Weaving: wo(men)'s work

My findings while making the Rangsa ni Tonun film have been important as I consider activities for the three young men in the workshop. ‘Weaving is women’s work’ is a familiar mantra. I have now modified that: women can’t weave unless they are supported by men in the same way that Si Boru Deak Parujar could not create the world without her brother’s help. Men make the weaving equipment. And that says a lot.

The first task that I gave to the men was to make turak, weft/bobbin holders, for the women. This was once a part of the Batak courting ritual. A young man would decorate the bamboo holders with messages in Batak script for the object of his affections. A husband would make it for his wife. It seemed a simple enough project to assign the young men because the weft holder is, essentially, just a bamboo joint. Jesral Tambun, one of the members of the workshop, is a wood carver and would be able to assist the others with the task. Ojak Silaban had made an hasapi (Batak violin) and thus also demonstrates considerable skill in working with wood. The results would be memorable souvenirs for the young weavers.

Hasapi made by Ojak Silaban being inspected by Jesral Tambun

Our first discovery has been that the simplicity of even this task is a delusion. The species of bamboo that we need does not grow in Muara. The young men charged off in search of it on their motorbikes and found species the walls of which were too thick and the joints of insufficient diameter.  It was market day, but the option of purchasing turak on the market disappeared with the decline in weaving. The execution of the ‘simple’ turak had to be postponed until Jesral returned home because he knows where the bamboo grows. (We later learned that we could have purchased one in the Tarutung market. One person sells them there. But that would have been too late in any case; the workshop ended on the day before the Tarutung market.)

The young men came back with wood to make the hatulungan or shed stick and the pamapan or warp beam. But the wood would first have to dry. Restuala had collected weaving equipment from former weavers in Muara, so we were not desperate for equipment. There was enough for Lasma and Febrina to work with. The exercise was solely to give the men insight into the complexity of making weaving equipment. It requires knowledge of wood species and where they are found, the needs of the weavers, understanding of yarn and the weaving process and of course skill in woodworking.

Jesral looked at the turak in Legacy in cloth and explained that the colour difference (white and reddish-brown) in the bamboo revealed that the maker had peeled off the skin of the bamboo at one end and oiled it. The bamboo would take around three weeks to cure. Even the simple turak is not an instrument that can be produced on the spot!

In the end the men’s skills were needed to make Lasma’s weaving frame.  Pak Jerry, Ojak Silaban and Jesral Tambun went to work sawing, hammering and sanding. Modern times, modern needs, modern techniques.

Jesral, whose calling is traditional Batak woodcarving, immediately saw how the joints and planks could be decorated with traditional Batak motifs….

Pak Jerry and Jesral indicating the
placement of the singa motif
found in Batak houses

A traditional house motif:
the singa

This will take time, considerable thought and effort…maybe in the future. The seed has been planted.When we visited Jesral yesterday on our way home from the workshop, he had already made a turak. He wanted to make one similar to the one that he had seen in Legacy (I told him that it had disappeared when I exhibited it many years ago in The Netherlands). Instead of Batak script, he had added subtle carving at the end. I look forward to seeing the finished product one day.

Festival Danau Toba IV: Ancient Technique, New Setting

I mentioned in an earlier blog that there were no facilities on 10 September to set up an exhibit of Stephanie Belfrage’s repatriated textiles in Tuktuk during the Lake Toba Festival. Nevertheless, it was an important goal of our trip to bring Stephanie's textiles back to the people in North Sumatra, so we had to be inventive. We came up with the best display technique possible … a technique is as old and creative and effective as … well, clothing!

The human frame (Photograph by Paul Manahara Tambunan)

(Photograph by Paul Manahara Tambunan)

Eventually Hs Thompson suggested that the exhibition go out to meet the people (Photograph by Paul Manahara Tambunan)

The Ragidup that Ojak Tampe Silaban is wearing is being inspected by a 'connoisseur'  or inspector of festivals from Italy who was exploring the merits of Festival Danau Toba for membership in an international network of festivals. Beside him is Christine Hakim, admiring another textile that Ojak has draped over him, and on the other side is Bupati Mangindar Simbolon, clearly fascinated by the textile. (Photograph by Paul Manahara Tambunan)

Homage to Harian

Today Ojak Silaban posted pictures of Sihol and her children on Facebook. I look at the beautiful children. Sihol’s grandmother would have been proud of them. I remember weaving with her one afternoon when the sound of church bells came wafting over the rice field. Ompu ni Sihol sat up and took notice. Someone had died. It was a child. We walked over and visited the mourners and I saw the deep sadness in Ompu ni Sihol’s face. I do not know how many of her own children she had buried, but only one son had survived. How thrilled she would have been to have had these healthy, smart, great grandchildren!

