Introducing MJA Nashir

I have posted links to the chapters of MJA Nashir’s serial publication of the Back to the Villages project on this blog spot. After the project concluded on the last day of June 2010, his role as photographer also concluded and he decided to pick up, of his own accord, the role of chronicler to document and share his experience of the project. This came as a complete surprise to me, but it is a terribly welcome and gratifying surprise adding a layer that serves the central goal of the project, viz. to make the presentation of Legacy to the Batak as effective as possible. MJA Nashir’s elegant and accurate account is reaching a broad Indonesian and especially Batak public; he is writing for his public as only a fellow Indonesian could do. Back to the Villages touched his life and he, in turn, is touching the lives of others with his memories and reflections on it. Many people crowded around to bear witness to each presentation of Legacy in North Sumatra, but through MJA Nashir’s accounts, many more people will be able to bear witness and for much longer.

I approached my own blog more or less thematically, keeping in mind my English-speaking readers, most of whom have never visited Indonesia, let alone the Batak area of North Sumatra. MJA’s writings document our path day by day, book presentation by book presentation in a very detailed step-by-step fashion. We both indulge in our own reflections on what occurred, how people reacted and the significance of it all. In his writings, these reflections fill the empty hours and empty stretches of road, as it were, while in mine they are the central focus. Our writings are like different layers of a many-layered event. It is now my pleasure to add a layer about the photographer-chronicler (soon to be filmer and film-producer) of the Back to the Villages project.

MJA Nashir sent me a text message this morning from his home in Pekalongan, North Java, to let me know that he had just posted Chapter VII of his chronicles on Facebook. I can barely contain my curiosity. This chapter is about Muara, one of the highlights of our journey, and the weavers depicted in the opening double page spread in Legacy. But I have to swallow my impatience because I am on the road to Oxford and have no access to internet. Of course I know better than anyone else what happened on our journeys, but through his writings I am gradually discovering who that photographer is, that fellow who joined me quite serendipitously on my journey.

The filmers who had initially agreed to work with me withdrew at the eleventh hour, leaving me high and dry and wondering what to do. I started to look for a photographer, having given up on the idea of a film, but still needing to meet my obligation of giving donors to the project a photographic record of the presentation of “their” book. I wanted a female photographer, presuming that weavers would be more at ease with a female photographer, and the atmosphere more “female” and relaxed. Weaving is a female activity, I am a female researcher, the book designer was female and the person who had guided the printing process was also female. It appealed to me to have a project for, by and about women. But I had no luck finding this female photographer. Finally, when I had begun to despair and felt quite despondent, I received, out of the blue, one of my first text messages from MJA Nashir asking me how things were going. Having heard, from our mutual friend, Nia Fliam, a batik artist in Java, that I needed a photographer, he had already offered his services, but I had responded in a non-committal way for the reasons given above. This time, however, I immediately invited him to join me; it felt destined. He accepted with alacrity. The invitation was driven by necessity and it was a leap of faith. I didn’t know anything about this person. I only knew Nia’s estimation that he was “very special.” My expectations, by then, had been reduced to the bare minimum: as long as there were the required pictures to give to the project donors, I would be satisfied.

MJA turned out to be quiet, undemanding and easy-going. I had difficulty understanding his Javanese accent and my Indonesian had grown so rusty in the years since my fieldwork that there were few fluent exchanges between us. We relied, more or less out of necessity, on observation. It wasn’t difficult to become aware that I was with someone who not only understood the principle and intentions of the project, but was technically so skilled that I didn’t have to worry about his work. I didn’t even have to give guidance. He was an expert in making photo and film documentations. Conveniently, we both had the same make of camera. His had a different lens and mine had a filming capacity, so he used whatever the occasion demanded. Trusting in his expertise, I just focused on my own role in the project.

With time I noticed that I was increasingly taking account of his reactions to situations, asking his counsel, and relying on his judgment. I had not only a filmer and a photographer who turned out to be a professional of high calibre and standards, but someone who was quietly but actively supporting the project and “thinking with”, never imposing his wishes, but ever-ready to offer his opinion and advice when asked. It began to feel, increasingly, like “our” project.

