Title
Man's cloth
Year/Period
First half of the 20th century
Region
West Sumba Island, West Nusa Tenggara, Eastern Indonesian Archipelago
Object Type
Material
Technique
Dimension
Object size: 266.0 x 123.0 cm
Accession No.
2018-01052
Collection of
Credit Line
Gift of Regina Maria Bekker-Zeef. Presented to the ACM by the City of Delft, Netherlands.
Named for the pattern of python skin (ngoko) they feature, this man’s cloth (hanggi) was a garment worn only by the wealthy and the nobility in Kodi, West Sumba. Snakes represented rebirth through the moulting process and the hangi, as a shroud, would facilitate travel to the afterlife. The central motif is the mamuli, a gold pendant which represented female sexuality. Conversely, women’s cloths featured male motifs.
