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.

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.)

6. Suarasama

MJA Nashir has just completed a short video about the Theme Song for our film, Rangsa ni Tonun. Watching the video, it is impossible not to fall in love with the music and the way Suarasama, the renowned music group in Medan, has arranged and performed it.

The little ditty that Ompu ni Sihol sang for me in her cracked and quavering old voice the last time I saw her was magical for MJA Nashir. That he took the tape recording to the husband-wife team, Irwansyah Harahap and Rithaony Hutajulu, the two founders of Suarasama, was a stroke of brilliance. That they have done so much with that little recording is a testament to their love of the melodies that used to be so much more prevalent in the Batak villages. Batak music in the villages is disappearing.

I first really spoke with Irwansyah and Rithaony in their home in Medan in 2010, also a meeting instigated by Mas Nashir. We had just completed our Pulang Kampung journey and the idea of the film, Rangsa ni Tonun, had not yet announced itself in my mind. That first conversation was as memorable as it was inspiring. 

My first meeting with Irwansyah and Rita in their beautiful home

My Indonesian was still so rusty that I had difficulties following it, but the gist of it brought me back to my passion for the study of Batak culture while I was a graduate student struggling with my dissertation. I had been struck by the coherence of the culture, how the same structures of thought express themselves through different cultural media. My dissertation was an exploration of concepts of time and space found in Batak literature, architecture and, of course textiles. And now here was Irwansyah explaining how he found the same thought structures in Batak music. I was tremendously excited. We talked about how it would be possible to bring these complicated but beautiful ideas over to the Batak youth and mused about doing it through performance that would intertwine the same themes through different media. I know that we had re-invented the source of ritual. That is what the great Batak rituals were about! They gave coherence and reason to all of life. Might these same ideas be the wellspring for the perpetuation of culture in the modern arena? What is ritual in the modern day? An opera or performance? Ritual without the participation of all, ritual as presentation? I still look back on that conversation with longing. The realization of what we talked about remains compelling. I hope that we will someday create the opportunity to do something with that seed. It would be a great honour for me to be able to work so creatively with this professional, dedicated and very gifted couple.

Suarasama’s work on Ompu ni Sihol’s ‘The Weaving Song’ took place primarily when I was in Holland, again under the guidance of MJA Nashir. I was fortunate to be able to attend one of their practices when I was back in North Sumatra – Nashir video-recorded that happy moment. Words cannot express how deeply satisfied and thrilled I was with Suarasama’s product.

Rehearsal of 'The Weaving Song'

I should not have been surprised. I don’t know them well, but I do know that Rithaony and Irwansyah comb the Batak area looking for melodies that are disappearing. They record this music and store it. One day they will be renowned and thanked for what they have managed to salvage. They guide students in ethnomusicology at the University of North Sumatra and do what they can to stimulate Batak youth to learn their musical tradition. Both are qualified ethnomusicologists and professional musicians. Rithaony used to sing for Opera Batak. Irwansyah encourages the making of indigenous instruments; the environment where we spoke on that memorable day was clad with his collection of musical trophies. The Suarasama team includes other top musicians. Together they make beautiful recordings that are known throughout the world. 

Ritha and Irwansyah in concert

Here are a few links to their music freely available on the internet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8KyG04sCGw

http://www.songsforpeaceproject.org/multimedia/suarasama-kita-berbagi

http://vimeo.com/41212857

http://vimeo.com/41212854

http://vimeo.com/40636102

http://vimeo.com/41212855

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iIiMQWpIDU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5-ZjzZHQ0E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W1guRN0V3g

http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=Suarasama+Playing+Gambus

And here are some things written about them in the media:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-12/music/suarasama-s-tour-of-indonesia/full/

http://insideworldmusic.blogspot.nl/2008/12/cd-review-soothing-sounds-of-suarasama.html

I have asked Suarasama to join us on the Boat Budaya and they have not turned me down. We are still discussing logistics and possibilities. I would be so honoured by their participation and I know that, if they are able to join us, they will be motivated, just as MJA Nashir and I, by their love of Batak culture. I hope that the Boat Budaya will also represent an opportunity to teach music to the youth on board and to inspire the Batak in the villages to honour their musical tradition. I look forward to the music (all acoustic) wafting on the breeze over the lake to all the little villages nestled against the shores. Music carries so well on the water. It will announce our arrival and our event better than anything else ever could. And oh, it would be such a pleasure to sail with these traditional sounds. I know that there will be dancing on board. Nobody will be able to help themselves from standing up and joining in.