Words had also begun to replace the muteness that had characterized the beginning of our journey. This visual person turned out to be a wordsmith, too. He sat in the front of the vehicle beside the driver. Charmed by the beauty of Lake Toba he was a fully engaged passenger and occasionally turned around to make a pronouncement. More often than not, it was in the form of an aphorism or a poetic couplet. Sometimes, he expressed anger over the environmental degradation that we came across and then his usually gentle black eyes gleamed so brightly with fury that I would have to turn away.  “Alam” (nature) was an important theme, to him. At one point, he asked whether I would mind if he took some photographs for himself and he indulged his urges to shoot both the beauty and the decline in the landscape. Of course he had my blessing.

He turned out to be quite open and delighted in telling stories about his life, and was patient with me as I did my best to grasp what he was saying, contributing new wear marks to my Indonesian-English dictionary in the process. He told me about the importance of the poet Rendra in his life, and the words hadir (being present in a full and creative way) and mengalir (to flow, adapting oneself to circumstances) that had become axioms for him. He spoke much about a Batak, the late Donald Hutabarat, who had lived in Toraja and had impressed him deeply for his moral fibre. My adoption into the Hutabarat clan had apparently been a factor in his decision to join the project.

When the project came to an end, it was as sudden as it began. We gave away some books in Kaban Jahe in the morning and then drove to Medan. I was in a rush to catch a flight to Aceh, and dropped MJA Nashir off en route. That was that, it seemed. But it felt strange. There had been no debriefing and I missed some quiet moments at the end of the trip to just talk with him as a fellow human being rather than “the project photographer”. While he had shared much and generously, he had only succeeding in generating more questions than he had answered.

Luckily this is the age of internet and MJA Nashir is a writer. As he types chapter upon chapter of his chronicles about the delivery of Legacy to the Batak villagers and posts them on Facebook, my sense of satisfaction grows richer and richer. I am one of his addicted readers waiting for the next installment. Obviously I am different from the other readers because I know “what happens next” and I even help out by providing photographs, my own memories, and names of people.  I have different questions and longings, though, than other readers. MJA Nashir is giving me the privilege of finally discovering who sat in front of me in the vehicle all that time, this person of unusual grace, artistic talent and intelligence, who bestowed a special magic on the journey.

Links to MJA Nashir's Menyusuri Ulos Batak, Berkelana dengan Sandra
Map of Back to the Villages and Menyusuri Ulos Batak, Berkelana dengan Sandra

To Dye For

I was able to use my last hours in San Francisco on 26 September to visit “To Dye For, A world saturated in color” a small exhibit in the De Young Museum dedicated to textiles decorated using the resist-dye technique. The various techniques were explained briefly, but really the focus of the exhibit was on the exquisite cloths that have been made using these techniques: a mordant-dyed cloth from India, batiks from Java, Thailand and Toraja, ikat from Sumba, the Iban Dayak and Afghanistan, shibori from Japan, mud resist from Africa and so on. Each example was a perfect jewel and thus the exhibit earned the double entendre on its title.  I particularly enjoyed the blend of modern textile art pieces and traditional textiles in the exhibit, although the preponderance of California artists skewed the otherwise balanced, universal representation of the resist techniques. Related books and textile art souvenirs were available for purchase at the entrance of the exhibit.

Exhibit Review - Batak Textiles in San Francisco

On Friday 24 and Saturday 25 September, the Indonesian Consulate of San Francisco celebrated Indonesia’s Independence Day. Consul General, the Honourable Asianto Sinambela, made good use of the traditional reception of the diplomatic community in San Francisco to promote Indonesian culture. This time, the textiles of the Batak people of North Sumatra received their full due by means of an exhibit of superb examples both old and new. The diplomats were treated to a preview and a delicious Indonesian meal. The next day, the general public was free to come and take in the exhibition as well as a demonstration and a talk by yours truly.

