Pulang Kampung in Pekalongan

In a blog last February, I revealed that a woman in Australia had asked for my help to return her beloved traditional textiles to Indonesia. She had collected them in Indonesia in the 1980s and was now moving house and downsizing. She wanted to give them back to Indonesia precisely because they were so important to her. I agreed to do what I could.

When I wrote that blog I was loath to disclose details about my ruminations because they had not yet become solid plans. Now, some 9 months later, I am thrilled to share the story of how Stephanie Belfrage’s textiles have found a new home in their country of origin. (There are more textiles in the collection about which I am still ruminating and composing plans.) The story of the repatriation of Stephanie Belfrage’s batiks became front page news in Indonesia. The textiles were received more enthusiastically than I could ever have dreamed would be the case.

Article in Metro Pekalongan on 24 September
announcing the plans to return Stephanie Belfrage's textiles.

Article in Kompas Newspaper 2 October

Stephanie had five North Coast batiks in her collection. When she wrote to me, I had just returned from a visit to Pekalongan to explore the haunts of the famous batik maker, Eliza van Zuylen-Niessen. I had met dedicated members of the Pekalongan Heritage Community and had been given an impressive tour of Pekalongan’s beautiful Batik Museum. I was inspired to dream up a strategy in which the return of Stephanie’s batiks would also promote the goals of my new friends.

Mas Arif beside a batik made by Eliza van Zuylen

Arif Dirhamzah was a key player in the strategy and the reason for its success. A leading member of the Pekalongan Heritage Community and reporter and adviser for the Pekalongan radio station, his network was extensive. His dedication, however, was the most important factor. He had been my host in Pekalongan and now he was my contact. I said that I wanted to give the textiles to the Pekalongan Heritage Community. I trusted this Community to  find an appropriate final destination for the textiles. Mas Arif went to work immediately exploring the option of the Pekalongan Batik Museum. The Heritage Community is a young and informal group and I hoped that by way of this transfer they would gain profile and stature in the community and also the Museum. Moreover, I wanted there to be a public record of the transfer.

The Mayor's representative spoke about the importance of
heritage and the successes of the museum.

Mas Arif obtained the green light from the city's Mayor and subsequently from the museum. When I finally arrived in the City of Batik, as Pekalongan dubs itself, at the end of September, everything was set. On October 1 a ceremony was held in the museum auditorium with many reporters in attendance as well as important leaders in the batik community. The Mayor was not able to make it personally, but he sent an official to represent him. The Museum director, Ibu Tanti, was our host as well as Pak Dojo, the municipal officer who held the museum portfolio. We took our place behind the table at the front of the room. 

I showed the audience the poster of the Pulang Kampung
project that was designed by MJA Nashir for our exhibition
in Erasmus Huis, Jakarta (2011)

I delivered a short speech about my Pulang Kampung project, the importance of preserving and sharing heritage, and about Stephanie Belfrage (the little that I knew). I then handed the textiles over to mas Arif. In turn, he passed them on to the man representing the Mayor. They were then transferred to the museum.

I passed the textiles to the Pekalongan
Heritage Community

Mas Arif then passed them on to the city
in the person of the Mayor's representative

The enthusiastic audience begged us to open the boxes and show them the textiles.

Museum director, Ibu Tanti, was pleased with the quality of the textiles
and the reaction that they received from the audience

The Mayor found time to visit the museum shortly afterwards and requested that Stephanie Belfrage's textiles be placed on display immediately. 

As pure luck would have it, the following day was National Batik Day marking the anniversary of UNESCO’s official recognition of batik as important intangible cultural heritage. 

The day was being celebrated in grand style in Pekalongan with an enormous batik market kicked off by national political leaders. Mr. Hatta Rajasa, Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs, would be visiting the museum and the Mayor would show off the gift. The Mayor, therefore, was  able to make some political hay from Stephanie Belfrage’s gift.

The museum director issued an official receipt for Stephanie’s batiks.

In all, the transfer was satisfying because Stephanie’s gift gave so many times and so well! 

An additional delight was the involvement of Greg Roberts, the courier of Stephanie’s textiles from Australia. A passionate aficionado of North Coast batiks, he had supplemented Stephanie's package with a copy of the exhibition catalogue of his own collection: one for the museum, one for the Pekalongan Heritage Community, and, I am very happy to say, one for me. It is a beautiful book!

I told my audience about Greg Roberts' batik catalogue.
Batik of Java: poetics and politics, 2010
Calounda Regional Gallery touring exhibition
Greg Roberts and Ian Reed Collection

Palopo

Claire Holt stayed in a pasanggrahan in Palopo and attended dances 15 km. to the south in a place called Ponrang, in the home of Luwu’s former royalty. Palopo holds caché for me not just because of Claire Holt’s adventures, but because iron was fetched from there to make the sacred Javanese kris. Holt mentions that between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, the Luwu kingdom used to be the mightiest in Celebes. After that Makassar rose in importance.

As luck would have it, we were to enter the former Luwu kingdom on the Islamic holiday of Idul Adha. the day when cows and goats are slaughtered by those who have means and the meat divided among the poor. The town of Palopo was more or less deserted. Not a shop or restaurant was open. By the time we arrived, we had already been driving for hours and breakfast had receded into the distant past. We spied a hotel and decided to see if we could find some lunch within.

