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Ikat from East Timor, Timor, Timor-Leste
 

329 Timor, East Timor


Tais manu saen (men's wrap)



Locale: Bobonaro, Kemak people
Period: 1930-1950
Yarn: Cotton, hand-spun, fine, and commercial thread
Technique: Warp ikat
Panels: 2
Size: 135 x 187 cm (4' 5" x 6' 1")   LW: 1.39
Design: This cloth asymmetric cloth is probably a tais manu saen (men's wrap) from Bobonaro, with borders in the porosana technique, as it is very similar in style and techniques to an example of the type in the collection of Timor Aid. It has the same longitudinally banded structure of alternating dark and lighter tonalities, producing a high contrast, and the same floral type of motifs. The number of ikated bands is eleven: six on one panel, five on the other.
Comment: Note the similarity of the patterning in the widest ikated bands to the designs on Nda shawls, which, as Fox noted, is based on jilamprang motifs cut in half.
Background: Chapters on Timor and East Timor.
Exhibited: Timor: Totems and Tokens, Museu do Oriente, Lisbon, 2019/20.
Published: Timor: Totems and Tokens, 2019.
Ikat Textiles of Timor: Indonesian and Timor-Leste, 2025.
Sources: Very similar to cloth in the Timor Aid collection, TA0183b (depicted below), except that our example is asymmetric. A selimut withsomewhat similar patterning and a similar (albeit it wider) band of twining is shown in Yeager and Jacobson, Textiles of Western Timor, Fig 43, and there described as coming from Lautém.

  
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