Holbung/Uluan

On the 24th of June, our task was to get from Parapat, on the East side of the lake, to Balige, on the plain south of the lake, to complete the presentations for Uluan and Holbung.

I wanted to give a book to the elderly weaver depicted on page 461 (it is her loom on page 6) – she had been wonderful to talk with - but I knew that she would be deceased. We made a few stops but were not able to find her descendants or anyone who knew her. Still, I wanted to make sure that I left a book behind in the Lumban Julu region where she had lived. I admire the textiles from this region. It was annexed relatively late and some of the nicest old pieces still come from there, but it still feels like one of the most difficult regions to connect with.

By once again letting the spirits of Toba guide us, we found Ompu Okta, and it was both one of the most richly satisfying and one of the saddest meetings of the project (see the description in blog entitled Dilepaskan).

We drove on to Porsea. I remembered very clearly where the couple standing there proudly on page 534 lived in Huta Parparean. When I did a customary Batak yell and knock at the door, the woman who came out immediately recognized the couple depicted on the plasticized picture; it turned out that she -- and everybody else in the village -- was related to them. There were alot of them and they all gathered around me, the strange phenomenon in their midst. There were no weavers among them, so I elected to give the book to the little worried boy in the photograph being held in line by his grandfather’s hand. 

The villagers fetched him and he arrived, all vibrantly grown up, half wet and half naked, apparently interrupted in his work at the fishpond in the back. Overjoyed with the book, he offered me a goldfish in return and we joined him on the trek to the pond. From the clutter and chaos of his village we were suddenly greeted by a beautiful, green and peaceful vista and we expressed our admiration spontaneously and bountifully. The villagers warned us that our delight was a delusion because if we looked carefully at the hills in the background, we would see that they were being clearcut and it was already disturbing their peaceful pond. Such is the environmental drama unfolding right now in Porsea. 

In the end, I came to my senses and turned down the goldfish, pointing out that I had no tank in the car in which to carry it and, at the end of the road, no fire to cook it with (I didn’t say that I was vegetarian). They understood my argument and forgave me and we undertook the trek back to the chaotic, tumultuous village and said our good-byes. The villagers promised that they would show the book to the weavers (probably of ragi hotang textiles) they knew living close by Porsea.

The book was a gift from Sandra Sardjono who is using textiles to explore the mysteries of her homeland.

The next stop was Laguboti. I was anxious to find Ompu Si Masta (depicted on page 143 of Legacy). I last met her in 2003 in the Balige market. Although we had built a strong tie during my research in 1986, we no longer recognized each other; we had both changed. I sat in her stall and began to ask questions, apparently just as then, about the names of textile types. She gave me the superficial answers typically given to the casual shopper but I kept pestering her for more details. Finally she looked at me and said, “There used to be a Canadian girl who knew all the names of Batak textiles. She used to come to me to learn them all.” “What was her name,” I asked, suspecting that she would mention my name. When she did, I let the cat out of the bag. “That’s me”, I said. “I’m her.” Then she fell on me and smothered me with hugs.

It was a long search, but we finally met up with her in her home. Her son led us there and we waited until she emerged from a meeting with a Bibelfrau. I warned Mas Nashir to be prepared for her exuberance and keep his finger on the shutter release of the camera... And so we were launched into a joyful afternoon. She took us all out for an extended lunch and entertained us in her extroverted way, remembering so many incidents and details. “You were my friend,” she said. “I treated you fairly and we never haggled on the prices of the textiles I found for you.” She had been a wonderful source of textile types and taught me a great deal.

Now she was well into her 70s but had too much energy to stop her work. She still sold textiles at the market, three times a week, still liked it, and wanted to continue with it for as long as she could. I didn’t get a sense of what she thought of the book. Perhaps she will only formulate her impression after she has found the time to study it. I wonder if she will take it with her to the market? May it remind her of our many discussions about textile types the way it reminds me of her. I had been so worried that I would never have the opportunity to see her again and rejoiced at this opportunity to meet her in her home together with her family.

