Resisting the Dye

In preparation for the Weaving Workshop in Muara, Lasma Sitanggang attempted to make the batu jala textile that an elderly inhabitant of her kampong in Simalungun had stored in her closet.

She folded her textile as if she was going to do a fold resist but then she bound off the folds at the ends and the middle of the cloth in a way that is generally referred to as a bound resist.

In a more experimental mood, she tie-dyed two white textiles using the kemiri nut as the point in one cloth and the pinang nut in the other.

This technique is different from traditional Batak techniques because it is spontaneous and not exact. I remember showing Silindung weavers some South American dye dyed textiles in 1986. They were disappointed in the textiles and found them of low value. Traditional techniques all entail careful counting and precision and can be reproduced. My sense is that the techniques are symptomatic of vastly different conceptual frameworks. It was interesting to me, therefore, that Lasma made both the traditional textile and the more spontaneous tie-dye. It was also interesting that her elderly teacher allowed her to make the middle tie of her batu jala wider than the original. However, she understood that Lasma was making scarves and not traditional cloths.

Lasma showed her work to us in our hotel in Muara before the workshop began. Febrina Pakpahan examined her work closely and Lasma explained how she had done it.

She planned to dye the textiles with natural dyes during the workshop. We were working with indigo blue and mangkudu red.

I brought examples of resist dye from Java to show to her. One was made in Hani Winotosastro’s weaving operation in Yogyakarta using the plangi and tritik techniques and the other was a gauzy woven cloth that looks like it had been batikked. Lasma and Febrina were fascinated by the cloths and examined them closely.

On our way home from the workshop, I showed them films about natural dyeing that I had obtained from Maiwa Handprints in Vancouver. All of this is part of my attempt to broaden their knowledge of what is happening in the world of natural dyes and to help them situate Batak techniques in a larger context.

I just plant seeds. We shall see which ones will grow. That’s up to them.

Blue and black and mud all over

One of the things that we had to tick off our To Do list was the salaon (indigo plant) growing in the wild. We tackled it in Muara. Restuala taught us to recognize it and took us initially to a garden where it was growing as one plant among many in a scrubby thicket. In the end, however, Nashir decided to stalk a patch growing on the side of the road because the lake formed a stunning backdrop. He has come to the insight that the lake gives identity to the Batak. Without the lake, so much more of the ancient culture would be lost .

Muara was also the place to film sigira, a dye process that I had never witnessed before and only read about. Muara weavers used to practise it. Apparently, after they had finished dyeing their yarn with indigo and they wanted to transform the deep, rich blue colour into black, they took it to the rice fields where the iron content in the mud did the trick.

Restuala holding the indigo-dyed yarn that we will
eventually submerge in the mud of the rice fields.

A basin-like sink was dug in the sawah (the mud is so liquid that this can be done with bare hands) and, after heating the yarn in a vegetable mixture, it was dumped into the sawah basin. The dyer turned the skein, hand over hand, just as she turned it in the dye pot.

Our indigo dyer passed on the task to a fellow villager and off we trekked to the rice fields.

Our indigo dyer was working on her coffee harvest, so she passed on the
task of re-enacting sigira to her neighbour in the village, explaining how it was done.

At this time of year, everybody is working hard transplanting the tender young, fresh green seedlings and the fields are very wet. The first basin that our weaver dug was half in the shadow and so Nashir asked her to make another one in the light.

The sigira dyer in the rice field hears that she
has to make another hole, this time in the light.

Finally, the third basin was just right. We didn’t have the room in our agenda to do the full process complete with the boiling of the yarn, so we cut a corner because the Rangsa ni Tonun text is very short on this issue, essentially: “from blue-dyed yarn, it can be turned black, and from black it can be starched.” We know that a true documentary film of Batak weaving techniques would involve all sorts of regional variations of each step of the process (for example Restuala said that some sigira was done without heating the liquid mixture) and perhaps I will one day make a 20 hour serious documentary film. For the time being, however, Rangsa ni Tonun is a magical, poetic text related to weaving. It must inspire and delight. Nashir is the perfect filmer for this task because his heart is that of a poet and he understands the intention of the text. Our sigira moment in the film takes advantage of yet another extraordinary vista, this time of rice fields leading down to the blue calm lake, and the wonderful tangible quality of the slippery mud. How could we help, in these settings, but capture the deliciously earthy quality of the ancient textiles created from materials close at hand given by Mother Earth?

The sigira setting in the rice fields was wonderful with Lake Toba
in the distance.

As I did my own documentation of the process, I ended up with a socked and sandaled foot in the sawah mud and even managed to photograph the muddy feet of my cat-like, bird-like, mountain-goat-like, gymnastic-dancer-photographer who also couldn't help himself from slipping into it. The camera is still whole.

