Indonesia · Bark Cloth / Textile
Daluang / dluwang (Javanese), also dlancang; gedog paper; Ponorogo paper
A writing and ceremonial material made by beating the inner bark of the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera) rather than by forming a sheet from pulp, which places it closer to tapa and barkcloth than to true paper. The outer bark is removed, the bast washed, dried and soaked, then pounded with brass bark-beaters (pamepeuh), flipped repeatedly until it is two to three times thinner, sometimes worked again under water, dried on banana stems and burnished smooth with shells, rattan or coconut shell. It carried the epic scrolls of wayang beber from 14th-century Majapahit and much Islamic Javanese literature, including the 1,520-folio Menak Amir Hamza, and in Bali it is used for the ketu, the crown of high priests. Industrial paper displaced it after World War II; Indonesia recognized it as intangible cultural heritage in 2014.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed by UNESCO; recognized as Indonesian intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Education and Culture (2014)
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