Project Back to the Villages III meets Jesral Tambun

(Terjemahan dibawah)

Last night I received a series of excited posts on Facebook. Jesral Tambun had discovered salaon, a Batak indigo plant, in the area where he lives, close to Porsea. It was a plant growing wild in uncultivated land and his questioning of elderly people about indigo led him to his discovery. He was thankful to Lasma Sitanggang for having asked him whether indigo plants grew in the area. He is thinking of cultivating the plant beside the house that he is building.

Photo by Jesral Tambun

Photo by Jesral Tambun

 The last stop of Proyek Pulang Kampung on the way home to Medan was in Ompu Okta’s village. Jesral Tambun had helped MJA Nashir during the last filming session for Rangsa ni Tonun, so Nashir contacted him and let him know we were coming.

Jesral helped Nashir on the last day of filming Rangsa ni Tonun in Ompu Okta's village. We see the pipisan or cotton depitter than we purchased in Bali because we couldn't find one in the Batak area. It is strikingly similar to the Batak variant.

Jesral meets Proyek Pulang Kampung

It was my first meeting with Jesral. I had heard about him from his uncle, Nestor Rico Tambunan. Jesral is very interested in Batak culture, he had said. Might there be a way to include him in our activities? I did not forget this question and I was excited about meeting Jesral.

We all ate lunch together in Ompu Okta’s home (just as we had done when shooting Rangsa ni Tonun) and shared stories. 

Later we went to visit the house that he is building for his future.

Jesral's house is under construction. In the background is a carved and painted plank that he is restoring.

We had hoped that Jesral would be able to join us on the Pulang Kampung III journey but circumstances had intervened and made it impossible. I quickly discovered what an asset he would have been. He is fully dedicated to making a life in the village and enriching it with explorations of his culture. He is particularly interested in wood and has apprenticed so that he can make gorga, Batak painted woodcarving.

Jesral Tambun (Photo borrowed from Jesral's Facebook site)

He is an orphan; both of his parents died when he was still young. He is not wealthy by any means, but he has an extraordinarily nice collection of textiles that he can wear to adat, all purchased with his savings – quite remarkable in this day when the Batak are selling off their textiles! His textiles are new, but the finest modern ones that money can buy. There is a picture of him on Facebook wearing his textiles when he performed the special role of requesting music from the Batak indigenous orchestra at the TB SilalahiCentre. He loves the indigenous textiles of his culture and hopes to find a wife who is a weaver. He senses that he will be happy to come home to a woman who  is weaving. What a remarkable statement by this passionate young man.

His interests are broad and he has a lot of energy. I am struck by how fervently he plunged into the exploration of indigo and his enthusiasm when sharing his discovery. I asked him if he could also explore the mangkudu/bangkudu plant that the Batak used to make red dye. The use of this dye was particularly strong in his region. I also asked if there were any weavers left who could make the extraordinary supplementary warp patterning (jugia) such as in his textiles. The weaver of his textiles is now deceased. Was she the last? It will be through our contacts in the Batak area, contacts like Jesral, that our knowledge will grow.

Jesral joined Proyek Pulang Kampung III on the last day and the last stop, but I sense that he will remain with the project always in his heart and in his activities. The past of Batak culture will never return, but in people like Jesral Tambun, the culture will survive and will perhaps become vibrant again. It will bubble with enthusiasm and grow, connecting with the outside world in a new way.

This post was translated by Jesral's aunt, Rita Tambunan, a few days after it appeared.

Proyek Pulang Kampung III: Bertemu Jesral Tambun

Semalam saya menerima sejumlah postingan menarik di Facebook: Jesral Tambun 

telah menemukan Salaon, sejenis tumbuhan tropis yg dipakai masyarakat Batak 

untuk memberi warna biru, di wilayah di  mana ia tinggal di Porsea. Salaon adalah 

tumbuhan liar dan keingintahuan Jesral akan tumbuhan ini membuatnya bertanya-

tanya pada orang-orang tua yg kemudian membantunya menemukan Salaon. 

