Title
Ceremonial hanging
Year/Period
Late 19th-early 20th century
Region
Sumba, Lesser Sunda Islands, Indonesian Archipelago
Material
Dimension
Object size: L267 x W117 cm
Accession No.
2000-01244
Collection of
This textile is decorated with a large central female figure surrounded by smaller female ones which are sewn from bark threads. Textiles in Sumba have historically been major prestige markers for the noble caste and their exchange validates alliances between the clans. They also carry cosmological symbolism based in local animist concepts and are crucial in the rituals of the Marapu (ancestral) belief system.