The ‘Back to the Villages’ expedition with Rangsa ni Tonun had to include Ompu ni Sihol’s village in Harian Boho to pay homage to the woman who had provided ‘The Weaving Song, the theme song of the film. I had taped her in 1980 while she sang and reeled yarn to demonstrate the use of the iraniran, or Batak reel. Thirty years later, Suarasama made a musical arrangement for it and performed it for our film.

On 16 September, 2013, our boat sailed toward Harian Boho and we docked at  the empty marketplace.

See how barren the hills have become. They used to be covered in forest growth.

Se

MJA Nashir took these beautiful photographs of our approach to Harian Boho and our boat at the dock.

It wasn’t market day and the morning market was over, too. The last time Nashir and I had been there was 2010. We knew our way to the coffee-tent, but it was a very hot day and there was almost nobody there. That had been one venue that we had considered for showing the film. There was no need to say anything to each other. We knew it wouldn’t work.

We started to climb the path to Ompu ni Sihol’s village. It was a path that I used to love to walk in the cool, verdant forest. It took me through rice fields first and then along a stream. I had had to wind my way around megaliths and huge tree roots. How I wish I could have given my team that experience, but the modern path is flat and paved and straight. And so hot under the tropical sun! So many of the Batak villages have used heavy equipment to shift the rocks and have poured concrete mortar between them to make flattened stretches that are easily negotiated on foot and by motor vehicle. Modern, maybe, but no longer delicious.

We finally found Ompu ni Sihol’s village, deserted and empty. Her son’s house is still standing and he was there with his very young granddaughter. 

Ompu ni Sihol's son's house. It was once a traditional Batak house but had been cut down to make a modern bungalow. 

Ompu ni Sihol blind son was there with his granddaughter.

He was blind. This wasn’t a good place to show the film, either. I was suffering from the flu and I wasn't much use because I could only think of lying down. We sat together on the front veranda of the house and Nashir saved the day.

MJA Nashir evaluates the situation.

He began to play the soundtrack of Rangsa ni Tonun that starts out with Ompu ni Sihol’s quavering old voice. Her son recognized it immediately, noticeably. We all watched his face. Then Nashir found his digital copy of my tape recording of her from 1980 in his computer and he played it for the old man.

Ompu ni Sihol's son enjoyed listening to his mother's voice. (Photograph by Febrina Pakpahan)

The blind man sat back with a smile. He remembered his mother and the day. He enjoyed it. Playing that soundtrack was the best way to present Rangsa ni Tonun in Ompu ni Sihol’s village.

And then we took our leave. I made sure that I snapped photographs of her house this time. 

Ompu ni Sihol's house in 2013.

Who would believe me that she had lived in such a little, impoverished hut? The lean-to beside her hut is no longer there, but the stones on which she balanced her earthenware pots and dyed her yarn are. I tried to picture the village as it had once been. I found it hard to do. 

Ompu ni Sihol's house in 1980.

Bits and pieces of memory came back. We wandered over to her grave. I remembered the rice fields with the church on the other side. I had forgotten how lush the trees beside the village were. 

 I rejoiced in being able to catch a glimpse of how the Batak villages in Harian Boho must once have been. I could see that now although I cannot remember having seen that thirty years ago. There was still bamboo growing atop the rocks surrounding the village. The stages of decay have been slow and have left traces.

Then we left the desolate village and made our way back under the merciless tropical sun to the boat.

Introducing a New Baby

Let go of the modern concept of ‘the marketplace’ for a moment and think of the power of the market in the pre-colonial Batak world. It was a world of internecine warface. Village warred with village, marga (lineage) with marga, region with region. Batak ‘wars’ were always cunning (conducted with the help of  magic, spells and potions),  occasionally involving face-to-face fighting (but more often guerilla-style attacks and counter attacks), and often of long duration. But life had to go on, food and ironware had to be obtained, produce had to be sold including to external markets, and so the ‘peace of the marketplace’ was set up. All of the great markets around the lake worked on a set schedule. On those market days pacts ensured safety from village to market and especially in the market. Warring was set aside temporarily for the sake of trade. Markets were large and busy and because of the transportation opportunity offered by the lake, they could be attended by huge crowds, all of whom made their way there in the solu bolon (large dug-out canoes) bearing their trade goods.

One can imagine, then, that the marketplace was a place of singular importance. The marketplace was the place to meet and exchange the news. Women introduced their newborn babies on the market, a kind of ‘social’ baptism. This was also the original crucible in which textile design was introduced, exchanged and innovations achieved consensus. Logically, disputes were settled on the market. The large waringin trees mark the spot where adat leaders would meet to hear cases and try their hand at settling the problem. There were also large ritual gatherings, called bius, but these were infrequent and involved the population of a region, and were choreographed for the occasion. Markets consisted of motley crews, people from near and far and the unexpected was expected to happen.

