Harna's Heritage

The consequences of the first Pulang Kampung journey, of distributing copies of Legacy in Cloth among Batak weavers and their families, have evidently not yet achieved completion. The pebbles that I threw into the water then are still creating rings.

In 2010 I gave a copy of Legacy in cloth to Ompu Sihol’s only child (a son) and his youngest son (i.e. Ompu Sihol’s grandson), Juni. Ompu Sihol was my weaving teacher in 1980, the one who so thoroughly taught me the basics of weaving that this knowledge served as the foundation for all my subsequent understandings and documentation of Batak weaving techniques. I described my emotional Pulang Kampung moment, back in her village in Harian Boho, in one of my blogs. It was confrontational to be back in the village where I began my anthropological career as a 24-year old. The lessons with Ompu Sihol had been challenging. She was strict and I was unsure of myself, suffering greatly from culture shock. We managed to muddle our way through our respective cultural misunderstandings and I gradually discovered her good and kind heart and she forgave my confusions. On the last day when we ate our ritual lunch together, we had chicken and I was given the wings (I had given up my vegetarian lifestyle in the village). Ompu Sihol flapped her arms and said that the wings were to help me weave back in my village. I hope that I have done those wings proud even though I have never really become a weaver. I recorded her singing a weaving song on that day. Little did I know that thirty years later it would become the theme song of my film, Rangsa ni Tonun. Her daughter-in-law repeatedly urged me to “not forget the family” and I gave her my promise. “How would I be able to forget you?” I asked in return. When in 2010, thirty-five years later, I gave a copy of Legacy in cloth to Ompu Sihol’s son, his wife was already deceased, he was blind and could not witness the book, and his granddaughter (son Juni’s daughter) had never seen a Batak weaving loom. Times had changed drastically. Ompu Sihol's son was the only one living in the dying village. There were no more weavers in the valley. When I handed over my book, I offered it to three generations that descended from Ompu Sihol, three generations that represented the end of weaving in Harian Boho.  I could not help but wonder how the book would be received, not just then, but on into the future. What would it mean to them? At least they would have a record of an ancestor who was a master weaver and she could be a source of pride for them.

After a few years, a young woman named Alph Kianna Harna contacted me through Facebook saying that she was one of Ompu Sihol’s great grandchildren. She had seen the copy of Legacy in cloth that I had left behind in Ompu Sihol's village and she had googled my name. Her father was one of the little boys living in the village when I was there, one of the sons of that daughter-in-law and that now blind man. I met Alph Kianna Harna briefly when she came to Taman Mini at the launch of Pulang Kampung III and we hugged each other. She felt like family. I liked her equanimity and presence. She said that she worked for Singapore Airlines. We stayed in touch.

Harna had her first meal in The Netherlands with us.

Wonder of wonders, when I last returned from Indonesia (29 September 2015), Harna landed at Schiphol during her first visit overseas. Our planes landed at the same time and we fetched our luggage in the same hall. We met as we were both exiting that hall and I brought her home with me to give her a cozy bed where she could get over her jetlag. Our plan was that I would show her Ompu Sihol’s weaving equipment and textiles.

Harna looked at the pictures of her great
grandmother in my book.

I showed Harna her great grandmother's loom.

Harna said that she didn't know about
Batak weaving.

And we did that. We thumbed through the many pages in Legacy where her great grandmother is depicted. I shared my stories with her and she shared her reactions -- also to my collection of pictures taken during those fateful months. 

It turned out that the grandson who had been given the task of
looking after the chicken for our lunch grew up to be Harna's father.

