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131 though they were ordinary farmers engaging in what was considered to be an ordinary skill, not unlike knitting or quilting in the West. Indeed, Heidi Munan and Janet Rata Noel note that among the Iban, “today’s grandmothers occasionally complain that their school-educated granddaughters are ‘quite useless—can’t cook, can’t mind babies, can’t even make a mat!’” (Munan and Noel 2012). In Borneo, as elsewhere in traditional societies, craft making may be subject to certain restrictions and not just anyone may manufacture any kind of craft. This division of labor is often based on gender, with rules varying with the region. Such divisions may be prescriptive or proscriptive— that is, governed by a set of obligations or taboos—or just a matter-of-fact arrangement following labor availability of the household. There is a salient contrast between orthogonal and diagonal (or straight and oblique) techniques used in the plait- BORNEO MATS ing of mats and baskets (Bléhaut 1997). Generally speaking, rough floor mats plaited from rattan (in some cases supplemented with bark strips) are created by men using an orthogonal weave, sometimes on a framework, whereas both plain and elaborately decorated mats are twill-woven by women almost always on the diagonal, or oblique, without the use of a loom. These latter are generally plaited from rattan, although this is locally regressing due to forest depletion in recent years, but other fibers are also traditionally used, such as pandanus (screw-pine) or bemban (an arrowroot reed grown in swampy areas). Whatever the fiber, some of it is dyed for contrasting colors. Black/dark brown on creamy white is most typically found. Medium brown is occasionally used for the dark tone. A carmine red known as dragon blood is sometimes incorporated, though rarely in mats. Decorated white-on-white mats are made by plaiting strands with the outer skin of bemban facing up across strands with the outer skin facing down. Weaving cloth is generally a female activity in Borneo and is sometimes subject to taboos. The relationship between weaving fabric and plaiting mats is a complex one that is not particularly well understood and likely varies from group to group. The Iban are known to share motifs between their textiles and plaited works (Munan and Noel 2012), but this is not necessarily known to be the norm elsewhere. Transmission of plaiting knowledge is both vertical— from mother to daughter within the household or, more generally, from one generation to the next within a community— and lateral, through diffusion by contact between communities. In the former case, it tends to promote conservative practices (Tillotson 2012), whereas in the latter it promotes change. Although craftspeople easily keep in mind basic decorative motifs, many groups eagerly store away old dilapidated mats to be able to reproduce complex plaited patterns later. Among some groups, such as the Ot Danum and Ngaju, master plaitresses deliberately create for their own use or for that of their daughters special sampler mats that serve as handy catalogs of motifs and patterns (Klokke 2012). Such a sampler may include local as well as “imported” motifs. FIG. 16: Unusual mat with extremely large-scale “checks.” “Kayan” style. Origin unknown. Rattan. 185 x 103 cm. J. B. Spurr Collection. Photo: D. Bonstrom.


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