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The archipelago of Indonesia offers perhaps the greatest diversity of
traditional textiles in the world, each island having its own distinctive
tradition. Some of these styles date back 2,000 years, many of them
influenced by Indian and Chinese textile designs. Colonial rule brought new influences, introducing patterns from coins and porcelain.

As in cultures throughout the world, spinning, dyeing and weaving in
Indonesia are symbolic of the creative process and of birth, and are
predominantly women's activities. Looms are threaded on auspicious days, and a finished textile has power to protect its weaver as well as possessing
ritual significance. Among the Batak people of Sumatra, women weave on
circular warps that are never cut in order to assure the continuity of life.
Commonly, hanging a textile marks a special space or even makes a space
sacred. The textiles from southern and central Sumatra are marked by busy use of applied ornamentation, a dramatic sense of color, and echoes of Chinese motifs.

A southern Chinese sensibility shines through, too, in beadwork from Jambi province. Densely beaded baskets and bags, often incorporating hammered gold, use the intense colors and distinctive symbolic shapes of Chinese temple art, but the rugged forms are distinctly Indonesian. Mingei acquired some stunning beaded offering baskets, as well as hanging temple ornaments.

The best known Indonesian textiles are the batiks from Java and the ikat
weaves of Flores. Mingei has a number of old copper batik stamps coming from Solo, or Surakarta, the batik center of Central Java. We also have a number of antique ikat sarongs from Flores. This resist-dyeing process, in which designs are created by tyeing off warp or weft threads before dyeing, used to take 8-10 years to create, using complex natural dyes, traditionally in indigo, reds and browns.