A Reaction to Rangsa ni Tonun

It is essential to continually raise awareness about the importance of feeding back cultural materials to the peoples whence they originated. Anthropologists and textile researchers don’t do enough of that. The results may only emerge years later but in this time of cultural crisis, cultural erosion and cultural disappearance, feeding back can be critical. In 2012 MJA Nashir and I showed our film, Rangsa ni Tonun, (about the Batak weaving tradition) in dozens of locations throughout the Batak area and beyond and we handed out my book about the film and the original Batak text to almost a hundred people. This was done in the context of considerable decline and lack of interest in the Batak weaving arts.

But as I write now, a little corner of Facebook is abuzz with plans for Batak textiles on the initiative of a man whom I only know through Facebook, “C.f. Sidjabat”. This is how he explained his motivation:

“…ini yang sedang kita lakukan. Inspirasi lama waktu muda terbuka lagi setelah melihat film "Rangsa ni Tonun" karya ‪Mja Nashir (art director) dan ‪Sandra Niessen (producers). Karya yang luar biasa peneliti "halak sileban" yang begitu mencintai Ulos Batak. Saya ingin meberi sumbangsih walau hanya sedikit.”

Translation:

“…this is what we are doing. An old inspiration from my youth was rekindled after seeing the film, “Rangsa ni Tonun” by MJA Nashir (art director) and Sandra Niessen (producer). An exceptional work by a researcher “halak sileban” who really loves Batak textiles. I wish to contribute even if only modestly.”

What is he doing?

Mr. Sidjabat writes down information supplied by the weavers
in his village. I am delighted to see that two copies of Legacy were
used at the meeting

He is planning an exhibition of Batak textiles, specifically those from his region (Silalahi/Si Tolu Huta). While he lives in Jakarta, he has gone to the effort of returning to his valley where he has assembled the weavers. Together, around the table, they discussed the highlights of their tradition. He made notes. They gave him the names of the 14 textiles that are unique to the region; many brought samples to show him. To my great delight, when he shared this information on Facebook, he presented a profile of each weaver. They were not left anonymous. (Nai Ati in the sidebar of this blog was

Nai Ati was also at the table and she had brought the copy of Legacy
that I had given to her during the first Pulang Kampung project.

present, and depicted at the meeting. This made me very happy. She brought her copy of Legacy to the meeting.)  C.f.Sidjabat is a mover and shaker with a good track record in motivating the people in his region to cherish their culture and nature. He is a man with a mission.

This area (Silalahi and the neighbouring Paropo) is one of the few areas where Batak weaving is still being done, but even here the ancient styles typical of the region are often being sidestepped to cater to the demand from outside markets. The meetings with weavers and the planned exhibition will emphasize the uniqueness of

With the help of the weavers, Mr. Sidjabat assembled
a list of the specialty textiles of his region.

the Si Tolu Huta tradition. It will teach – and hopefully inspire – the youth. It will give energy and pride to the weavers. Hopefully it will stimulate both the market and production. The weavers are old. Their skills need to be transferred to the youth!

C.f.Sidjabat intends to write a leaflet to inform the world of the Silalahi/Si Tolu Huta tradition – not just the textile names but also the patterning. He is sharing his plans, results and inspiration through Facebook, thereby involving, informing, inspiring many people. I am also excited. To the best of my knowledge there has never been an exhibition of the “Silalahi Tradition”. This primeur will buck the wave of what I call “Palembangization” that has been compelling Batak weavers to make Palembang look-alikes in order to corner the currently glitzy market. The exhibition will say, between the hanging cloths, “Your own tradition has value too!”

Hopefully the other Batak regions will follow suit. Few Batak people today know which textiles are typical of their own tradition. Lasma and I have already been talking about doing something like this in Simalungun….

Reviving a Text

Rangsa ni Tonun is a Batak text that I am using as the basis for the film about Batak weaving techniques to premiere at the Fiber Face 3 event in Yogyakarta in February 2011 (see blog The Merapi has Spoken).