Jesral berterima kasih pada Lasma Sitanggang yang merangsang rasa ingin tahunya 

tentang keberadaan Salaon di daerah ia tinggal. Sekarang Jesral berpikir untuk 

menanam Salaon di samping  rumah yg sedang dibangunnya.

Perhentian terakhir dari Proyek Pulang Kampung, sebelum kembali ke Medan, 

adalah kampung tempat  tinggal Ompu Okta. Jesral Tambun membantu MJA Nashir 

dalam sesi terakhir pembuatan film ‘Rangsa  ni Tonun’. Karena itu, Nashir 

menghubungi Jesral dan memberi tahu bahwa kami akan berkunjung.

Itu adalah kali pertama saya bertemu dengan Jesral. Saya telah mendengar tentang 

Jesral dari pamannya, Nestor Rico Tambunan. Jesral punya perhatian besar pada 

budaya Batak, kata Nestor.  Apakah mungkin untuk melibatkan ia pada aktivitas 

kami? Saya tak pernah lupa akan pertanyaan itu dan karenanya menjadi sangat 

senang akan segera bertemu Jesral.

Kami makan siang bersama di rumah Ompu Okta (seperti pernah kami lakukan 

waktu pengambilan film Rangsa ni Tonun) dan berbagi cerita. Setelah itu, kami 

berkunjung ke rumah yang sedang dibangun Jesral untuk masa depannya.

Sebenarnya, kami berharap Jesral dapat bergabung dengan kami pada perjalanan 

Pulang Kampung III, tetapi ada masalah yg membuat hal itu gagal terwujud. Saat 

bertemu dengannya, saya segera mengetahui bahwa Jesral sungguh asset luar 

biasa; ia demikian berusaha untuk hidup di desanya dengan berusaha 

mengeksplorasi budaya Batak. Jesral sungguh mengabdi untuk desanya dengan 

berusaha menggali budaya Batak. Jesral sangat tertarik pada kerajinan kayu dan ia 

dapat membuat Gorga, ukiran kayu khas Batak.

Jesral anak yatim-piatu; kedua orangtuanya meninggal saat ia masih sangat muda. 

Ia tidak kaya, tetapi Jesral punya sejumlah koleksi pakaian layak pakai yang khusus 

ia kenakan untuk acara adat. Pakaian itu ia beli dengan tabungannya. Pakaiannya 

baru. Ini adalah fotonya di akun Facebook dengan baju yg ia kenakan khusus saat 

melakukan pertunjukan musik Batak di TB Silalahi Centre. Jesral mencintai kain 

tradisional Batak dan berharap suatu hari nanti dapat beristrikan seorang 

perempuan penenun. Ia membayangkan betapa bahagianya pulang ke rumah 

bertemu dengan istri yg sedang menenun. 

Sebuah pernyataan yg luar biasa dari seorang anak muda!


Jesral punya perhatian terhadap banyak hal dan ia punya energi besar. Saya amat 

terkesan bagaimana ia demikian berusaha menemukan tumbuhan seperti Salaon itu 

dan antusiasme-nya untuk berbagi penemuan itu. Saya berkata padanya siapa tahu 

ia juga bisa menemukan Mangkudu/Bangkudu, tanaman yg digunakan orang Batak 

untuk mendapatkan warna merah. Mangkudu/Bangkudu ini biasa dipakai orang di 

daerah Porsea dan sekitarnya. Saya juga bertanya pada Jesral apakah kira-kira 

masih ada penenun yang dapat membuat Jugja, ornamen luar biasa, seperti yang 

ada pada koleksi kain yg dimiliki Jesral. Jesral bilang, penenun kain yg dimilikinya 

sudah meninggal. Apakah ia orang terakhir yg bisa membuat Jugja? Saya kira kita 

akan mendapat jawabannya dari orang-orang seperti Jesral.Jesral bergabung 

dengan Proyek Pulang Kampung III pada hari dan perhentian terakhir kami. Tetapi 

saya merasa ia akan tetap melanjutkan terus proyek ini di dalam hati dan 

aktivitasnya. Budaya Batak tak akan pernah lagi seperti dulu, tetapi dalam orang-

orang seperti Jesral Tambun, budaya luhur ini akan tetap lestari dan, mungkin, 

akan berjaya lagi. Antusiasme dan perkembangan dan upaya penyebarannya ke 

dunia mungkin mewujudkan harapan itu.

