A Cloth that Promises Resurrection

ABSTRACT The article considers small sacred cloths produced in Eastern Indonesia, an area known in the textiles literature as ‘east of the Wallace line’ as handwoven cloths produced in the region share essential characteristics. They are woven on back tension looms and show similarities in the weaving technique, composition and decoration methods. The first part of the article describes and analyses three weaving ceremonies on the island of Savu where a cloth locally considered as the most ancient and the most sacred textile is woven under certain conditions, raising the question of the type of loom on which it might have been originally woven. The second part is on the origin of the back tension loom used today in eastern Indonesia. Using linguistics and referring to advanced genetic methods as well as recent findings in navigation skills of ancient Austronesian people, I suggest a re-examination of the origin of the loom east of the Wallace line.