It felt so odd to be in the position of sharing information about Batak weaving to a descendant of my erstwhile weaving teacher. It must have felt just as odd for Harna. I experienced the need to point out that I had purchased the weaving equipment, that I had exhibited it on several occasions, that I hoped that I had sufficiently honoured it through my work, that I hoped that one day it would all go back to the Batak area. I was gratified when Harna said that she was pleased that I had looked after it all so well. I had been a good custodian but I felt also strangely guilty. It is Harna’s heritage! Our bond is therefore very strong. I care about her as though she is my own family because she is inextricably bound up with the most important heritage of my career. How remarkable to share that heritage with her in The Netherlands! I remembered carrying out the wooden implements on my head as I walked from Ompu Sihol’s village to the edge of the lake, then packing it in crates to be shipped out to The Netherlands: my “anthropological study collection”.

My “stuff” is not unlike collections in anthropological museums: material that can rekindle culture in the places where it was acquired. But it needs to be shared with the descendants. What will Harna’s path look like? I hope I attain a great age so that I can keep track of her and her future children.

And I hope that Ompu Sihol and her daughter-in-law, Harna’s great grandmother and grandmother, were smiling down on us, nodding in approval. How many times Ompu Sihol had shaken her head while watching me fumble my way through a weaving technique and shared her amazement and dismay with her ever-curious neighbour. I gave Harna my blown-up picture of the two of them sitting together. 

The Decision to Return to Tano Batak is one I Value Highly

Harian Boho nestled beside Lake Toba as seen from above

A highly educated Batak woman, born in Tano Batak but brought up outside, has sought my anthropological opinion about returning to her homeland. The prospect is daunting to her. She has not been there for a long time. Will she and her family be able to adapt? Understandably, she is a bit nervous about the big move.

Maybe there are others who find themselves in the same situation? And perhaps some who long to return to their homeland. For you I would like to share my advice to her:

First, I would like to compliment you. I value your choice to Pulang Kampung. I am convinced that Tano Batak needs your presence and your influence more than anything else. I am convinced not only that you will be able to adapt, but that you will be able to create an important niche for yourself and your family and you will be able to do good things for your culture.

We all know that Batak culture has been drained. Young people who want to make something of their lives have to leave Tano Batak to obtain an education and find a job. Villages are emptying out. The people who remain behind feel that their contributions to the world have no value. It is a sad and regrettable situation.

Nevertheless, Tano Batak remains the centre of Batak traditional culture. If it is not healthy and vibrant, Batak culture will continue to decline. The region is beautiful and unique. It needs to be cared for by an educated and vocal population or it will continue to degrade. For decades voices have been raised about the decline in the quality of the physical environment. There needs to be a turnaround and soon! I am convinced that people like you, who decide to return to Tano Batak, can turn the tide and make the difference. Tano Batak needs to be turned back into a home, a place that is valued, championed, and cared for. Alas, it has been the victim of people who milk it for what it has to offer, leaving it depleted, degraded and compromised.

I hope that you will return to Tano Batak with the resolve to good things for the area. To my mind, this is key.

You mentioned that you once lived in Harian Boho. When ompu Sitor Situmorang died and was buried in his village (January 2015), a group of artists came to pay their last respects. They spoke about making Harian Boho a centre of artistic activities: theatre, music, dance. Ompu Sitor’s widow, Barbara Purba, spoke about the need to set up historical markers to remind young people in the village about their own background and heritage. Other family members who live far away spoke about wanting to return and care for the houses that they have left behind.  There is a nostalgia, a longing, to restore Harian Boho to some of its former glory and to start building a future glory. I don’t know whether you will return to Harian Boho. If you do, you can be part of this energy that links Harian Boho and its past with artists and historians and cultural specialists who live all around the world. It is so important to have someone like you living there who can serve as a bridge between the worlds. You could be the spark to make the change.

If you do not return to Harian Boho, but to some other place, I am convinced the situation will not be radically different. In Pangururan, for instance, I am so proud of the work of ibu Tetti Naibaho. She works with women and the church to build a stronger and healthier community. She has taken the initiative of planting cotton so that weavers will be able to produce their own yarn. To do this, she works with schools and inspires weavers. One person can make a huge difference to the lives of children and adults, and the physical and cultural environment.

