Shoulder Cloth c. 19th century

This shoulder cloth of unknown date and authorship is a textile woven in Sumba, an island of Indonesia. These cloths index a highly stratified society where the textiles themselves served as a form of currency and a marker of social standing. Looking at the cloth, we can see that textiles like this one are imbued with complex cosmological and spiritual meanings. Weaving traditions would have been passed down through generations of women, who are responsible for perpetuating the complex visual codes. Those codes include subtle cultural references and historical associations, such as the hinggi cloths that are exchanged in marriage. In the animistic culture of Sumba, the hinggi cloths facilitate contact with ancestors to ensure balance and harmony between the human and spirit realms. Understanding this cloth requires reference to the historical scholarship, anthropological studies, and museum collections that document this rich cultural tradition. It is a reminder that art is always embedded in social and institutional contexts.