Jacket (kelambi)

The island of Borneo (divided between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei) is home to more than two hundred native groups, living in culturally diverse communities both along the coast and deep in the island’s river valleys. Many of the peoples living in the interior of Malaysia’s Sarawak state are known as Iban.

Iban men wore jackets (sleeved and sleeveless), especially on ceremonial occasions. The back of the jacket is often the most elaborately decorated part of the garment. This jacket, with its pattern of stylized anthropomorphic forms, is likely to come from the Saribas region. Jackets with these types of fierce figures have been described as being reserved for warriors.

Supplemental weft wrapping (sungkit), in which an extra, colored thread is wrapped around the warp threads, is used to make the patterns on the body of the jacket. The motifs on the lower border of the cloth are made by two-strand twining and tapestry weaving.