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FOREWORD

Southeast Asia presents one of the richest and most varied textile regions in the world. This is true both in the realms of textile patterning techniques and in the complexity with which textiles operate in autonomous belief systems. Textiles link today's inhabitants with their ancestors and promise a continuity with future generations. They confirm pledges of alliance and, in their exchange, acknowledge kin and social obligation. Because textile making throughout the region is predominantly woman's work, textiles are considered 'female' currency in the exchange of complementary male and female goods that occurs at virtually all life crisis ceremonies. They are also a prime means of woman's creative expression. Locally crafted cloth may also suggest historical influences and ancient customs and practices that hint of continuities that once bound the entire Southeast Asian area before the advent of nation states.

Robyn Maxwell's book orders this kaleidoscope of technique, custom and history by distilling the elements that unite this diversity. She first summarizes previous work and in subsequent chapters examines in detail the fundamental historical influences that have contributed to the textiles we know today and places these in a social context. She illustrates her analysis with textiles of beauty and sometimes ones of great rarity. In addition, readers will delight in the many archival and field photographs that lend exotic and meaningful context to the cloths.

Her work draws on extensive field work in the region, acquaintance with European, American and Asian collections and the superlative Southeast Asian holding of the National Gallery of Australia. It also utilizes the scholarship of others and includes an extensive bibliography.

This is not a lightly read - or held - volume. It is, however, the most comprehensive single book to address the textiles of this region. That was true when the work first appeared in 1990 and remains so today.

Mattiebelle Gittinger

Research Associate

The Textile Museum

Washington, DC