This wedding headdress comprises traditional Chinese auspicious symbols for wealth and longevity, but was made with local jewellery-making techniques such as the red staining. Local communities in turn incorporated certain motifs into their own traditions, including the Daoist immortals and the God of Longevity riding his crane, sometimes reinterpreted locally as the Hindu god Vishnu riding his mythical mount Garuda.It is difficult to pin-point when Chinese traders and settlers first arrived in Sumatra but subsequent periods of trade and settlement in the region from the 15th century resulted in sizeable Chinese communities especially in coastal areas such as Palembang.
