Are you looking for Indonesian souvenirs as gifts? We are heading to the end of the year, which means gifting time! There are lots of fun and unique products to buy or bring home as gifts to friends and family. Souvenirs are one of the best ways to tell your friends and family that you are thinking about them while traveling. And it’s also something that’s fun to buy for yourself as a memory from your trip. So, do you want to know what to buy in Indonesia for your loved ones? Then continue reading below, because here’s a list of the top 8 Best Indonesia Souvenirs!
8 Best Indonesia Souvenirs | Design & Product: Kaliuda Gallery
Finding the best souvenirs is always a challenge, especially if you are unable to speak the language. You may end up walking around for hours at a time and still miss the best places and souvenir shops. We have created a list of the top 8 souvenirs to bring home to your family and friends from Indonesia that you can find in Kaliuda Gallery Bali. We hope that you can make use of this list or at the very least obtain such much-needed resources or ideas from it. As one of the most trusted retail furniture Bali and home decor. Kaliuda Gallery has experience in producing home decor and curate antiques since 1983 then we expanded this business to produce high-quality furniture and home decor with high-quality teak wood as our main material.
8 Best Indonesia Souvenirs:
1. Batik Fabric 2. Wayang 3. Woodcraft 4. Mask 5. Traditional Weave 6. Indonesian Jewelry 7. Indonesian Antiques 8. Indonesian Paintings
Batik fabric is an excellent gift to take back home, as it really captures the true heart of Indonesian culture. It has been practiced for years and it is part of an ancient tradition. Some of the best textiles and fabric pieces in the world are made out of batik, which is a testament to just how magnificent these pieces really are. Batik textiles are a great souvenir to buy. Batik is a wax-resistant dyeing technique that has been practiced in Indonesia for many many years. Each region of Indonesia has its own patterns and colors. Many prints include animals, flowers, people, or folklore.
Batik Display at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
Many batik textiles that are sold today are manufactured in factories – these are called batik caps or batik prints. If you’re looking for real hand-made textiles, you should go looking for Batik Tulis, which means written batik in Indonesian. Indonesia is a real paradise for fabric collectors. And the most famous fabric of Indonesia is called Batik which has been recognized as one of the world heritage UNESCO. Being one of the most interesting and colorful artistic expressions in the world, Batik fabric is no doubt the best souvenir to buy in Indonesia.
Wayang, also known as wajang (Javanese: ꦮꦪꦁ, romanized: wayang), is a traditional form of puppet theatre play that originated on the Indonesian island of Java. Wajang refers to the entire dramatic show. Sometimes the leather puppet itself is referred to as wayang. Performances of Wayang puppet theatre are accompanied by a gamelan orchestra in Java, and by gender wayang in Bali. The dramatic stories depict mythologies, such as episodes from the Hindu epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, as well as local adaptations of cultural legends. Traditionally, a wayang is played out in a ritualized midnight-to-dawn show by a Dalang, an artist and spiritual leader; people watch the show from both sides of the screen.
Wayang Kulit at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
The art of wood carving is quite well-developed in Indonesia. Other than tribal art wood carvings of Asmat, Dayak, Nias, and Toraja area are well known for their refined wood carving culture; they are Jepara in Central Java, and Bali. Mas village near Ubud in Bali is renowned for its wood carving art. Wood carving, woodcraft, or woodwork can be found massively in Indonesia.
Chess Woodcraft at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
Masks in Indonesia have so many uses. Some people can just use the mask for performing, or maybe use the mask for more serious matters like doing a ritual or something. The first thing we should learn about the mask is character. There are several masks that can resemble characters very well via their looks, and the performance by the dancers or performers. Topeng (Indonesian for “mask”) is a dramatic form of Indonesian dance in which one or more mask-wearing, ornately costumed performers interpret traditional narratives concerning fabled kings, heroes, and myths, accompanied by gamelan or other traditional music instruments.