The old textiles belonged to the collections of Noeleke Glenn Klavert of Indoarts and Curt and Keith Clemson of Dancing Threads and filled three rooms of the beautiful residence, Wisma Indonesia. The fourth room was dedicated to modern textiles and the explanation by the owner and dealer, Naomi Butarbutar, who came from Jakarta especially for this event.

Both days were very successful; more than 200 people attended each day. The mood was warm and friendly. The days were a true example of the highly esteemed Indonesian hospitality and the great wealth of Indonesian culture.



On the day of my departure, there was a group photograph
with the consular staff including the Consul General
Asianto Sinambela (to my left) and his wife (to my right).
It was a special moment when I felt very touched by their warmth.



Indigenous Prize Winners

Merdi Sihombing, a leading Batak clothing designer, has just won the 2010 first prize for KAIN TENUN NASIONAL (Indonesian woven cloth). He is a modern, urban fashion designer. His winning design, however, is a recognizable, traditional Batak textile, a so-called ulos runjat. (Merdi has altered colour and fibre.) It is exciting that a Batak designer has won this prize. For me, it is striking that an indigenous design, developed by centuries of Batak weavers in the villages, has been the foundation for this illustrious modern cloth. This insertion of the ancient and indigenous into the modern and urban says alot.

My journey Back to the Villages in June was good and successful in many respects, but upon my return, I appear unable to find any capacity within myself to accept the total decline of Batak weaving. My mind dwells on my journey; constantly I find myself examining avenues for the future survival of this precious art form.

Recently, the Tribal Textiles forum sent out a reminder about the Tinkuy, a gathering of weavers, that will take place in Sacred Valley, Peru in November 2010. I find this inspiring. It is being organized by the Center for Traditional Textiles of Cusco (CTTC) . They write, on their website, precisely what I could write about Batak textiles (and what countless others could write about indigenous textiles elsewhere).

It is becoming clear that the survival of diversity contributes to the valuable storehouse of world resources.

Textile systems developed in Peru over the millennia represent a treasury of techniques rare in the world. Most remain unknown outside of Peru. They are passed on, not by writing, but by the Andean process of person-to-person communication, by watching and practicing.

Peruvian weaving is a ritual activity with many layers of meaning.

The so-called “Tinkuy” that they are organizing is bringing people from everywhere together to learn about Andean weaving and to practise it -- together! Everybody – from every culture and every age – is invited. The community that must learn about and support this ”world resource” is, indeed, the whole world. The Centre has reconized the importance of creating fora in which information can be shared and transmitted between generations and between peoples. The key is communication.

What an innovative and inspiring initiative! I can immediately think of powerful and useful variations on the theme:

It would be so useful to have a Centre for Traditional Batak Textiles, or a Centre for Traditional Textiles of Sumatra, or a Centre for Tribal Textiles of Indonesia - or ASEAN. A World Centre for Tribal Textiles! What would it be like (especially for the weavers themselves) to bring Toraja, Dayak and Batak weavers together? To have representatives of closely-related cultures who otherwise never meet up, come together to share their closely-related weaving knowledge while working at their looms! What would it be like to bring Toba Batak from different regions together with Simalungun and Karo Batak weavers together? What about Acehnese and Minangkabau and Batak weavers, as they have so profoundly influenced each other in the past? And, speaking of profound influence in the past, what about bringing weavers from India together with weavers from Indonesia? The opportunities are legion, the possible spin-offs exciting to contemplate. It is about cross-fertilization, learning, the preservation and growth of knowledge and traditions, mutual appreciation, stimulation and encouragement. The survival of diversity. The survival of the creative history of man – and woman – kind.

In May, under the auspices of Voyage & Culture  in Amsterdam, I hope to lead a tour to the Batak area, specifically to kindle/nurture/satisfy external interest in the Batak weaving arts. There will be hands-on opportunities for the participants. On the flip side, this is a way to celebrate the weavers, give them an additional source of income and encourage pride in their skills. It is another way to give a boost to the Batak weaving arts using international support, and to get knowledge about their techniques out there in the world. A little drop in an exciting bucket – that could expand to have the dimensions of Lake Toba.