Pulang Kampung III has been Launched! Horas!

MJA Nashir and I are now in Medan. Pulang Kampung III has been launched and is now behind us. We are in the lovely home of Bintang Sitompul whose sweet mom, Marisi Sidjabat, insists on looking after our every need.

Preparing the launch was hectic. Too few hands, too much work. Many stresses and too little sleep. Nevertheless, many dreams came true.

A high point was the presence of Pak Sudi Silalahi, Minister of the Secretary of State. He launched our journey and blessed us at the end of the ceremony when he enshrouded each of us in an ulos. We have wanted to give him a copy of our work since 2011 when he kindly granted us an audience with him. Now we were finally able to hand over the newly produced cassette of book and film, I tried out the umpama that Tulang Panusunan Simanjuntak taught me:

Mardongan jarijari na sampulu

Pasampulusadahon simanjunjung

Hulehon hami tu hamuna,

Bapak Sudi Silalahi na burju,

Ulaula ni pingkiran dohot tangannami.

I had Nashir join me on stage for the presentations of our work because if ever a product was the result of collaboration, this was it. This was surely the culminating high point of the last 3 years. The Taman Mini stage became the focus of energies that were combined during the making of the film. The launch was whole and complete.

Suarasama was able to attend and was willing to perform. They played the Weaving Song, the theme song of the film, among several other pieces. The remarkable sphere that they created charmed everybody. As ever, I was deeply, deeply impressed by the quality of their work and counted myself so lucky to have had their participation in our film.

Ompu Okta boru (our weaving star) and Ompu Okta doli (our narrator) as well as Ompu Rido (who played the role of Si Boru Hasagian in our film) were able to attend. This sounds simple. But Pak Jerry’s role in all of this was heroic and he regaled us in quiet moments with the story of his heroism cutting through miscommunications and bad weather, managing on sleep deficit, and exercising his considerable powers of persuasion, to get the group to Jakarta. We were happy that they were among the first to receive the printed copy of our work.

Febrina Pakpahan, Lasma Sitanggang, Paul Manahara Tambun and Ojak Tampe Silaban, our four youth, were able to be present (another chapter in Pak Jerry’s saga) and help us celebrate ulos. They received the first copies of our work as a sign of the future of Batak culture that we hope they will always actively defend.

This is a clip of a well-done program about my work. The only shortcoming is its focus on me alone, whereas nothing has been done, and nothing could have been accomplished by me alone.

Facing Fiber Face – 1 February

A page in the calendar has flipped over. It is now February and Phase I, the filming of Rangsa ni Tonun is finished (at least for now. Mas Nashir wants to make improvements – especially with the footage on spinning and the cotton gin after the first screening). Jakarta is Phase II and Yogyakarta is Phase III. In Jakarta, we will be editing the film and in Yogyakarta, at the grand opening of Fiber Face 3, it will have its first public screening.

The Fiber Face event has generated much good energy. In addition to the opportunity to make the Rangsa ni Tonun film, the opening has compounded so many of the joys of producing the film – primarily the opportunity to be with the two Ompus Okta.

Both of them have been invited as special guests to the opening of Fiber Face 3. The female will proudly demonstrate her weaving skills and the male will orate, just as he did for the film. This is generating much excitement for them. They only warmed slowly to the idea – they had to receive permission from their ever careful and protective children, and they had to be sure the conditions were all right – but now they are committed to coming. They checked out the websites of Babaran Sagara Gunung and myself and read MJA Nashir’s chapters of Berkelana dengan Sandra. Ompu Okta doli even went to an internet café to do this. Oh, how times have changes since my first fieldwork when I had to travel all the way to Sibolga to get a long-distance telephone connection!