Even Mas Nashir got muddy feet.

Muara, O Muara

Muara is a bay in the southwest corner of Lake Toba. The long descent by road is spectacular. Hairpin curves open onto breathtaking views. The sign reads, Muara na Uli, Beautiful Muara. Muara has been posted as a new tourist destination. It used to be a rather out-of-the-way place, approached best by boat, with not much to offer to tourists who like a little bit of comfort. But now a new future lies clearly before it.

Today, exactly a month ago, I visited Muara. Restuala Namora Pakpahan had told me that there would be a weaving workshop on 23 November based on my book. This reaction to my book exceeded my wildest dreams but fit with my secret hopes and longings. I knew that I had to be present.

We arrived in Muara on the evening of the 22nd and the next morning made our way over to Huta na Godang, the village where all the weavers in the frontispiece of Legacy in cloth live and where Pak Restuala has his home. I had no inkling of what was about to transpire, but I had been unable to sleep the night before. When Pak Jerry pulled up and I looked out of our vehicle, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of something enormous about to happen. Scaffolding had been built around the yard to the right and in the road I saw a person walking with a Batak textile over his shoulder. This only happens when there is a bona fide ceremony.

It was Pak Restuala. He greeted us warmly and showed me the red-painted sign hanging at the gateway to his yard announcing a (in translation) Weaving Workshop of Batak Ulos with Sandra Niessen. Elegantly-dressed dancers bade us enter the textile-clad space.

Muara textiles were hung on the scaffolding surrounding the yard
where the "workshop" took place on 23 November 2010.

First Pak Restuala’s mother wrapped a beautiful harungguan textile around my shoulders, the most prestigious cloth woven in the region.

One of only three remaining Muara weavers who know how to make the
harungguan textile, the kind that was wrapped around my shoulders on that
unforgettable day.

 Then I was greeted by a long line-up of friends. They included Ompu Ester and Ompu Josua and their husbands, to whom I had given copies of Legacy four months prior. I cannot ever remember having received a warmer welcome and I was ushered over to the seat of honour next to Pak Restuala. I found myself amid dozens of women working at all different aspects of textile production from winding the warp to twining the decorative edging on the finished cloth.

Women were executing every aspect of weaving.

 Their husbands were there, too, most of them sitting on chairs.

Ompu Josua doli, who later presented a speech to me.

Pak Restuala began to speak. He told me that he had seen me when he was a small schoolboy, when I had come to Muara the first time in 1980. Now a grown man of 35 years old, with vast and varied life experience, including a career in Jakarta, he had returned to Beautiful Muara. He wanted to be one of the architects of change for a better future. He is particularly interested in perpetuating Batak culture so that it may survive undiminished in the world of the future. When he saw my book, he decided that he wanted to begin with Batak ulos, the cloth that is indispensable at all stages of Batak life. Essentially I was being pressed, ever so gently but just as unmistakably, into serving as an ambassador of Muara and Batak culture.

And my arrival on the 23rd was a catalyst to kick-start the revival of weaving in Muara. I remembered the brief and sincere discussion with Ompu Ester before I left in June, when she asked me to assist in reviving weaving in Muara and had told me that it was not possible to produce indigo dye anymore. Now, before my eyes, there were indigo pots containing indigo.

Alot had changed in four months. I imagined the long discussions, the will, the synergy, the vision, the energy, the co-operation needed to bring this special day together. And now I saw the joy and the spirit of the villagers.


Ompu Josua is sitting to the left and I am handing her photographs. As always, she has a smile on her face. Pak Restuala is sitting to the right holding a copy of my book. In the foreground, just barely visible, is the wooden dish (sapa) with corn and peanuts. I have that beautiful harungguan textile wrapped around me, but it is slipping off my shoulder.

 I had one additional copy of Legacy with me and I gave it to Pak Restuala while I expressed my amazement at the number of different kinds of Batak textiles lining our ceremonial space, the skill of the weavers in making such cloths and the ancientness of the tradition, all this by way of emphasizing why this art form must not be lost. I then introduced MJA Nashir as he has already done so much to document (in written, photographic and filmic form) our travels, work that will one day be even more accessible to the Batak than my own. I did not want him to disappear into anonymity on this occasion. Later, he too was diulosi, wrapped in a Batak textile, again by Pak Restuala’s mother. 


MJA Nashir receiving an ulos from
Pak Restuala's mother.

MJA Nashir's happy receipt of the ulos.

Then it was breakfast time and a huge, ancient wooden plate, the kind used by the Batak a century ago, was placed before us laden with boiled corn and local fruits. Ensuring the perpetuation of Batak indigenous culture was his goal, Pak Restuala emphasized again, as we all nibbled on corn and I gave away some photographs that MJA Nashir had taken when we came in June.

