Enriching Iban Pua Kumbu /by Welyne Jeffrey Jehom

• author: Welyne Jeffrey Jehom

• publisher: SIRD

• published in: 2026

• language: English

Textiles have been a highly valued part of many Indigenous societies across the world and over millennia. This pathbreaking book examines the large woven ceremonial cloths known as pua kumbu, long associated with the Iban people of the interior of Sarawak, Malaysia. In both scholarly and popular studies of these sacred cloths, the process of creating pua kumbu is identified explicitly with the women who weave them, using oral tradition for the passing on of designs and practice.

Based on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork and collaborative engagement with a longhouse community, this study breaks new ground, both empirically and conceptually. It is framed around a number of key themes: the origins, symbolism and use of the cloths; the place of female weavers in Iban society; the creative tension between conservation, innovation and transformation; the significance of Indigenous knowledge for sustainable community development and empowerment; and the role of exhibitions of pua kumbu in reaching beyond the academic world. Enriching Iban Pua Kumbu is a valuable work for advanced students, researchers and general readers interested in the intersection of material culture, social status and community engagement, such as cultural anthropologists, archaeologists, economists, museum curators and historians.

About the author:

Welyne Jeffrey Jehom is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and the former head of the Centre of Malaysian Indigenous Studies, both at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. Trained in the anthropology of development, her main research and teaching interests are in the fields of Indigenous knowledge and community development, women and empowerment, and material culture, with a focus on Sarawak.