Ompu Okta doli is excited about walking down the famous Malioboro Road in Yogyakarta and Ompu Okta boru wants to see batik being made. I am pleased that we will be guests in Hannie Winotosastro’s guesthouse because Hannie is one of the biggest batik makers in Yogyakarta and the curious may also do batik in her workshop. The female Ompu Okta also wants to take a train. As a child, there was a plan to take a train, but it fell through. This may be her one and only opportunity so we have decided to return to Jakarta by train after their stay at the exhibition. In addition, she will receive the Fiber Face prize for textile excellence. We hope to make it an exciting and pleasing high point in her life.

The last time we visited (on the fateful day with the spinning wheel), she had wrapped her loom carefully in cloth and fixed everything so that the loom parts would not fall out and make it impossible to resume her work. She said she wanted me to bring the loom to Yogya to ensure its safety. I feel this responsibility very much and so it was incumbent on me to make sure that it was wrapped in a fail-safe way for traveling. In Porsea, I had purchased a pandan mat for Ompu Okta to sit on and we decided to wrap this around the loom. And then Pak Jerry, Mas Nashir and I went out to look for wrapping materials. I wanted some sturdy plastic to emulate shrink-wrapping, but my two companions introduced me to local ways. While I kept my eyes peeled for a plastic shop, they stopped the vehicle in front of what I thought was a heap of garbage! The old flattened cardboard of every size and colour, bound together with a rope was what they had been looking for! They insisted that this was appropriate wrapping material and I could scarcely refuse because it cost less than 1 euro. The plastic that we ended up using was the one in which the mat had been wrapped and the seller had been willing to relinquish to us. Back in the village, Jerry and Nashir wrapped the loom. Their concession to the times was in the use of a modern roll of wide plastic tape. When they were done, the Ompus Okta surveyed the strewn remains of the cardboard bundle with satisfaction and said they would sell it! Everybody was happy!

As a result of all of this, I am now on the PELNI ferry to Jakarta instead of an airplane. In fact, I am carrying two looms and I don’t let them out of my sight. The second is the one that we prepared while shooting the film. It will be available in Yogyakarta for guests to weave on (and me too! I l still long to weave beside Ompu Okta.)

Leaving Balawan Harbour near Medan

Being pulled out into the famous, busy /Strait of Malacca

Before I left, I was assisting with the travel arrangements for Ompu Okta. Fiber Face 3 will pay for their journey. The Ompus Okta really would have preferred to travel with Mas Nashir and myself to Java, but we have a stop to make in Jakarta. While I still have to work out their travel from the village to Medan, on the day of their flight, Pak Jerry will pick up them and the two musicians (Marsius and his brother Sarikawan), bring them to the airport on time, and help them with check-in and the purchase of the airport tax. As Pak Jerry brought me to the ferry yesterday, we walked though the whole scenario. He is pleased to be of service and we know that we can rely on him fully. He is brilliant with details and keeps everything firmly on track. I could leave Medan with my mind at ease. I want the Ompus Okta to have a good time with no worries.

Trouble Shooting the Sorha or Spinning our Wheels

On our last night in Muara, Ompu Okta called to ask how things were going with the rehabilitation of the sorha. She was very clear: bring it to her so that she could do the spinning for the film! I loved it! She made me giggle and hug myself in delight. She and her husband are doing all that they can to ensure that the film is done right! We have taken up so much of their time already, and this is a busy time in the rice fields transplanting the seedlings, but she was still anxious to spend more time on a weaving technique that she hadn’t practiced in a long, long time. In fact, she was itching to do it! Weaving skills are such a great source of pride to her.

