A world of clothes : Indian textiles and the germination of polities in eastern Indonesia

• The early modern period saw a very comprehensive import of textiles from South Asia to the Malay Archipelago. Such cloths could be high-quality products which were coveted as status items as far as Maluku and beyond, such as the well-known patola (double-woven ikat). The imported goods also included less expensive cotton cloths. This trade has a long history that goes back before the advent of European economic and political interference. Europeans, especially the VOC, tried to control the trade flows with varying success. The paper discusses how the import of Indian textiles underpinned political structures and networks in Nusa Tenggara Timor and Maluku from the 16th to the 19th centuries, analyzing the way that import goods was indigenized and became important symbols for authority and redistribution, something that is mirrored in early-modern (mostly European) documents as well as later tradition. Through this, we may discern how a consumer culture developed in a mainly nonWestern context which was however connected to early colonial economic management and shipping.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

Keyword

India

East Indonesia

clothes

trade

VOC

Portugal

Historia

History

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)