You will soon be in a position to create a lifestyle that is a model for a sustainable future, in the cultural and the physical sense. You can provide a badly needed role model for the people living there and for politicians who govern the area. If you do this, you will become a community leader and a focus of admiration and appreciation. You can ensure that you dispose of your garbage responsibly and look after your yard and street so that it becomes a place of beauty. You can rescue and beautify local Batak architecture. You can insist on purchasing organic produce and thereby support local farmers who grow organic crops. You can help children to follow their dreams and make their way into the future. You can encourage the people to feel pride for their culture and history. Each of these tasks can fill your life with activities and satisfaction. There are wonderful people in Tano Batak who will work with you. You could get involved to make the new Geopark initiative a success and the Geopark initiative could give you a focus to invest your energy.

You will probably have more wealth than the local people around you. Instead of spending it on useless and wasteful displays of status, you can deploy it to create opportunities for a better future for the community and your culture: purchase solar panels and community computers, create jobs, protect cultural monuments, plant trees, set up a workshop facility for adults education, assist schools, the list is endless.

If you have time and the inclination, I would be very grateful if you chose to work with me to encourage the revival of Batak weaving with natural dyes and fibre and traditional techniques. We need people everywhere in Tano Batak to begin to work on this common goal so that Batak textiles will survive into the future.

I am sure that if you set yourself goals and you keep a positive outlook, you will be very happy in your new situation. It won’t always be easy. In many ways you will be doing the job that governments should be doing. At times the work will be frustrating. And the rewards will be in your successes but may not translate into financial rewards. Your choices will reflect your values.

Have respect for “local knowledge” and get to know the people as well as you can. You will learn about your own culture. This will enrich you and your family. There is much to learn and the process is exciting. Little projects could help you learn about the cultural wealth in your Batak community. For example, you could work with the people in your community to create an exhibition of photographs of the ancestors. They all have a precious store of photographs. If you wanted, you could even create books about the local knowledge that you discover around you. What better way to instil pride and encourage the culture!

These are my ideas as an anthropologist. You are a doctor and have your own training and talents. I am sure that if you devote yourself to good projects for your community you will enjoy your stay among your people.

Please keep in touch. I would love to visit you and find out how your initiatives are going.

May your path be blessed.

Sihol

The day starts earlier in Indonesia than it does in Holland, so when I wake up in the morning, I like to check my email and Facebook messages first thing to get up to speed. This morning was very special because of a message from Ojak Tampe Silaban, one of the four young people on the Pulang Kampung III team. 

Ojak is full of the unexpected. (Photo by MJA Nashir on the DEL University campus.)

He said that he had given a copy of Rangsa ni Tonun to Sihol Malau, that he had told her in colourful detail about our adventures and that he had spent the night in her house. This message went straight to my heart.

Sihol Malau is the Ompu ni Sihol’s granddaughter, indeed, the one after whom Ompu ni Sihol is named. Several of Ompu ni Sihol’s grandchildren played in the village plain when I took my weaving lessons with her. They wound her weft, scared her pig, the dog and chickens away from her loom, fetched salaon (indigo plant) with me on the hillside, chewed the kemiri nut and spat it in the can when Ompu ni Sihol needed it for her starching solution (she had no teeth). I didn’t know them well. I was 24 at the time and was more focused on my weaving notes than on these children.

But now that granddaughter Sihol has Rangsa ni Tonun, my heart is very glad. I imagine her playing the film and hearing Ompu ni Sihol’s cracking old voice as the origin of the theme song of the film. I can see her open the book that I wrote about the film and find the picture of her grandmother. I can imagine her feelings. How I would love to find my own grandmother in a book!

Thank you, Ojak Tampe, for giving such a good start to my day. I look forward to seeing the photographs that you took.

The day of the launch of the Boat Budaya comes back to me. Saturday August 24. We were crazy busy setting up a stall where we could offer our books and posters for sale, dealing with some last-minute upsets and preparing for the afternoon event in which Ibu Stephanie’s textiles would be officially handed over to Museum Tekstil. Amidst all of that, I went over to the huge Batak house at the corner of the North Sumatran village of Taman Mini to review the exhibition and make sure there were enough copies of the Bhinneka Tabloid (about our activities) on hand for visitors. A young woman came up to me. She introduced herself as Harna. And then time stopped.

