Ceremonial cloth (pua sungkit)

Why do we value an object’s perfect condition so much? The pot with a hairline crack is worth nothing compared to the one without. What is it about the signs of a life lived that lessen, rather then add value, to what we see?

For the Iban, the age of a cloth is one of the most valuable aspects of their ceremonial textiles. Some of the textiles thought to be the oldest have coiled patterns, motifs believed to have been passed down for generations, and are especially valued as heirlooms.

The word sungkit in the phrase pua sungkit indicates that supplemental weft wrapping, in which an extra thread is wrapped around the warp threads, was used to pattern the cloth. These threads, in white, black, and blue, raise the pattern off the deep-red surface of the cloth. Last produced more than a hundred years ago, few pua sungkit survive today. Because of the value placed upon them, they are used for some of the most significant parts of ritual gatherings, like festivities celebrating and propitiating deities and ancestors.