I think of my friends, Nia and Ismoyo of Brahma Tirta Sari  in Yogyakarta. These batik artists have long recognized the importance of indigenous traditions to their own modern art forms.

Cross-cultural collaboration is another critical and enriching aspect of the Brahma Tirta Sari creative process. Their commitment to cross-cultural exchange is rooted in the ideal of human unity and recognises the creative life force not only inherent in ancient Javanese traditions, but also in the traditions and knowledge of indigenous cultures. As Ismoyo describes

“Tradition is the DNA strands of our world culture. We are truly indebted to these threads that continuously flow to make the present the past and form the basis for creativity in each subsequent era.”

(Joanna Barrkman, Curator, Southeast Asian Art and Material Culture, Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin, Australia)

Currently, they are developing plans to bring modern textile artists in touch with village producers. Their argument, that I whole-heartedly endorse, is that they both need each other to grow and develop. Mutualism. Nia and Ismoyo, themselves, grab every opportunity that they can find, or create, to work with indigenous practitioners, and have done so in Africa (Nigeria), Australia (Utopia and Ernabella), and especially in the batik villages of Java (e.g. Giriloyo).

They are working on a variant of the same theme as the organizers of the Tinkuy in Peru: communication across artificial boundaries that have emerged socially, geographically and historically that can get in the way of the growth of the art form.

I am going to closely follow The Gathering of the Tribes, a comparable initiative in Malaysia that is heating up. It is scheduled to take place January 14 - 16 2011. It will do just as its name says: bring the different tribal peoples together where they will focus on  specific cultural heritage issues.

These initiatives are emanating inspiring rays of hope.

Back to the Villages - the map!

See a map below for the routes in North Sumatra taken for the Back to the Villages project.  Click on the image to see a larger one. 

 

Schedule in North Sumatra, June 2010
 5 - arrive in Medan from Jakarta
 6 - Gunung Leuser (Orang Utan rehabilitation centre)
 7 - Medan to Berastagi
  8 - Kaban Jahe
  9 - Tongging, Paropo, Silalahi
10 - Berastagi to Tuktuk via Simalungun and Parapat
11 - Lumban Suhisuhi
12 - Simanindo, Ambarita, Tomok
13 - Silindung Valley
14 - Silindung Valley
15 - Tuktuk to Medan
16-18 - Medan
19 - Medan to Parapat and Tuktuk
20 - Tuktuk to Simanindo, Lumban Suhisuhi, Pusuk Buhit, Harian Boho and Sihotang. Overnight at the foot of Pusuk Buhit on the shore of Lake Toba
21 - Back to Samosir, and from Pangururan to Simbolon to Nainggolan, back to Tuktuk, Parapat and all the way south to Muara
22 - Muara
23 - Silindung - to Parapat at the end of the day
24 - from Parapat to Balige
25 - Balige to Kaban Jahe and Berastagi
26 - Berastagi to Medan - then an afternoon flight to Aceh
27 - Banda, Aceh
28 - Banda to Medan
29 - Medan - to Amsterdam over KL

Memory

I remember the children of Harian Boho when I lived there in 1979-80. They ran around in packs, and had huge, limpid black eyes. They were beautiful. 

  
This time, when I was back to give a copy of Legacy to Ompu Sihol’s grandson, now a grown man, I was once again struck by the children of Harian Boho. Several crowded around in front of me. They were very young, perhaps 5 years old, and just like I remembered, fully innocent and unself-conscious. They stood in front of me, staring, unblinking, their eyes fathomless and black. They stared intently, uncompromisingly.  It wasn’t just their deep eyes, their full attention was focused on me. They were recording everything, every movement I made, every hair in my nose. I am certain that when I go back to Harian Boho in 10 years time, and I run into them, teenagers by then, they will still be able to recount every single detail of what transpired on that day in June 2010. 

I am sure of this because that was my experience this time around. When we arrived in Harian Boho and I got out of the vehicle to ask a group of young men how I could make my way to my weaving teacher, Ompu Sihol’s village (I no longer remembered the path), they asked me if I was Sandra. I had spent few months there in 1980, 30 years earlier, and since then had been back only once for an hour or two. I was taken aback that they should know who I was. Perhaps they had this knowledge from stories?  What other white woman would want to know where Ompu Sihol lived? But who were they? I had no notion of even how to reciprocate their attentiveness.

