Alfred C. Haddon began his study of these native fabrics and garments with the collection in the Sarawak museum, Kuching, of which many of the patterns had been identified. His own collection, supplemented by one purchased for him from Dr Charles Hose, is now in the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. These sources, together with an examination of the cloths in the British Museum, formed the basis of this memoir, which was originally published by Cambridge University Press in 1936. This was the first time that the beautiful and intimate patterns of Iban textiles had been investigated and illustrated. Laura E. Start contributed a full technical description of the manufacture of the fabrics and provided all the drawings.