Man’s shoulder or hip cloth (hinggi)

Large woven textiles patterned with red and indigo dye are symbols of prestige on Sumba. Called hinggi, they were woven in matching pairs, and worn by men as shoulder cloths and hip wraps. Used in wedding exchanges, large numbers of hinggi would be given by a bride to her husband’s family. Before the twentieth century, only high-ranking women in Sumba’s sharply stratified society knew how to make these textiles. They are also used in funeral ceremonies: the body of a king or other high-ranking member of the nobility might be wrapped in up to a hundred hinggi.

Sumba is one of the few islands in Indonesia that produces textiles with large-scale figurative motifs of people, animals, and important ritual objects. The motifs found on these textiles reflect the status of the wearer. On the textile to the left stylized rampant lions (taken from Dutch colonial imagery) line the borders and two rows of roosters (used as livestock and for ritual purposes) border the central register. Other parts of the textile are inspired in part by highly valued Indian export textiles.