Her book was donated by the Soroptimists of Arnhem.

See Back to the Villages - the map!

The Muara weavers in the opening photo

One of the opening photographs of Legacy is a two-page spread depicting a smiling group of weavers in the bay of Muara in the southwest corner of Lake Toba. One of my main goals on the 22nd of June was to find those women.

The spirits of Toba guided our search. Our chauffeur, Pak Jerry, decided spontaneously (after my search had been fruitless) to ask a young man walking down the road if he recognized any of the women in the photograph. The young man was inscrutable at first, pointing out that two of the women were deceased. It took him awhile to divulge that one of them was his mother and that she was working in the ladang (on the land). Later the young man repeatedly noted how lucky our meeting had been as he was generally working in the garden himself at the time that we met him.

The garden was far away and he agreed to climb into our vehicle to guide us to his mother. Her peels of laughter when we found her reminded me of that merry day, 24 years ago with my friend Erna Lohuis, when the photograph was taken.

We crouched on the side of the road and I explained the book and the Back to the Villages Project and presented her with a copy. Ompu Josua received it proudly. When the school next door requested a book for their library, we insisted that Ompu Josua be present for the group photograph to acknowledge the ancient weaving heritage that her skills represent. As Mas Nashir put it, she is a cultural hero. For me, this was an important and symbolic moment as I notice repeatedly how much culture is being lost in the struggle to make ends meet and to march to the drum of external cultural influences. The struggle – there is no better word for it – to survive and get ahead in the current social and economic climate entails the excruciating irony of disregarding and coring out that which is ancient, valuable and beautiful in the people’s own culture. We do not live in a time when school children are proud to say that their mother is a weaver and weaving is not a goal to which a school child aspires. It even felt somewhat subversive to make a Batak weaver a centerpiece in a photograph of a school, but it was time! I had given the book in the name of Wendela ter Horst, a dear socially progressive friend in Oosterbeek who makes no bones about battling “the system” when she feels that injustices need to be corrected.

The young man who guided us to his mother, then took us to his neighbour, another of the women depicted: Mutiara, br. Pandiangan. She was covered in mud and working in the fields. She and her husband climbed into our vehicle and we joined them in their house for a cup of coffee. She showed us some of her old textiles and the harungguan that she was making. 

Pamela's weaver, Mutiara br. Paniangan, Ny. Siregar, making a harungguan

Near the end of our visit, the weaver’s husband asked if I couldn’t assist in some way to revive the Batak weaving arts. I told him that this was one of my long-term goals and that I would do my best to contact them again in the future. The weaver is a very talented and bright woman. She knows how to make indigo dye from the local salaon plant and longs for the opportunity to weave textiles of integrity rather than just to earn a pitiful few cents on the market.

I was pleased to have made this presentation of Legacy courtesy of Pamela Cross. Pamela has been so terribly supportive of both Legacy and this project that she deserved a recipient in that wonderful opening photograph in the book. Furthermore, Muara has ancient ties with the Silindung Valley with which Pamela also has strong ties. And finally, the hint of a future for Batak weaving, through this talented weaver promises to give her gift longevity. I hope that she may one day meet the recipient of her generous gift.

Another of the women in the photograph lived close by, but was unavailable just then, so we gave her the book through her daughter-in-law, courtesy the Soroptimists of Arhem. 

Before leaving Muara, I wanted to give one more book to a group of active weavers. I found them by calling Torang Sitorus (see blog: Didn’t Pay? It was costing money!) who had expressed the hope that indigo-dyeing could be revived in that part of Toba. It also turned out to be a village that I had contacted in the past: Huta Simatalo II. Two women were weaving the very long surisuri textile and the whole village came out for the presentation – courtesy Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden.

I could not have hoped or imagined that more interest could have been expressed in the book.  Such a moment, sitting on a mat with the entire village, talking about the results of my 30 years of work…I must not dwell on this as it is too overwhelming.

See Back to the Villages - the map!