It is an oral text, but it was committed to paper, presumably at the behest of Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen (6 February 1834 – 23 May 1918), the German Lutheran missionary who is renowned and revered for establishing the Christian church in the Batak world. Such texts were spoken by datu or traditional knowledge specialists. I found the text in Nommensen’s archive.

Since Nommensen’s day, the works of the datu are considered by the Christianized Batak to be just a little too close to the spirit world that they have been taught is the work of the devil. The art of the datu (hadatuon) went into sharp decline, therefore, during the twentieth century. During my travels, I did not meet a single Batak who knew what “rangsa” means.

Looking up the word in my Batak dictionaries, reading other rangsa texts, finding descriptions of rangsa texts in early publications, and speaking about the word with the great Batak poet, Sitor Situmorang, I have been reminded of the power of words in Batak indigenous thought. The datu was a magician with words. He manipulated them in many ways to influence the spirit world, all the while amazing his audiences, often striking fear in their hearts. His use of words (just part of his large arsenal of trappings) set him apart from “the average person”. Rangsa ni tonun is perhaps best translated as “description of weaving”. However, the word ‘description’ does not do the Batak word 'rangsa' justice. The Batak word is special because it captures the magical, spiritual essence of something, the sacred power of origins. Origins, in indigenous Batak thought, are a font of power. All acts of weaving are descendants, as it were, of the original act, performed by a daughter of the gods as described in this 'description of weaving'.

Before setting off to 'translate' the text using filmic images, I made photocopies of my typed-out version. It is not that I wished to undo the work of Nommensen, but I am a great admirer of indigenous Batak literature, and I feel that the Batak who grow up in the villages today miss out when they do not learn about the rich tradition that is their birthright. It seemed only fair to me to hand out copies of the text to the villagers who clustered around as we worked on the film so that they could see what we were up to. I was thankful that I could tell them that I had found the text in Nommensen’s archives; it gave it a rather ironic stamp of approval.

In Tarutung, I visited the village of Sait ni Huta in the hopes of finding descendants of Guru Sinangga ni Aji, the datu who wrote out the text for Nommensen. I was unsuccessful and the text attracted little interest. It was immediately apparent that the language was difficult for most people, even if Batak (and not Indonesian) was the language in which they operated most easily.
 



Nobody remembered Guru Sinangga ni Aji
in his village of Sait ni Huta (foto MJA Nashir)

   





Statue of LI Nommensen in Sait ni Huta (foto MJA Nashir)



  Not altogether unexpected for me was that weavers understood the text better than most other people. This is because of the many weaving terms in the text. One would learn these words only if one had some close association with weaving, e.g. if one’s mother or wife was a weaver or if one wove oneself. Young people had little or no interest in the text while elderly people enjoyed the words that they had not heard for a long time. Many of them pored over the text with rapt attention.

An elderly woman (Ny Pakpahan) in Muara read the text with rapt attention

Her neighbour looked on



The neighbour was pleased when I gave her a copy, too

 We needed a narrator, someone who would read the text for the camera, and it made sense to look for a male narrator because literature, in indigenous Batak life, is part of the male world and the writer of the text was also male. Amongst ritual specialists and those familiar with Batak opera, we did not find a suitable candidate because they stumbled over the words and could not orient themselves to their meaning. We met with success in the village, however. Ompu Okta doli was the husband of one of the weavers who did demonstrations for Nashir’s camera. He was a natural. He remembered the technical words from his youth and from his association with his wife. When I asked him where he learned to orate so well, he revealed that he was often called upon to use the microphone as the Master of Ceremonies at rituals and that he also frequently read in church. He was immediately so taken by the text that he worked on it enthusiastically on his own, adding comma’s, developing cadence, and even catching errors in the transcription. He was a diamond in the rough.

Ompu Okta doli studied the text carefully before he read it in front of the camera



Ompu Okta, husband and wife, "stars" of our film.
(foto MJA Nashir)

When we returned to his village some weeks later, we found the villagers still citing words and phrases from the text with much merriment. The text had begun to live for them.
I can hardly wait to see how people react to the finished film.