More than once, I was taken aback in the same way.
When I knocked on Nai Ati’s door in Silalahi and asked her if she still knew me, she responded with no hesitation after 24 years: “Si Sandy?”
In Berastagi, Nande Pulung, after 24 years, still knew everything that transpired during my last visit. She was surprised that I no longer knew the way to Nande Peringitten’s house because, as she pointed out, she had taken me there the last time! For my part? Quite honestly, I would no longer have recognized Nande Peringitten’s house if my life had depended on it (although I recognized the interior because I had a photograph of it), and I had no recollection of ever going there on foot, let alone with Nande Pulung.
And then there was Boru Pandiangan Ny. Siregar in Muara for whom the picture of her in the front of Legacy was no surprise because she still had the snapshot that I had sent to her 24 years ago and fetched it easily.
Nai Ganda had an accurate recall of the textile types that we had talked about 24 years earlier, she knew which ones I had purchased and she critically inspected the pages of Legacy with an eye to which ones I had included and which ones had been left out;
Ompu Si Masta remembered that we didn't go through the bargaining ritual when I purchased textiles at her stall; she gave me a fair price and I trusted her. I no longer remembered this when we spoke this last time (but I pretended I did).

And everywhere I went, the children watched me with their deep, black eyes.

At first I made light of it: probably not too much out of the ordinary happens in these places, I told myself, so if something unusual does happen, it must be memorable for them.

But contemplation leads me to believe that there is so much more to it. 

Batak rituals or indigenous legal "courts", were public fora out in the open. The bystanders were witnesses.   To acknowledge their role, they were given a few token coins. The events were thus parked in memory. The witnesses served as the archive; there was no other kind, and cultures need their stores of information.
 
There were no schools and there were no books as recording devices. As I pondered it further, I developed the awareness that memory and accurate observation were everything, everything in the sense of history and the perpetuation of culture.

Memory is apprenticeship; memory is the ability to re-stage a ritual; memory is oral history; memory is mythology, legends, tales; memory is the kinship system that the Batak used to be able to trace 25 generations back; memory is the way to get to the market a week’s walk away along mountain paths; memory is the ability to recite prayers, to play that marvellously complex and subtle Batak music, to dance, to cook, to look after the garden, to conduct rites of divination. Memory is the knowledge that is available when books (and now the internet) are not. A thought world is pecisely that: the way of life that is hung on the framework of socially recognized ways of perceiving that are transferred from one generation to the next. The thought world is merged with life as it is lived.

I began to consider the mnemonic tools that I know that the Batak had. The pustaha, or bark books, were mnemonic tools par excellence.  They were used in combination with memory, to jog it. There were little ditties that Ompu Sihol sang so that she could keep track of the complex counts of yarn and cycles involved in producing a perfectly symmetrical textile. The conventions in weaving, too, were memory joggers: right and left, forward and back, up and down, so that you could resume where you left off. I have made the argument in my Back to the Villages project that the textiles themselves are mnemonic devices; they allow the reproduction of the designs they exhibit. Logically, therefore, weaving is the merging of memory with physical performance -- which is yet another form of memory.  This, surely, is the essence of ritual: incribing memory, including that known by the body, into the tactile, the visual, the perceptible world. Ritual is memory generating expression. In turn, the expression is committed to memory. A cycle of life.

It was as if those little children in Harian Boho became so absorbed in the task of observing me that they had become one with me, inhabiting my skin. It was only when my eyes shifted and intentionally caught theirs, when I said something gently and directly to them, thus introducing a boundary over which could be given and received, that they were suddenly overcome with the shyness that comes of self-consciousness and they shrank and looked away. 

Those eyes. Those terribly endearing, unfathomable, relentless eyes. Already to the roots of their very beings, they were children of another culture.

See Back to the Villages - the map!