Stephanie Belfrage's textiles were displayed beautifully by the Museum Tekstil staff in the Batak house of Taman Mini. (Photo by MJA Nashir)

I looked at her. She looked at me. We were both speechless. Then we hugged each other for a long time. I know Harna through Facebook. She is another one of Ompu ni Sihol’s granddaughters. Legacy in cloth brought us together. After I had presented the book to her brother in 2010 (a gift from the book’s designer, Marie-Cécile Noordzij Pulles), it eventually made its way to her in Medan. She has now moved to Jakarta and made the effort to come to our launch. Meeting her was one of the most memorable moments of the launch.

The meeting took place surrounded by photographs of the Pulang Kampung I the journey when I gave a copy of  Legacy in cloth to Ompu ni Sihol's family.  (Photograph (and photo exhibition) by MJA Nashir.)

The Musical Accompaniment to Rangsa ni Tonun

On the last day before leaving Medan, I made the long trek from my hotel to the home of Irwansyah and Rithaony Hutajulu. This is where MJA Nashir stays when he is in Medan. He is a great admirer of this musical couple, their tremendous artistic potential and their accomplishments. He assists them where and when he can with his computer skills. In this way, he has been able to come in close touch with them and has gotten to know the members of their musical group, called Suarasama.

Reciprocally, this couple has become familiar with Mas Nashir’s skills and have been privy to all the steps in the editing of the film. Nashir loves to show the results of a day’s edit or a recent shoot. Suarasama knows better than anyone else how he has been burning the midnight oil to make this film. They also appreciate the goals of the film. They covet knowledge about ancient Batak society and know how to value a text like Rangsa ni Tonun.

Living in their house, Mas Nashir has had ample opportunity to discuss the audio accompaniment and challenges to the film. By the time I arrived there, they had everything sorted out. When Irwansyah told me about the choices, I felt his pleasure at the selections and what he and Suarasama had made of the opportunity. He loves his work. The same smile of enjoyment is on his face when he plays music. I loved the fact that Rangsa ni Tonun is giving these people an opportunity to apply and even expand their repertory. For me Rangsa ni Tonun is not just about the recovery of the past, but a chance to build culture here and now and for the future. Art must always build on what has gone before. Like Nashir, Irwansyah and Rithaony are artists. (It would be so much fun to have a film about the text in the time when it used to be recited and then juxtapose that with our adventures with the text in the contemporary world.)

The music that they selected adds a new symbolic layer to Rangsa ni Tonun and enlivens the film. Each of the melodies is traditional and has been inserted with care according to its meaning. On the day when I was there, the members of Suarasama came out in full force, including:Marsius and his brother Sarikawan Sitohang, Ophir Yanto Sihombing and Syainul Irwan. It was the climax of the musical accompaniment for the film.

Sarikawan Sitohang put his heart in his music.

The film opens with Gondang Sitoluntuho / elekelek. This music accompanies the cotton drifting own from the Upper World. Usually it is played to accompany the arrival of guests at a Batak ritual event.

When the narration by Ompu Okta doli begins in the film, a gondang melody called Sibuka Pikiran is played. This encourages the listener to be open, to be receptive to the knowledge that will become available.

The Gondang Silage Buang follows. The name of the music refers to a woven straw mat and it alludes to a foundation, that on which other things can rest or be placed. It sets the mood and legitimizes what the narrator of the film, Ompu Okta doli, is saying.

In 1980, I made a very brief recording of Ompu Sihol playing the mouth harp (sagasaga). She explained that when a weaver was tired, she might retire briefly and play this little instrument to relax herself with a change of pace. She also explained that you really needed two people to play the melody, but she was the only one left who still knew how to play. We have decided to include this ancient recording in the film when the cotton is being fluffed using a bow. Incomplete as it is, it is still a rare recording of a musical tradition that has disappeared. It was tempting to insert a melody played using a musical bow, but in the end I think that we did the right thing by opting for Ompu Sihol’s mouth harp.

