Stunned By Beauty

By Susan Rodgers

This publication was published in conjunction with the 2016 exhibition of historic pua and kain kebat selected from the remarkable, comprehensive collection of Dr. John G. Kreifeldt. Curator Dr. Susan Rodgers, emerita anthropologist from Holy Cross, offers anthropological essays in Stunned by Beauty as a companion volume to Woven Power . These magnificent, intricately dyed, hand-loomed cotton ikat textiles were once woven in longhouses as religious objects par excellence for the Iban and the related Dayak women who wove them in Malaysia’s Sarawak, and in nearby Kalimantan, Indonesia. Pua kumbu blankets and the closely connected kain kebat ceremonial skirts were designed to be extraordinarily beautiful – to attract the attention of the gods and invite them to longhouse rituals.

• Softcover: 96 pages, 58 color photographs
• Publisher: Published by the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, College of the Holy Cross in conjunction with the exhibition Woven Power: Ritual Textiles of Sarawak and West Kalimantan, August 31 – December 14, 2016.
• ISBN: 978-0-9616193-9-1