Frequently it is difficult to ask questions in another language because basic concepts are understood differently. I wanted to find the Batak word for the surface of a cloth that is visible to the weaver while she is weaving, and for the underside of the cloth that is not visible while she is at work. The question sent me down a rabbit hole into a maze that is taking me a few days to find my way out of. Truly a maze. Several times I have set off on a path only to bump into a wall. I have turned around and set off again only to bump into another wall. Eventually, though, it has all added up and some dark spots on my mental map of the Batak loom have been filling in.
While I have spent a long time in North Sumatra gathering weaving words, I still stumble up against gaps in my knowledge and then I am grateful for WhatsApp. It is a brilliant tool for the anthropologist far away. Most Batak weavers nowadays have telephones and are familiar with the app. It allows me to parachute into their world, where I interrupt them and take up their time. I know that I am an imposition and ask ‘stupid questions’ about ways of seeing. Just as I am confused with their answers, they are confused by my questions. But how generous, gracious and patient they are with me!
In my quest to find the Batak word for the part of the cloth that the weaver sees while weaving, I decided to contact a weaver in Silindung with whom I had spent time the last time I was there and who understood my work. She immediately answered my What’sApps. We conferred mostly in Indonesian, and a bit in Batak. I launched in by asking her the Batak word for the ‘face’ of the cloth (‘muka’ in Indonesian, I thought) the part that is visible while she was weaving. I assumed that the use of the word ‘face’ would be a concept that we shared and we would be able to build a cultural bridge starting with that word. “Bohi” was her immediate response, the Batak word for ‘face’. I was delighted! Easy! A direct translation! The face of the cloth. “Thank you! Precisely what I am looking for,” I wrote back.
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| Ompu Elsa weaving a Simalungun cloth called 'Bulang' The slope of the loom is evident as well as the circularity of the warp. The warp beam is the horizontal beam furthest from the weaver, while the cloth beam is in her lap. The top layer of the cloth is 'split' to facilitate weaving. |
“And what is the back called?” I asked. “Panutup,” she said, a word that denotes ‘closing’ or 'finish'. My elation ended abruptly. How could ‘a closing’ be the opposite of the ‘face’ or the ‘underside’ of a cloth? An unbidden image of a loom rose up in my mind, with thread ‘endings’ dangling down like something a cat had fought with. “I think we might have a confusion, here” I wrote. “I am looking for the word for ‘below’, the opposite side of ‘bohi’.”
Then she told me that a cloth has a ‘face’ (bohi) if it contained ikat. Now I was truly confused. What could ikat have to do with the front and back of a cloth in the loom? “Ikat appears the same on both the front and the back of the cloth,” I wrote in return, indicating that I knew that there would be no visible difference between the two sides of an ikat cloth. “Ikat also has a face/bohi,” she wrote. “It has an upper and a lower part.” Now the image of a dangling hank of ikat-patterned yarn rose up and I tried valiantly – but unsuccessfully -- to understand where its ‘face’ or ‘upper part’ might be located.
I decided to give it a rest. This wasn’t working. We were using the same words, but we were not communicating. There was a lingering misunderstanding. Had I not explained it well? Was it my choice of words? In Indonesian, neither of us was communicating in our mother tongue. Where did the problem lie? Was I failing to understand the word ‘bohi’? Was I not understanding her conception of beginning and end? Was she not understanding my conception of front and back? I thanked her for her trouble and tried to make sense of it all, but I needed more help.
Awhile later, I contacted a weaver who makes the kind of cloth called ‘sadum’, the only Batak cloth where the back side of the cloth is upward, facing the weaver while she weaves. We exchanged pleasantries and then I mentioned that the sadum’s backside was what was visible in the loom. “Yes,” she said, “the inside is what shows.” The inside? I could imagine the back side of the cloth being referred to as ‘the inside’ because it is worn next to the body. I looked for confirmation, “You say ‘the inside’ and not ‘the backside’ or ‘the lower side’? Is this the ‘bohi’ of the cloth?
“The ‘bohi’ is the first part. The ‘inside’ is the part that is not visible when weaving, but when weaving is finished, it is the ‘outside’ part when it is worn. That is, in the case of the sadum.” Hmmm. She had explained it perfectly, as I was to discover later, but at the time I was still fixated on finding the word for the upper plane, the ‘face’ of the cloth (in my world) and thinking there had been a misunderstanding.
“If you say ‘bohi’, I went on doggedly, then there must also be a ‘back side’? What is the word for that?”
“What is certain is that the ‘bohi’ is the first part,” she said in response. “That is the word used most often.”
