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effected. Nowadays aniline dyes are the rule, but here 
and there beautiful soft-toned dyes are made from 
stick-lac, the barks of certain trees, arnatto and 
turmeric. 
The Malay skirt ( sarong ) is the national garment 
of both sexes and women frequently use an extra 
sarong as a head covering, hence cloth for making this 
article of dress is the material most frequently woven 
on Malay looms. Sarong cloth is not suitable for 
making other articles of dress because each sarong has 
a broad band of different colour and pattern, called its 
“ head,” running through it transversely from top- 
to bottom. This band, which is worn at the back when 
the sarong is in use, makes the cloth unsuitable for 
cutting up to manufacture coats or other garments. 
The Malay favours checks and plaids as sarong 
patterns and these are, therefore, common designs, 
though cloths with transverse bars, “ Arab pattern,” 
are also to seen, 
“ Gold ” thread cloths are the most beautiful pro- 
ducts of Malay looms- In these the background is 
generally a rich crimson or dark red silk, more rarely 
creamy-white, and the “gold” thread patterns, the 
material for which is contained on a number of little 
bobbins, are worked in among the woof when the cloth 
is being woven. The best cloths of this type are 
produced in Sumatra, but creditable imitations are 
made in Trengganu. 
In another type of cloth which is woven in the 
Peninsula, again chiefly in the north-eastern states, a 
peculiar tie-and-dye process is applied to the warp 
before it is placed in the loom. This imparts a curious 
mottled appearance to the finished product, which the 
Malays, on this account, call “lime-blossom cloth.” 
£2-4%/ 