In a previous blog (Muara, O Muara II) I expressed my joy at seeing a working sorha in the Batak area once again. We proudly stashed it in the back of our spacious vehicle and in the morning, when we left Sebastian Hutabarat’s home, we headed for her village. We decided that we should bring lunch to the village as a matter of courtesy and when we stopped I noticed that we were parked in front of an iron smith’s shop. Restuala and his carpenter had tried very hard to make the wheel as original as possible, using no nails or glue. And not knowing that the early Batak were skilled in metalworking, they even made the spindle from wood (and gave it a hook at the end, not knowing that it just came to a clean point). I had brought metal spindles from The Netherlands, but this had gone over like a lead balloon in Muara because the steel was shiny (they called it chrome). So in front of the iron smith’s shop, I asked if he could use a rusty iron staff of narrow diameter to make me a spindle. He was willing. He had no materials thin enough, so I agreed to one of wider diameter. As soon as the smith was finished, he started to polish the whole thing so that it gleamed and I caught him too late. So then he had to do it over again and not polish it. When we arrived at Ompu Okta's house, her first words were, “You’re late”.

Oh well. We proudly carried the little jewel of a spinning wheel into her house.

I pulled out the new spindles just as Ompu Okta doli was pulling out his own spindles! He, too, was prepared! And he told me that my new ones were much too large and clumsy. Neither of them was happy with the gizmo that the Muara carpenter had devised to hold the spindle because it was made of wood rather than sugar-palm fiber. They explained that a thin, strong, slippery sheath or lining of bamboo was inserted inside the sugar-palm fiber ring to make sure that the spindle could spin optimally. So we learned something new.

The first thing that Ompu Okta did was replace the string that turns the wheel,

The two Ompus Okta decided in consultation with each other to replace the string connecting the big wheel to the little spindle, and they took the whole apparatus apart to connect the two components using a black string with elastic qualities. It had to be tight enough to actually turn the spindle. But then it became evident that the spokes of the big wheel had been tied incorrectly. This meant that the big wheel was too weak to accommodate the tension of the string connecting it to the spindle. This time it was Mas Nashir who went to work. We still had some old rattan that we had purchased from the woman who had sold us the wheel in this very same village last November. Nashir soaked it in a bucket of water and then split it to get some pieces manageably thin to re-tie the spokes of the wheel. It all took time.


The replacement of the string that turns on the wheel
led to the discovery of the flaws in the wheel.

The male Ompu Okta expressed his disappointment that he had not been the one that we had asked to re-furbish the wheel. (We agreed.) He saw that the entire end piece of the wheel, that had originally been there when we purchased the wheel, had been replaced with a clumsy, inelegant piece of wood. Everyone was disappointed by the look of it and Ompu Okta said that the hole in it was the wrong shape and size, but we had to make do with what we had.

When Nashir was done and tension was applied to the string connecting the wheel to the spindle, it seemed to work and we all heaved a sigh of relief. The woven pandan mat was fetched. Ompu Okta put on her film-clothes and we moved out into the village plain to commence filming. “This isn’t hapas Palembang” Ompu Okta said at that point. “No, it is cotton from Bali” we said. I was stricken with worry. This too? Ompu Okta was not pleased and said that she didn’t know if she would be able to spin it. She tried though, only to realize that the big wheel wouldn’t turn correctly. The kind of cotton that we had was turning out to be the least of our worries. The wheel seemed to turn fine in the opposite direction! As the wheel needed to turn for the filming to be successful, Nashir dismantled the whole thing, turned the wheel around and put it all back together again.

To no avail, however. And then it started to rain. So we packed everything up and brought it back to the house. In the meantime, the handle that Ompu Okta had been using to turn the wheel had broken. Now Pak Jerry, our chauffeur shifted into gear. By now, we were using nails and plastic string and searching the edges of the village square (unsuccessfully) for pieces of wood of the right shape and size.

Then Ompu Okta doli tried to improve the functioning of the wheel by using a different rope that wouldn’t slip around so much. After changing it all, he saw that it had worked better with the original, so he changed it back.

Eventually the whole family was at work: the two Ompu Okta and their son
all did their best to get the wheel to work

The next option was to change the spindle. First we tried Ompu Okta’s spindle, but it was too thin and the clumsy wooden holder (instead of palm fibre) that had been made was too large and the spindle wobbled too much. Now we switched to the spindle of wider diameter that I had just purchased at the market. It seemed to work a little better.