Indonesian Mask at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
Apart from Batik, many regions in Indonesia have other traditional textiles, intricately crafted by villagers who are keeping this heritage alive. Weave or also known as ikat. Ikat is a traditional hand-woven cloth not unique to, but commonly associated with, Indonesia where some of the finest examples were and still are produced. The word ikat, meaning to ‘tie’ or ‘bind’ in the Indonesian language, alludes to the process of production, for its essence is a ‘resist’ dying of yarn before weaving.
Traditional Weave and Antique Statue at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
The cloth pattern is preconceived and made by selectively tying bundles of thread that are tinted in liquid dye. Different sections of the thread are tinted in chosen dye (such as red, yellow, green, white, and maroon), so the process of tying and dying is laboriously repeated until all desired colours are in place. At this stage, the future pattern of the cloth is already arranged. The coloured thread is placed on a loom in preconceived length and width, and the weaving brings a pattern of thread into the two-dimensional design of the fabric. Typically, such design is fuzzy as a result of the difficulty aligning each length of tread with perfect precision through weaving. Highly skilled artisans with extra time can, and occasionally do, eliminate this blurriness, but generally, it became a mark of ikat’s aesthetic quality.
Indonesia also has various ethnic jewelry as their ancestor’s treasure. Different regions and cultures follow their unique designs and works. The traditional jewelry of Indonesia is what makes Indonesian weddings so rich and unique in their own manner. There are exclusive designs and works which complete the traditional look of the jewelry. Traditional gold jewelry is passed on for generations and families hold jewelry made many decades ago.
Indonesian Jewelry at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
A true antique (Latin: antiquus; ‘old’, ‘ancient’) is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance. Often defined as at least 100 years old (or some other limit), although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that is old. An antique is usually an item that is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human history. Vintage and collectible are used to describe items that are old but do not meet the 100-year criterion.
Indonesian Antique at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
Antiques are usually objects that show some degree of craftsmanship, collectability, or a certain attention to design, such as a desk or an early automobile. They are bought at antique shops, estate sales, auction houses, online auctions, and other venues, or estate inherited.
Indonesian painting has a very long tradition and history in Indonesian art, though because of the climatic conditions very few early examples survive. The earliest Indonesian paintings were the rock paintings of prehistoric times. Such as the petroglyphs found in places like in the caves in the district of Maros in Sulawesi, Indonesia. The Stone Age rock paintings found in the Maros cave are approximately 40.000 years old.
In prehistoric times, the painting played an important role because every painting had a specific meaning and purpose. At that time the paintings were made on cave walls and rocks. One of the techniques used by cave people to paint on cave walls is by placing their hands on the cave walls. Then spraying them with chewing leaves or colored mineral stones. This spraying technique is known as the aerograph. Another medium used to make paintings is clay. The dyes used come from natural ingredients such as minerals and animal fats. In general, the purpose and theme chosen for making these paintings are magical.
Curated Indonesian Painting at Kaliuda Gallery | Source: Kaliuda Gallery
Examples of prehistoric paintings can be seen at Leang Pattakere Cave in Maros, South Sulawesi. The painting depicts a hunting scene. In addition, there are also paintings on cave walls on the south coast of Irian Jaya (Papua). The paintings in these places depict ancestors. The thing that drew attention to the paintings scattered over such a vast area were the silhouettes of the hands everywhere. These handprints are also found in South Sulawesi, on paintings on rock cliffs in the bay of Sulaeman Seram, in the bay of Berau, Papua. Also on the island of Arguni and in the Kei Islands. Apart from the hand shadow motif, the motifs found in many places are human figures, boats, sun, moon, birds, fish, turtles, humans, lizards, legs, and hog deer.
Want to know more? Stay tuned to our next article to find out more about “8 Best Indonesia Souvenirs”. Kaliuda Gallery is one of the most trusted furniture stores in Bali. Find more of Bali’s outdoor and indoor furniture here.