On our last day together in 1980, when we had our communal meal, Ompu Sihol sang a song for me and I recorded that as well. She said that weavers were courted while at their loom and they often sang teasing songs about their suitors. The young man courting them had to really want them badly enough if they were going to accept his attentions! This kind of song was sung while winding spun yarn (mangiran). Weavers used songs to help them keep count when winding yarn, a melodious way to measure. In the film, we use the scratchy, old recording of Ompu Sihol’s wavering voice as an introduction to the fully accompanied version that Irwansyah has composed based on that recording. It leads into Rithaony’s silver and crystal voice and all of Suarasama put their hearts into the piece. Without question this Weaving Song has to be the theme song of the film (see blog Iraniran: Symbolism and Song).

The next musical component of the film is a hasapi solo. The hasapi is a wooden guitar-like instrument with only two strings. There are various kinds of hasapi and Irwansyah has had some exquisite ones made for his use. The solo that he plays is improvised.

Towards the end of the Rangsa ni Tonun text we have a representative of the first Batak weaver, Boru Hasagian, standing in prayer at the edge of Lake Toba. This beautiful image is graced with a so-called andung melody. Andung is sad and haunting, and fits the meditative mood of this special moment. It is played by the brilliant Marsius Sitohang, probably the best Batak sulim (a kind of flute) player alive today.

As the film cycles around to end where it began, the Gondang Hasahatan Sitotio emerges. This melody is played at the end of every Batak ritual and ceremony. Every Batak recognizes it. It will be especially satisfying, therefore, for the Batak viewers of the film.

When the day was done, the sound had been professionally recorded by Avena Natondang (another member of Suarasama) and Mas Nashir had filmed the players, I went over to thank Irwansyah for the great privilege of having his participation in the film. I also expressed my admiration for the quality of the music and for how fitting it was to our needs. He and Ritha explained that it was rare that they received requests to do absolutely traditional music, although this is what all of the members of Suarasama love to do most. They had enjoyed the opportunity – and recovered an old melody as a result of the recording of Ompu Sihol. When they perform it in the future, they wish to announce it as a tribute to this excellent weaver who would have died in anonymity like hundreds and thousands of others, had it not been for our historically accidental meeting – part of the legacy of Sitor Situmorang who advised me, some 31 years ago, to look for a “traditional” weaver in Harian Boho….
Thirty-one years ago! At the time, she was the only one left in Harian Boho….The decline in the Batak weaving arts has accelerated in the intervening years. Nashir, Irwansyah, Rithaony, Suarasama…by re-constructing they are building anew a culture that will win respect, that will be loved, appreciated, admired.

Memory

I remember the children of Harian Boho when I lived there in 1979-80. They ran around in packs, and had huge, limpid black eyes. They were beautiful. 

  
This time, when I was back to give a copy of Legacy to Ompu Sihol’s grandson, now a grown man, I was once again struck by the children of Harian Boho. Several crowded around in front of me. They were very young, perhaps 5 years old, and just like I remembered, fully innocent and unself-conscious. They stood in front of me, staring, unblinking, their eyes fathomless and black. They stared intently, uncompromisingly.  It wasn’t just their deep eyes, their full attention was focused on me. They were recording everything, every movement I made, every hair in my nose. I am certain that when I go back to Harian Boho in 10 years time, and I run into them, teenagers by then, they will still be able to recount every single detail of what transpired on that day in June 2010. 

I am sure of this because that was my experience this time around. When we arrived in Harian Boho and I got out of the vehicle to ask a group of young men how I could make my way to my weaving teacher, Ompu Sihol’s village (I no longer remembered the path), they asked me if I was Sandra. I had spent few months there in 1980, 30 years earlier, and since then had been back only once for an hour or two. I was taken aback that they should know who I was. Perhaps they had this knowledge from stories?  What other white woman would want to know where Ompu Sihol lived? But who were they? I had no notion of even how to reciprocate their attentiveness.