Everybody kept his temper, told stories, tried not to get peeved (Nashir told me later, in a rare confession of negative emotion, that he had felt like kicking the thing into the next village) and tried to think creatively. At one point, my head cold and fatigue got the better of me down and I just had to lie down for a few minutes. The circumstances were not the best, but I do remember lying there on the back seat of the car thinking that despite everything, I was terribly privileged. Pak Jerry, Mas Nashir and the two Ompu Okta were all fully intent on making this bloody wheel work. All were fully dedicated to the film. All were creative and skilled and good-tempered. What a team! What amazing luck for me to be able to work with these people! I conked out for about 10 minutes and nobody missed me. They just worked on.

When I returned, Ompu Okta doli told us that one of the persons with whom he drank palm wine in the evenings also turned out to have a spinning wheel.
Let’s go get it, I said.
Don’t said Ompu Okta doli. It will cost too much.
I’ve already spent so much on this project, it would be silly to start to scrimp at this stage, I said.

But I noticed that the female Ompu Okta looked at the male Ompu Okta in a meaningful way. I didn’t know how to interpret the look. But they put their foot down. No, they said, it would be of no use to fetch that wheel. So we didn’t. I did wonder, at that point, what I would have been willing to spend on it….

Now Nashir was using all of his film-director’s creativity. He suggested that Ompu Okta hold the luli pinale (the cotton to be spun – prepared for us in November in Sianjur Mulamula) in her hand, and behind it the already-spun yarn. She would then have the appearance of spinning when she stretched out her hand but she would only be unraveling the already spun yarn. Alas, after many valiant attempts, this didn’t work because the un-spun cotton got all scrambled up with the spun cotton. And each time the spun cotton got wound up on the spindle, we had to unwind it again, wind it into a ball, and start over again. The day was beginning to wane.

Filming didn't go smoothly. Nashir spent more time on the technology
of the wheel than of the camera

The male Ompu Okta decided to do something about the wobbly way the spindle was turning, so he sacrificed a flip-flop sandal to attach to the end of the spindle as a kind of stopper. Foam rubber was a far cry from the original materials that Restuala had been so proud of, but we were punchy by this time and ready to try anything.

“I think that I could turn this film into an advertisement for machine-spun yarn,” said Mas Nashir. “Oh, for T.D. Pardede!” (the Batak from Balige who had set up the first spinning factory in Medan)

The female Ompu Okta had her newly-born grandson in her arms while she was waiting for each new reparation of the sorha and she told me stories about the last time she had spun. It had been when her children were still young and it was for an elderly woman in the village who still made her own cotton blankets. The woman was only a minimally skilled weaver and didn’t know how to make supplementary patterning. Ompu Okta and her children all assisted with the spinning. It was lovely to do, she said. If (because?) the wheel turned correctly.

Because of the rain it was impossible to film in the village plain. We fetched a pandan mat that we had just purchased in Porsea and we tacked it up to hide the cement of the wall of the modern bungalow. Now the male Ompu Okta, still working on the big wheel, tried to keep it from shifting on its axle so that it would turn more smoothly. By the time we were ready to proceed again, the rain had stopped, so we packed everything up again and shifted back to the village plain.

Nashir and Ompu Okta worked together. He taught her how to fake the spinning process. Finally he claimed that he had a few frames of useable film that he was going to try to splice together into a series of images that would delude the audience into thinking that Ompu Okta, on this fateful day, using this gem of an “original” Batak spinning wheel, had managed to spin some yarn.

But it is a lie. We didn’t spin on that fateful day. And Nashir told me that when he had time to improve the film, after the exhibition Fiber Face 3 in Yogyakarta, he wanted to go to Toraja where his dear Nenek Panggao lives and where spinning gives meaning to her life. He would then dress her up in Batak clothes and ….would I go with him?