When I thought of the places where I would like to re-introduce Rangsa ni Tonun into the Batak community, the Batak market sprang to mind. The Batak village was my first choice, in the village square. During the journey, the weather did not work in our favour, alas. There was so much rain. In the end, we had no screenings in village squares at all, but always in Batak homes crowded full with everybody who could fit in. The ancient Batak markets took place on grassy plains under the open skies, but the current markets are covered over and dark. That would work to our advantage.

When we left the Festival Danau Toba on 12 September, our goal was the Nainggolan Market, but it was a barren, desolate (and smelly) place and turned out to not be the wrong spot for that day, so we chugged on in our Boat Budaya to Muara.

Muara! Immediately we were recognized! There was Febry, home from Bali, flaunting his news about his successful engagement to a Dutch girl for all to hear. Close to the entrance to the market we ran into Ompu Rido selling steamed rice cakes. She was wearing our Pulang Kampung III t-shirt and became so excited when she saw us she scarcely knew what she was doing and began to jitter! We left her with a huge bag of rice cakes in our hands. Then we saw Restuala’s Mom and Ompu Joshua’s daughter; it was like a homecoming with the true spirit and warmth of the marketplace.

Restuala's Mom and Ompu Rido on the street in front of the market.

Nashir stubbornly pressed on. The marketplace may have been my harebrained idea, but his stubbornness made it happen. We found a market stall willing to accommodate us. We chose a textile stall and explained our need for a place to set up a projector and Pak Jerry’s bulky sound system. That might sound easy, but we had to bring the generator from the boat, purchase fuel for it,

Fueling the generator on the street before entering the market. The young
man wearing our Pulang Kampung T-shirt is the 'boat-guy', the assistant to
Captain Siregar.

and make sure our extension cords could reach it. Just like other people with bales of wares, we pushed our equipment on two-wheeled trollies through the muddy aisles.

The generator in the market being managed by Ojak Silaban and the Captain's
assistant

Some textile proprietors grumbled that we were ruining their opportunity to make sales and we argued in turn that this would only take a moment and that we were attracting the public and stimulating them to love Batak textiles. We handed out copies of Bhinneka, the tabloid about our activities, and nestled in amongst the bales of red, gleaming textiles made on ATBM looms to watch the film.

The aisles filled up with people of every age.

Nashir stood beside the rigged up, white cotton screen and tried out the microphone. It worked. Paul Manahara Tambunan manned the projector atop a bale of textiles.

Paul Manahara Tambunan manned the projector

Ojak Silaban and said a few words to introduce the film and then Nashir clicked the right keys on his computer and started the show.

By that time, Ompu Rido had joined us and when Boru Hasagian appeared on the screen

Boru Hasagian on our makeshift screen. Nashir examines
his documentation of the screening. I over-exposed the shot so that
Nashir would be visible in the dark.

, she was beside herself once again, and didn’t know whether to try to hide amongst the textiles in her shyness or stand up and take a bow. She shrieked a few times and flopped back on her back. It was her crowning moment in her own village and when I said a few words at the end to thank the textile proprietor, I also thanked Ompu Rido for her participation in the film. I was sorry that not all of Huta Godang was there as so many of our film stars are from there.

The film attracted alot of attention.

Lasma and Febrina snuggled into the bales of machine-made
textiles for sale in the stall to watch the film

Ompu Rido joined us and sat transfixed next to Lasma

Isma, the reporter from Tempo Magazine, was with us for this
leg of the journey.

Photo by MJA Nashsir showing the constraints of the market stall.

In an attempt to get a bit of a discussion going, a few words were spoken by a clever woman who immediately realized the power of the film. She expressed the wish that Batak textiles would thrive. Lasma made a few resounding comments to thank the visitors for watching and to remind them that the survival of Batak weaving depends on them.

Then there was the requisite photo session. “Please Miss, a photo?” The stall proprietor’s son draped their best textiles over our shoulders and photograph after photograph was snapped.

Thus we introduced ‘our baby’, Rangsa ni Tonun, on the market of the place that feels the most like home for us in Tano Batak. It was an experiment and one that we liked alot. The screening wasn't perfect, however. There just wasn't enough room to accommodate all the people who wanted to see it and although we had a strong sound system, the sound got lost in amongst all the textiles. We weighed the pros and cons of every screening and no screening was ever perfect, but this one had magic. We will always think of it with a smile.