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Ikat from West Timor, Timor, Indonesia
 

020 Timor, West Timor


Tais feto (women's sarong)  magnifiermicroscope



Locale: Malaka Timur (Belu), Tetun people
Period: 19th to early 20th c.
Yarn: Cotton, hand-spun, medium
Technique: Warp ikat
Panels: 4
Size: 56 x 140 cm (1' 10" x 4' 7")   LW: 2.50
Weight: 480 g (16.9 oz), 306 g/m2 (1.00 oz/ft2)
Design: The two central panels of this old Belu style sarong are decorated with two large kaif patterns (standing for connection to the ancestors) that organically flow into one another, flanked on either side by an array of crocodiles alternating with an as yet unidentified motif that looks like an amalgam of an aquatic and an anthropomorphic shape. The upper and lower panels are decorated with fourteen narrow bands and very narrow stripes of ikated meanders, some only three yarns wide.
Comment: Going by first impressions, one would be inclined to think that the two central panels of this 4 panel Belu sarong comprise just the drawing in indigo on white, but they also encompass borders consisting of narrow ikated stripes, as well as plain stripes similar to those on the top and bottom panels. The ikat work is fine and sharply drawn. Selvedges of top and bottom panels have sustained fraying, and there are traces of wear where they have been attached to the central panels, but the latter are immaculate and there is no sign of wear either at the central seam.
Background: Chapters on Timor and West Timor.
Exhibited: Timor: Totems and Tokens, Museu do Oriente, Lisbon, 2019/20.
Published: Timor: Totems and Tokens, 2019.
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