On that fateful grey, rainy, frustrating day, we learned an awful lot about Batak spinning wheels and it kindled in us respect for the Batak makers of functional spinning wheels because they knew how to balance all of the parts and make them work as a whole with the correct size and shape of wheel, the correct tension of yarn, the correct kind of spindle, and all of this making use of the materials available close at hand: the right kinds of wood, the right kinds of bamboo, the right kind of yarn, rattan and rope, And then there was the knowledge of physics…. Some truly great minds were at work in the “primitive” historical past. And nature and knowledge of it were so much richer then….

Another time we will continue to work on this. Restuala wants to have some functioning wheels in Muara for his weaving centre. A tall order, as it turns out!

A Rainbow in a Pothole

There is a line in the Rangsa ni Tonun text that we are filming that reads “na songon halibutongan di lupaklupak” We didn’t have a clue how to film it mostly because we didn’t know the meaning of the word lupaklupak nor, therefore, how a halibutongan (rainbow) related to Batak dye. We asked Restuala and he thought that a lupaklupak was the natural sink that forms where the water in the rice terrace falls down to the next level. That little waterfall sometimes creates a spray and if the light is just right, a little rainbow results. We then went off looking for potholes and rainbows thinking that the text was using the rainbow as an anology for the colour that the dye process would give to the yarn.

We found many lupaklupak. The search was delicious. Suddenly we became aware of the structure of rice field irrigation. We saw many little waterfalls that we had never noticed before. We learned to see a micro-beauty in Muara that had been there all the while we had focused our prime attention on the panoramas. Our search took us down roads where I think that tourists seldom go and Restuala even took us to a rather large waterfall hidden in the woods where we saw and enjoyed the gurgle of the stream. What a way to make a film!

Restuala showed us what lupaklupak look like in the sawah
and then we looked for rainbows. It turned out to be as
successful as looking for a pot of gold.

Nevertheless we failed to see a rainbow. Nashir did his best with trick photography but only came up with stars of light playing with the falling sawah water. Only later did we learn that, while close, we were not looking in quite the right place to make our visual translation of this line of the text. Our next stop after Muara was Ompu Okta’s village where she would demonstrate the use of the spinning wheel. The rather long and arduous process of getting the spinning wheel to work (the subject of another blog) meant that I had plenty of time to talk with her. The Rangsa ni Tonun text had continued to play in her mind because her childhood memories of the weaving process were still emerging. (How the film and the text has inspired weavers never ceases to thrill me.)

This time she also took us to the village and house where she had been born (a carved and painted original Batak house on stilts). She showed us pictures of her mother, who passed away in 2008, and her grandmother who would have been born around 1900. Her grandmother’s photo was reminiscent of so many that had been taken during the colonial era, a nice posed black and white shot of the whole family gathered around the grandmother and grandfather seated in the middle.

Ompu Okta's grandmother is sitting in the middle with an ulos over her shoulder.
OmpuOkta herself is the child sitting first on the right, cross legged, in the foreground.

Ompu Okta and her husband both expressed their joy that they had been born at a time when it was still possible to soak up some of the old culture. She had never made red dye herself, she said, but her mother and her grandmother used to make it and she had watched them. It reminded me that her knowledge is, indeed, the result of knowledge that has been passed down for many generations.

This is what she could remember:

The leaves of a mountain tree (hau dolok) called haramonting as well as saduluk and other plants were mixed together with water and boiled in a clay pot (like the one used for indigo dyeing). The water in the pot turned rather red.

The pot was then taken to the rice fields, to the butak: runny mud beside the river. A hole was carved out and the mud heaped up in the middle. Yarn was put in this natural "pot". When well permeated, the yarn was taken out of the clay pot and “planted” in the mud (she called this sigira as well) and pushed down in it so that it would become well-permeated with the mud. The liquid in the clay pot was added to the lupaklupak, as she called it!!!! and this was the reddish “rainbow” in the lupaklupak. The whole process might be repeated three times until the colour was deep enough. This is a colour that won’t fade, Ompu Okta said, extolling is virtues proudly while shaking her head disparagingly about modern, synthetic colours.

