Perhaps I should stop bitching and start writing my own books. It’s still a mystery to me why scholars have neglected or overlooked Iban textiles from Kalimantan, the Indonesian side of Borneo. Most Ibans live in Sarawak, having migrated from Kapuas region many generations ago, but their cousins in Indonesia as well as the Iban sub-groups of Kantuk, Ketunggau, Mualang and Desa have produced traditional textiles with magical quality that seems almost other worldly. Those sub-groups do not live in the Malaysian territory. This rare, early 20th century “pua belantan” ritual cloth was found at the house of a village chief in Nanga Badau in West Kalimantan and entered the collection recently. It’s even rarer to see a piece of Iban textile that combines two distinctive techniques: ikat and sungkit or discontinous supplementary weft wrapping