Palepai were high prestige status markers displayed on the walls of clan houses at gatherings of chieftains, for example at royal weddings. We will never be able to know the deep meaning of the ship motif in Lampung. A boat memorializing the migration by boat to the island of Sumatra by the first Austronesian speakers at least five thousand years ago? Perhaps the boat recalls the ship motif with ancestors found on Dongson drums, traded in from Vietnam some two thousand years ago. What we do know is that the graphics and deep color of this palepai make it a masterpiece.

Private Collection, Provenance available to the buyer.