I was beginning to get the idea that the ‘bohi’ of the cloth was not perceived by her as a surface. “So, the word relates to time!” I said, thinking I had made a significant conceptual leap.
“No, she said, it is the first part that is woven.” Dashed again. So how did that not relate to time? What was I not getting?
I thought of how the Batak use the word ‘ulu’ or ‘head’ for a pattern that appears in the 'end' of a cloth. Maybe it was a spatial reference. If a cloth has a head, why not a face? “Is it like the ‘head’ of a cloth?” I asked.
“No, it is the beginning,” she said.
“Maybe I am having trouble understanding,” I responded. “We have different cultures. How do you describe the ‘first part’?” I asked.
“It is the first part that we weave,” she responded.
“The first weft?” I asked
“Yes,” she said. “Only, the first part.”
Ok, so the bohi is the beginning of a cloth as understood by a person in the process of weaving it. Interesting! I was clearly using the wrong word ('face') to elicit the Batak word for the upside of a cloth in the loom!
I plagued the poor weaver with another question. “In that case, what do you call the part of the cloth that faces you while you are weaving,” I asked.
“I am singing in a choir right now,” she said, “and cannot concentrate. Maybe later?” I had been driving her mad.
I screwed up my courage and contacted another weaver who has a good grasp of English. I tried again to pose my question clearly. “How do you name the ‘above’ part of a weaving in the loom and the ‘below’ part?” Her answer, in Indonesian, was clear, ‘depan’ (front) and ‘belakang (back’). Well, it wasn’t that difficult after all! At least I had the terms in Indonesian, and they expressed the same thing as the English. All I still had to do was obtain the Batak words. I asked for the translation.
“Tu jolo tu pudi” was her response. Oh no! Not again! Once more I was thrown into confusion. I knew the words ‘jolo and ‘pudi’; I had translated them as ‘forward’ and ‘backward’. ‘Jolo’, as it pertains to the loom, means ‘towards the weaver’ and ‘pudi’ means ‘away from the weaver’ along the plane of the cloth in the loom. Clearly, the Indonesian words for ‘front’ (‘depan’) and ‘back’ (‘belakang’) were not the words that I was searching for. They were good translations for the English words ‘forward’ and ‘back’ but they were not translations for the Batak ‘front’ and ‘back’ of the cloth. I had to let it go, and sleep on it for a night.
This morning, I had renewed courage. Nothing like a good night's sleep and the penny was dropping. The weavers had all been referencing the circular warp, which shifts in the loom, and which has a beginning and an end, and an upper part and a lower part, while I had been referring to the plane at right angles to that, the part facing the weaver and the backside of that. The sadum weaver, if I had been more mentally agile, had told me that to refer to the ‘front’ of a cloth I had to think in terms not of direction but of clothing! The ‘underside’ (from my perspective) when the cloth was in the loom was, for them the 'inside’, the surface of the cloth that is next to the body when the cloth is being worn, and the part that the weaver could see as she wove is the 'outside’, the part that is visible when the cloth is being worn. For them the directional words ‘above’ and ‘below’ related to the angle of the loom. And ‘face’ was a word that related to the process of weaving.
When I contacted the Simalungun weaver, Mak Sandi, this morning to obtain the words in the Simalungun language, it all fell into place and she was crystal clear. She understood it in the same way as the Toba weavers, although she used Simalungun words.
The words that I had been searching for were ‘inside’ (habbagas in Simalungun / ‘dalam’ in Indonesian) and ‘outside’ (haddarat in Simalungun / 'luar' in Indonesian), the concepts that relate to the use of the cloth as clothing. The ‘outside’ is what the weaver sees when she is weaving (except in the case of the sadum) and the ‘inside’ is what the weaver does not see when the cloth is being worn. But I still don’t know the Toba words. The search isn't over yet.
To summarize:
The ‘face’ of the cloth – relates to the beginning (the first throws of weft) a processual concept. Its opposite is ‘the ending’. Weaver logic!
‘Above’ and ‘below’ –The loom is not flat but tilted at an angle. 'Above' and 'below' relate to the angle of the loom. Above is in the direction of the warp beam and below is in the direction of the cloth beam. Weaver knowledge!
‘Front’ and ‘back’ – similarly relates to the orientation of the cloth in the loom during weaving, the front being ‘towards the weaver’ and the back being ‘away from the weaver’. Weaver logic!
My need, as it turns out, had not just been to get the right word, but to understand more deeply and fully the way the weaver understands her craft.
Thanks to the following kind and generous weavers:
Renny br. Manurung, Nai Tiara br.Siahaan, Lasma br. Sitanggang, br. Tobing, Duma br. Tobing, Ester br. Simorangkir.
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