More than once, I was taken aback in the same way.
When I knocked on Nai Ati’s door in Silalahi and asked her if she still knew me, she responded with no hesitation after 24 years: “Si Sandy?”
In Berastagi, Nande Pulung, after 24 years, still knew everything that transpired during my last visit. She was surprised that I no longer knew the way to Nande Peringitten’s house because, as she pointed out, she had taken me there the last time! For my part? Quite honestly, I would no longer have recognized Nande Peringitten’s house if my life had depended on it (although I recognized the interior because I had a photograph of it), and I had no recollection of ever going there on foot, let alone with Nande Pulung.
And then there was Boru Pandiangan Ny. Siregar in Muara for whom the picture of her in the front of Legacy was no surprise because she still had the snapshot that I had sent to her 24 years ago and fetched it easily.
Nai Ganda had an accurate recall of the textile types that we had talked about 24 years earlier, she knew which ones I had purchased and she critically inspected the pages of Legacy with an eye to which ones I had included and which ones had been left out;
Ompu Si Masta remembered that we didn't go through the bargaining ritual when I purchased textiles at her stall; she gave me a fair price and I trusted her. I no longer remembered this when we spoke this last time (but I pretended I did).

And everywhere I went, the children watched me with their deep, black eyes.

At first I made light of it: probably not too much out of the ordinary happens in these places, I told myself, so if something unusual does happen, it must be memorable for them.

But contemplation leads me to believe that there is so much more to it. 

Batak rituals or indigenous legal "courts", were public fora out in the open. The bystanders were witnesses.   To acknowledge their role, they were given a few token coins. The events were thus parked in memory. The witnesses served as the archive; there was no other kind, and cultures need their stores of information.
 
There were no schools and there were no books as recording devices. As I pondered it further, I developed the awareness that memory and accurate observation were everything, everything in the sense of history and the perpetuation of culture.

Memory is apprenticeship; memory is the ability to re-stage a ritual; memory is oral history; memory is mythology, legends, tales; memory is the kinship system that the Batak used to be able to trace 25 generations back; memory is the way to get to the market a week’s walk away along mountain paths; memory is the ability to recite prayers, to play that marvellously complex and subtle Batak music, to dance, to cook, to look after the garden, to conduct rites of divination. Memory is the knowledge that is available when books (and now the internet) are not. A thought world is pecisely that: the way of life that is hung on the framework of socially recognized ways of perceiving that are transferred from one generation to the next. The thought world is merged with life as it is lived.

I began to consider the mnemonic tools that I know that the Batak had. The pustaha, or bark books, were mnemonic tools par excellence.  They were used in combination with memory, to jog it. There were little ditties that Ompu Sihol sang so that she could keep track of the complex counts of yarn and cycles involved in producing a perfectly symmetrical textile. The conventions in weaving, too, were memory joggers: right and left, forward and back, up and down, so that you could resume where you left off. I have made the argument in my Back to the Villages project that the textiles themselves are mnemonic devices; they allow the reproduction of the designs they exhibit. Logically, therefore, weaving is the merging of memory with physical performance -- which is yet another form of memory.  This, surely, is the essence of ritual: incribing memory, including that known by the body, into the tactile, the visual, the perceptible world. Ritual is memory generating expression. In turn, the expression is committed to memory. A cycle of life.

It was as if those little children in Harian Boho became so absorbed in the task of observing me that they had become one with me, inhabiting my skin. It was only when my eyes shifted and intentionally caught theirs, when I said something gently and directly to them, thus introducing a boundary over which could be given and received, that they were suddenly overcome with the shyness that comes of self-consciousness and they shrank and looked away. 

Those eyes. Those terribly endearing, unfathomable, relentless eyes. Already to the roots of their very beings, they were children of another culture.

See Back to the Villages - the map!