Now, I am not positive that I have recorded all of the details of what Ompu Okta said exactly correctly and I would like to go back and check them with her without too many other people and goings-on around us, but I do feel confident that in sitting with her in front of her house in the village, we had stumbled upon the rainbow in the hole in the rice fields that the Rangsa ni Tonun text referred to. The connection with dyeing couldn’t be stronger. It was the critical moment when the red mixture was added to the mud and the dye solution could work its magic on the yarn.

Sorha - 1 December

Sometimes the sublime and the ridiculous are the same thing. We finally found our sorha. And then not just one, but two. The story is as crazy as it is unexpected.

---

We left Muara to go to Berastagi with the plan of stopping in the Porsea area. It was market day on Wednesday in Porsea, and the team from YPBB that we were travelling with would be able to find information about ulos in that market. They would set out from there to find weavers who would be able to answer their questions. MJA Nashir and I would use the opportunity to make a quick visit to Ompu Okta. We needed our narrator, Ompu Okta doli, to say a few words about the busur (cotton bow/fluffer) that we had with us and also the luli pinale (the rolls of cotton prepared for spinning) so that his presence as narrator would continue to bind all parts of the film. We needed to film him holding the respective objects when it came to that part of the text.

Coming back into Ompu Okta’s village was like homecoming. The van dropped us off and went straight back to meet the YPBB crew at the market. We entered the little home that had been ours during the early days of filming and told our tales of Sianjur Mulamula, finding the Palembang cotton growing there and the elderly weaver who was able to make luli pinale (the little bundles of cotton prepared for spinning), of traveling throughout Samosir even to the isolated northwest shore and ending up in Muara. We told of our frustration over and over again at not being able to find a sorha (spinning wheel) at any of these locations. In the end, our generous host in Muara, Restuala Namora, offered to make it for us, but he needed an example to work from and he only had the photograph in my book. Furthermore, we didn’t know anybody who would be able to use it in an expert way. He had been successful in making the busur (bow to fluff the cotton) and iraniran (frame to wind the cotton) though, and we carried them proudly with us.

We sipped tea as we chatted, occasionally running outside to look at a weaving instrument or to care for the busy little granddaughter, Dina, until Ompu Okta doli, in an off-hand manner, standing in the doorway of his house, announced that he was looking at a spinning wheel as he spoke. It was on the veranda of the Batak house across the village square.  He made his announcement in such a low-key way, that it didn’t initially quite register. Could this highlight possibly be conveyed in such a matter of fact way? I couldn’t believe my ears. But looking across the village square, I also saw it poking up, a hunk of wood that I would never have recognized. Ompu Okta said that he had always known that it was there. Perhaps he had always known that it was broken and parts were missing and perhaps that is why he had not mentioned it earlier to us.

He called across to his neighbour who brought it down for us to inspect. And then he went out to the back kitchen of his own house and found the even more meager remains of yet another spinning wheel. How strange it is when you search everywhere only to find what you are looking for in the place where you originally began the search.

Where the sorha was found.

The neighbour with her sorha.

The spinning wheels need some repair and our time is now terribly short. We have to repair the rattan on the wheel and find straight metal to serve as a spindle. Will we find someone who can actually use the wheel? Can we bring it back to Ompu Okta boru? I don’t have that kind of time available. Will Mas Nashir be able to do that? Ompu Okta now says that she is able to spin. This is not only the 11th hour, but 5 before 12. Ridiculous, really, after our month of travels. So close and yet still so far.

---

Ompu Okta doli was immediately willing to speak more text as film narration and pulled on his adat clothing. We squeezed it in before the rain pelted down. Timing seemed to be on our side in this instance.

And then Ompu Okta boru expressed her willingness to try to work with the cotton fluffing bow. We had some film of it taken in Muara, but for the sake of continuity in the final film product, it wouldn’t hurt if Ompu Okta also performed this technique, so we filmed it again.

Ompu Okta fluffs cotton using the bosur

It was a satisfying homecoming. The van pulled up when we were finishing off, and we were soon in it again, heading for Berastagi to introduce our YPBB crew to indigo in the Karo area. But now we had two rickety old spinning wheels in the back.