A revolutionary act (for an academician)

At the beginning of my journey, Rithaony Hutajulu said that she thought that my book could be important to Suarasama, the music group that she and her husband have started. I knew that she wanted to have a copy and I wanted to give her one, but I was hesitant. The books were earmarked for weavers and those depicted on Legacy’s pages. By the end of the journey, I knew that I wanted Suarasama to have a copy (and not just because there were fewer weavers out there). I handed it over to Ritha’s husband, Irwansyah Harahap, also an ethnomusicologist, performer and professor at the University of North Sumatra, on 26 June. 

Much had changed in my thinking in the interim and I had begun to see these people as key figures in Batak cultural promotion and revival. They were connected to all the right people who would be able to contextualize the importance of my work. They would use my book in their own work. They figured, now, among my most important recipients!

I had been away from the region for a long time. During my trip, I began to discern and increasingly understand a new set of ideas. Like an undercurrent, concern for the loss of indigenous culture is growing. The proportions of this loss are vastly more disturbing than most of us know. The Canadian anthropologist, Wade Davis, said it well in the first of his CBC Massey Lectures entitled The Wayfarers (2009):

“... just as the biosphere, the biological matrix of life, is being severely eroded by the destruction of habitat and the resultant loss of plant and animal species, so too is the ethnosphere, only at a far greater rate. No biologist, for example, would suggest that 50 percent of all species are moribund. Yet this, the most apocalyptic scenario in the realm of biological diversity, scarcely aproaches what we know to be the most optimistic scenario in the realm of cultural diversity.” (Davis, 2009, pp 2-3)

The loss of Batak textiles is not just the loss of a few techniques and patterns, it is the loss of cultural knowledge in which a thought system, cultural history, and a way of life are inscribed. It can be written down and recorded, as I have made an attempt to do in Legacy, but words can only point to non-verbal knowledge, capture it the way formaldehyde can preserve biological species. The only true preservation is life itself, or when it comes to weaving, practice. By practice I do not mean the execution of techniques but rather the performance of culture in a holistic sense. While manipulating a backstrap loom, Batak weavers enact and perpetuate a way of seeing and thinking, they operate within a paradigm and if they are skilled, they add to it, making it grow, allowing it to adapt, ensuring its vitality. This is what apprenticeship is about for the youth, and teaching on the part of the elderly: the intergenerational links that ensure cultural survival.

It was satisfying to learn that my Indonesian ethnomusicologist colleagues were practitioners as well as recorders of ancient knowledge. They understand it and they are Batak. When I think about this, I long to go and sit in a backstrap loom to truly learn what I have written about. During my 30-year labour over the book, I neglected to weave!

How misguided our institutions of higher learning have been to so strongly privilege the word (logocentrism) above practice! I perceive the legions of anthropologists at great and costly international conferences, in painful contrast to the loss of cultural practice by indigenous peoples due to lack of support, in these terms. Documentation is perhaps a symptom of doomsday thinking, a pathetic way to hang onto a shadow of what is fated to disappear. It is a style and product of Western ego and Western culture that earned its predominance through our technical prowess (Industrial Revolution). Our consequent blindness has yielded our greatest proceeds, but they are now proving to be our greatest weakness. Western academics “play the game” while that which we study dies out.

Perhaps the distribution of Legacy this past month has been my greatest revolutionary act in the history of my involvement with the book and with academe. Breaking the tacit boundary between the researcher and the researched, allowing Legacy to potentially have a legacy for practitioners!

Biodiversity is not saved in a bottle; it is allowed to run free in viable habitats. So, too, cultural diversity. I find myself reiterating what I have also heard others say: the Batak weaving arts, while specific to the Batak, are a Universal Human Legacy, a well-explored product of a facet of human thought and culture. They are irreplaceable. Loss of this rich vein of culture is a loss for all of humanity.

Ritha! Irwansyah! I am so happy to have been able to present you with one of my books! It was given to you courtesy the largess and insightfulness of the very admirable Volkenkunde Museum in Leiden, The Netherlands. Please do use it!

See Back to the Villages - the map!