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Lampit, prayer mat
Lampung Province, Sumatra, early 20th c.

This tradition of mat making is of ancient heritage. Two places in Indonesia make mats using the same, distinctive technique: parts of Borneo and Lampung, very likely survivals of migrations that occurred two millennia or more ago. In Borneo they are put to the most practical of uses: covering long house floors, and are thus relatively large. Some of the Lampung lampits have other ritual purposes and preserve an elaborate pre- and non-Islamic iconography.

This mat, with its abstract decoration, was used for prayer in Sumatra, a tropical island with a climate that encourages the use of mats, which are to be found all over Indonesia, where rugs were not in use traditionally. The zig-zag design in nine rows carries no symbolic weight that this writer knows about although he has seen it on one other Sumatran piece, a cotton textile of unknown use. Each end has a rectilinear design in contrast to that of the field. This piece has more kinship than the typical prayer rug with the sorts of reed mats that were probably employed for prayer in the Arab lands during the early Islamic era.