Ceremonial loincloth (sarat)
Not on view
This is an extremely fine quality sungkit loincloth (sarat) with bold iconographic designs in two colors (red and a dark blue-black) that are set against a plain background. The textile is classical, made from hand-spun cotton with no chemical dyes, in the sungkit technique (which refers to its discontinuous supplementary weft wrapping). Classified as third division, this British-era classification indicates that it is handspun and further up the river at Rajang Baleh (i.e., by the Baleh drainage of the river). It has a highly distinctive and intricate pattern at each end with a relatively short length of plain textile in between each patterned edge. A thin decorative border encloses the large block of design at each end.
The culture and spirituality of the Iban people is interwoven with the natural environment of Borneo, an island the Iban have inhabited for many generations. The genre of pua is the woven textile most readily associated with the Iban. The dyeing and preparation of textiles is highly ritualized in Iban society and the finished textiles–with their figurative motifs–are used to convey cultural and spiritual teachings. In this respect, both the process and the finished cloth are among the Iban’s most cherished cultural practices.
