My challenge, today, is in translating the Batak words manirat and bonggit lilit into Indonesian.
The Batak have their own language, as well as a unique way of understanding the weaving arts. This is reflected in their weaving vocabulary. Academic English makes use of a 'standard vocabulary' that Irene Emery and others have developed over decades to make it possible to discuss weaving techniques across cultural boundaries. Indonesian is the language that will be used in the weaving text that I am translating from English. As far as I am aware, there is no standard weaving vocabulary in Indonesian. Indonesian takes from the indigenous vocabularies found in the archipelago, and has also incorporated many terms and perspectives from Dutch and English. My task is to translate from English to Indonesian in a way that makes sense within the Batak weaving world. The Batak will be my primary audience because they are the practitioners of the weaving tradition that I am trying to describe. It would be thoughtless to make translations that alienate Batak readers from their own art! The text that I am translating has already done that; it was written in English academese. I know, because I wrote it! I observed the Batak techniques and then scoured the literature to figure out how to label them correctly in academic idiom.
My task, now, is, to determine whether these Batak terms mentioned above are available in Indonesian, and if so, whether the Indonesian terms represent the way the Batak understand the terms. If there is no ‘official’ translation, or if the translations do not accurately represent the Batak way of understanding their techniques, I must search for words that are more appropriate. I do not want Batak readers, upon reading my translation, to be led toward a Western way of seeing their craft tradition. This does mean, however, that I must understand the point of view offered by the Indonesian translation in addition to the Batak point of view that I am trying to achieve. Translating is not a simple matter of substituting Indonesian words for the Batak or English words. I need to understand the baggage of all of the words.
In short, my task is challenging, if not impossible. But I do my best to approach my target. I hope not only to assist in building an Indonesian weaving vocabulary, but to point to the logic and value of different vocabularies and embedded perspectives.
The Batak word, manirat, translates into academic English as ‘weft twining’. Batak ‘twiners’ (panirat) practice this technique to decorate the fringe ends of their weavings. It is an off-loom technique. In academic English, the horizontal element, understood as ‘weft’, is twined around the vertical element, understood as ‘warp’, hence ‘weft twining’.
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| A twined edge in the Siimalungun Batak cloth called 'Bulang' (Collection Author) |
Twining or winding is a concept that is held in common by Indonesian and Batak, and is indicated with the same word, lilit. However, for Batak twiners, the words ‘warp’ and ‘weft’ are not applicable because manirat is performed off-loom. Batak twiners speak of ‘twining yarn’ and ‘fringes’ but not ‘weft’ and ‘warp’. In addition, the word ‘lilit’ emphasizes what is being wound rather than what is doing the winding. The latter is emphasized by the English. As a result, the translation of the English expression ‘weft twining’ must be represented as ‘fringe-twining’ in Indonesian to accurately represent the Batak term, manirat. The translation of the English expression ‘weft twining' thus becomes the ‘winding of fringes using twining yarn’: pelilitan rumbai dengan benang lilit.
Batak | English | Indonesian |
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Manirat – to make the sirat | Weft-twining - the technique used to make the sirat; twining with weft | Pelilitan rumbai dengan benang sirat (wrapping the fringes with the yarn used to make the sirat) |
Bonggit lilit – patterning in a cloth made by wrapping the warp | Weft-wrapping – wrapping (the warp) with weft | Pelilitan benang lungsin dengan benang pakan (wrapping warp yarns with weft yarns) |
The technique that the Batak call bonggit lilit means the bonggit pattern achieved by wrapping. This is weft-wrapping in academic English. (Readers may be familiar with this technique as ‘kilim’ because the weft of kilim rugs is wrapped around the warp.) In Tarutung, one of the Batak areas where the technique is practised, when weavers wish to make the weft-wrapped pattern, they stop shooting regular weft through the warp with a shuttle, and instead wrap thicker weft, of various colours, by hand, around the warp yarns to create patterns. Because they are working in the loom, both 'warp' and 'weft' are at play. Because the warp yarn is being wrapped, the word ‘lilit’ is again applicable, in both Indonesian and Batak. Once again, the word emphasizes the element that is being wrapped rather than the element that is doing the wrapping. ‘Weft-wrapping’ in English must become ‘wrapping of warp’ in the Indonesian translation, pelilitan benang lungsin. What that conveys makes sense both in Indonesian and to Batak readers. (My translator made a simple google-type translation without knowing the weaving background, and translated 'wrapping' as 'packaging'!)
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| Weft wrapping (bonggit lilit) in the Toba Batak 'sadum' cloth |
The way the two techniques are presented in English has them in the same conceptual arena: a horizontal element winding around a vertical element. This essential similarity is not disturbed by one of the techniques being off-loom and the other on-loom. For Batak weavers, however, precisely this difference puts them in different conceptual camps. How the techniques are executed is much more prominent in the Batak vocabulary. The English standard vocabulary emphasized the result rather than the process.
It is notable that all the elements implied in the two vocabularies are the same: warp and weft, on- and off-loom, and twining/winding/wrapping. What differs is the conceptual framework in which they are embedded. If English searches for universals through generalizations, such as ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ elements and Batak technical descriptions are wrapped up (if I may) in the specifics of the process, Indonesian zig-zags between the two, with many terms that are cognates to the Batak terms even while many perspectives are built on Western academic orientations. The Indonesian terms/explanations that I opt for must be understandable and accurate for an Indonesian reader at the same time not doing violence to the Batak way of seeing the processes.
It can take a lot of time to translate a single word because it can send me down a variety of rabbit holes, such as searching for the implications of the words warp and weft, on-loom and off-loom, wrapping and weaving, universal and specific. Each rabbit hole offers a small glimpse into another worldview, each piece of weaving vocabulary contributing to a larger pattern that will only gradually emerge. Patience, persistence, and holding one’s (pre-)conceptions in abeyance are required to get to the nub of the differences. The process is exciting because it offers a doorway into the unknown. I can imagine weaving techniques being compared not just at the level of what transpires in the weavers’ hands, but also how she frames it in her mind.
For decades I have worked within the academic framework of building a universal, standardized weaving vocabulary. Having now realized that techniques are culturally-embedded and not 'neutral', I have also to recognize that my focus on a universal vocabulary has been an exercise in cultural erasure. A putatively universal prism has offered only a narrow, ethnocentric way of understanding Batak weaving. See the Batak world through their weaving vocabulary is a more exciting project. Sometimes I lose sight of the value of the ‘universal’ project. What was it, again, and why was it valid? Who does it serve?
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| A twined edge in a Toba Batak cloth called 'Bolean' (Private Collection Pangururan) |
Emery, Irene. The Primary Structures of Fabrics: an illustrated classification.