove plain or striped fabric with interesting decorative patterns. The warp ikat technique is known among the Iban and related West Kalimantan groups, the Ngaju, Ot Danum and Benua, and the Dusun, and silk warp ikat textiles are produced in the Sambas area. The Iban and neighbors use also the special pilth technique where supplementary weft threads are introduced in the woven textile to form a background to a design. In the sungkit technique, supplementary weft threads are placed on the warp before weaving.

The distinctive songket technique, worked on a treadle loom employs copper, silver, and gold threads. Slit tapestry work is found on Iban and Kantu' shamans' jackets. Appliqué of imported fabric is sewn on any base, and further decorated with embroidery, beadwork, buttons, shells, bras bells, and coins. The Kenyah, Kayan, Maloh, and Kelahit, and also the Iban and the Barito groups, make attractive appliqué clothes, and the Rungus Dusun are famous embroiderers. Everyday clothes used to be plain, undecorated bark cloth or woven loincloths and petticoats, like the dark blue skirt of Iban women, but clothes hearing spirit designs are worn only on festive or ritual occasions.

The Benua and Iban restrict the wearing of jackets with particularly powerful designs to priests and, likewise. Dusun priestesses wear special ritual skirts. Ceremonial or festive attire may also include a shawl and headdress and, among the Benua' and Dusun, short trousers. Non-clothing textiles are displayed or used only in ritual context, like the large lban pua kumbu cloth. They belong to the family heirlooms and are part of the bride wealth goods. Some are meant, among the Iban and Ngaju. to spiritually fence a shrine, and a special piece of lemba ikat cloth, hungkang, over 40 m long, was used by the Benua and Ot Danum to enclose the grounds of the funeral feast.

Whereas bark cloth is prepared by men, weaving is done by women, and male attendance is taboo during certain phases. However, weaving is locally done by men, as among some Dusun. When powerful designs are created, spiritual helpers may he invoked or special rituals held. While the motifs are endowed with spiritual power, their names often hear little relevance, being subject to infinite local variation, as the weaver creates and names at will innovative motifs or variants of usual ones.

Art in traditional life: People at home, Household arts and crafts, Clothes and textiles, Personal adornment, The wider world, The fields, River and forest, Trade, War, headhunting, and sacrifice, Traditional religion, Of Gods and men, Life and ritual, Sickness and shamanism, Death and funeral art, Primary funerals, Secondary funerals, The living and the death.