Our attention then turned to music, another threatened aspect of Batak culture.There was a youthful band directed by a very energetic music-lover, and they played tune after tune. Our visit was also giving them occasion to play in public. Their talent was admirable.

The youthful musicians of Muara.

The mood was warming up. We danced, posed for group photographs, toured all of the different weaving techniques and reviewed the hanging textiles.



The school teacher is to the left.
Pak Restuala is in the middle.



The delicious lunch in the home of a school-teacher was an example of the best cuisine that indigenous Batak culture has to offer. I was deeply impressed by the initiative to present indigenous culture in so many of its aspects and by the way the challenge had been met.

But I have been slow to put pen to paper to write this blog. I have felt far too overwhelmed by the energy of the people of Huta na Godang: the trust, the caring, the hope, the expectations. When I sat there listening to Pak Restuala’s words, I scarcely knew how to accommodate the lot that life was dealing me. The best in life is not always what we choose. Sometimes, we are chosen by life. Muara now feels like my Batak home and I am tied to it forever, just as the women of Huta na Godang in Muara will always grace the front of my book. 
 

A last hug from the
indigo dyer.




At the end of the day.



Muara, O Muara.
(All photographs in this post, except those of himself, are by MJA Nashir)



Last Gasp

Kaban Jahe. For centuries, because of the market, this town has been a centre of indigo dyeing for the Karo Batak. I wanted to see what had become of this activity and give books to the dyers that I wrote about in Legacy. The first stop was the market. The textile proprietors would be able to give me their addresses.

I was warmly received, but was very sad to note that not a single indigo-dyed piece was available to purchase. Moreover, all of the blue pieces that I looked at had been woven in Tarutung for the Karo market and the quality was low. Nothing was reminiscent of the thick, sumptuous teba and julu textile types of the past.

Nande Pulung, the proprietors told me, was still dyeing yarn. Jalan Irian, they said, in front of the SMA RK. It wasn’t far away, but Nande Pulung was in Medan attending to a sick child. Her neighbour, Nande Indra, who used to come over and assist with the dyeing, had become a market seller, they told me at Nande Pulung’s house, so off we went back to the market to hunt for her.

I found her sitting quietly and alone in her stall. I handed her the laminated page of Legacy in which she is depicted (p. 129) and sat down with her. 

 Nande Indra in her market stall at Kaban Jahe, June 2010

She tried to recall that moment 24 years ago and reminisced about the textile that she had that day on her head. It had been her mother’s and was from Aceh.

Nande Indra and Nande Pulung, Karo dyers, 1986.  Fig SR 3.8 Page 129 Legacy in cloth

What she told me amounts to the story about the last gasp of indigo dyeing in the Karo area: she had stopped working with Nande Pulung long ago; Nande Pulung had stopped dyeing with natural indigo ten to fifteen years ago; she didn’t know if Nande Peringitten was still alive; the elderly woman in Kampong Kwala near Tiga Binanga had passed away; there was nobody left in Karo who worked with natural dyes, and the people in Kampong Tanjung had ceased to cultivate tajem, their indigo plant. The tradition was dead.

This is a momentous fact. The Karo, the “blue Batak” had once been renowned for their indigo dyeing and had provided for needs all the way to Si Tolu Huta (Tongging, Silalahi and Paropo). They were the only Batak to practice plangi and tritik because they wanted to decorate the imported white cotton that they dyed blue. I think that they were also the only Batak to cultivate the indigo plant. (According to my information the Toba tradition harvested a wild salaon growing on the hillsides.)

Decline set in early in the twentieth century. Sitting there in the market, talking with Nande Indra, it was beginning to sink in. The Karo dyers whom I met while researching Legacy: Nande Pulung, Nande Indra and Nande Peringitten in Kaban Jahe and the elderly weaver in Kampong Kwala, were the last ones in this great tradition. And it had slipped away, not with a bang but a whimper!

Nande Pulung was the only dyer left in Kaban Jahe and she now worked strictly with chemical dyes. I have a book ready to give to her as soon as she returns from Medan. For her, I selected the message from donor Tim Babcock who emphasized the importance of passing on knowledge to the younger generation:

Batak weavings give immense pleasure not only to people in
Indonesia but also to textile lovers all over the world. Please
keep dyeing beautiful high quality ulos as long as you are
able, and pass your skills on to as many of the younger
generation as you can!

I will ask her if she is willing to demonstrate indigo for the Dutch weavers whom I will bring with me next year to the Batak area to learn about the Batak traditions. Clearly, only a financial incentive can revive this tradition.

See Back to the Villages - the map!