Nagas, birds, elephants

The first section of the book contains the essays. Borbála Száva’s study on the trade connections of Southeast Asia describes the region’s main trading routes and their history. Györgyi Fajcsák’s essay on Thai Buddhist picture scrolls focuses on the items in the collection of Emil Delmár, an internationally noted Hungarian art collector who travelled to Southeast Asia in the late nineteenth century, where he purchased Buddhist sculptures and paintings. The manufacture, use and trade of textiles in Laos in the mid-twentieth century constitutes the subject matter of Tatjána Kardos’s interview with the Laotian engineer and teacher Somdy Ouanphanivanh, who originates from close to Luang Prabang, the former capital of Laos. The essay by Vera Brittig evokes the Southeast Asia of the 1970s and 1980s, through the eyes of the Hungarian engineer and collector Ödön Rádai, who worked in Vietnam and Laos.

The second part of the book contains presentations of the textiles of four major Southeast Asian peoples, and descriptions of their clothing. Borbála Száva introduces us to the textiles and clothing of the Hmong and Khmer peoples. Tatjána Kardos presents the traditional dress and ritual textiles of Tai nations. In his paper on barkcloth clothing, professor of anthropology Gábor Vargyas gives us details of the clothing once worn by the Bru people, one of the hillside tribes of Vietnam. The volume concludes with a bibliography.

Nagas, birds, elephants. Traditional Dress from Mainland Southeast Asia exhibition, Ferenc Hopp Museum of Asiatic Arts, 29 September 2016 – 20 August 2017