The hotel was lovely and all the place settings were inviting. There was tremendous hustle and bustle in the kitchen and eventually we were told to simply eat from the remainders of the buffet. It was a feast day.

Eventually the owner came to sit down with us. She was Bugis, swathed in Islamic black, and was clearly very joyful. She explained that it was a happy day. Many animals had been slaughtered and the meat was being given to the poor whom she had found in advance and to whom she had given coupons.

In our turn, we explained our mission, saying that we hoped to find remainders of the old kingdom and also the iron mines. She had heard of the Luwu and knew that the modest little mosque next door was reputed to be the oldest in Indonesia. Beyond that, she said, there was not much interest among the people in the town for their history and culture. She knew nothing about the source of iron, but knew that there had been fine krisses made in the vicinity.

In fact, she had a kris that probably originated with Luwu royalty but she did not know how to care for it, and may perhaps have damaged it in her attempt. I suggested that she could learn from the Kraton in Yogya. She responded that the kris was just a material item and it did not interest her very much. She declared that was, in fact, not interested in the kris. She was interested in immortality and worshipping Allah. She would be willing to sell the kris.  Apparently a sale belonged to the category of matters of interest to her.

She would not let us pay for our meal and expressed joy that she had been given the opportunity to give food to travellers passing by. She would not touch the hand of Pak Tauhid and Mas Nashir when we bade her goodbye because she had set this boundary as a Muslim woman.

We left to visit the old palace – now – museum. I left with a feeling of deep regret that our hostess’s generosity did not extend to culture. I would have liked her to give her kris to the local museum.  And I would rather have paid for my meal.

Nenek Panggao

Today we visited Nenek Panggao. This meeting was the central purpose of our trip. On the first day of my travels, three years ago, with my photographer MJA Nashir, he said that he would like to take me to visit her.  Nenek Panggao is high up there in our pantheon of amazing textile makers. She is also a member of our collection of "The Last Weaver".

She is a Sa’dan Toraja spinner. She had learned to spin from her grandmother during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia (WW II). The cloth was all used up and people turned again to their cotton shrubs, spinning wheels and looms. But why does Nenek Panggao still spin? For tourists! And she let us know that the elderly woman living on one side had died and been buried. On the other side, the elderly woman was ailing. There is only herself left now, and she is 83 years old. “Will it all be over when you leave?” I asked. She pointed to her daughter. Her daughter will take over –but the yarn that she makes is not as good. She needs more practice.

Nenek Panggao had a variety of textiles in her stall, the nicest of which were made with handspun yarn. She said that while she was the last in Sa’dan, there were spinners in the more Westerly Toraja area where the cloths were woven. They fetched her finished yarn, used it in their textiles and sold them in Nenek Panggao’s stall.

Nenek Panggao had learned to weave but she could only weave plain black or white cloth, as used ritually by the Sa’dan. She couldn’t make either ikat or supplementary weft textiles. She explained that each region had its own strengths – and hers, clearly, was spinning.

“Tourists think it is easy, so I invite them to try it. They discover that it is very difficult.”

“I know it is difficult,” I said, “but I would like to try it with your help.”

She was delighted to be accommodating and I received a lesson in which I learned that there must be balance between the speed with which the wheel is turned and the speed that the spinner pulls on the cotton being spun (coordination between two hands). The hand holding the cotton must not pinch it too tightly. The wheel must be spun at the right moment. The spindle must be balanced or it will fall out. And so on. There are so many factors to take into account at the same time. Spinning is top sport. Feeling, Hand-eye coordination. Practice. Balance. 

Perhaps I will spin when I am old. Watching Nenek Panggao, it seemed such a nice way to pass the time.

From Segeri to Kalosi

Claire Holt visited the town of Kalosi between Parepare and  Tanah Toraja. Inevitably I encountered the landscape that she described.

“We passed vast stretches of empty undulating prairie-like land. Then, after having approached some mountains to the east, we entered the fertile plains of the Sa’dan river and its tributaries. Luminous green sawah’s, buffaloes with their calves, men planting out young rice-shoots in inundated fields – their familiar beauty reminded one of Java. Further all associations stopped. We were in wild mountainous country. In the distance before us appeared a sharp peak of a rocky mountain towering high above the other mountain masses, like a solitary giant guardian. …”

Claire Holt spent the night in Kolosi.

“The fame of Kalosi’s pasanggrahan had reached us … The rest-house was renowned for its picturesque situation for the fresh European vegetables grown by the keeper, an ex-soldier, and the keeper himself.

“The rooms into which we were shown upon arrival, by the prim russet-haired man, disclosed that the ex-soldier was an ideal housekeeper. Mosquitoe-net, bed-linen, curtains and towels laughed with dazzling freshness, doilies flirted with flowers in vases, every piece of furniture looked as if it had been painted yesterday.”

I decided to look for the pasanggrahan. A network of pasanggrahan, or lodgings, had been built by the Dutch. Hotels at that time were few and far between and pasanggrahan were dependable places where one could spend the night. Claire Holt mentions, between brackets, in a subsequent chapter, “(Rooms at the government rest-houses in Celebes have to be reserved in advance, which is easily done owing to the net of telephone lines which connect all stations and their officials into one big community.)” When I did my first fieldwork in the 1970’s, I was still able to use the pasanggrahan in Pangururan in the Batak region. Claire Holt’s use of these lodges demonstrates their usefulness.

We saw an elderly man on the corner of the road as we drove into Kalosi and the driver stopped immediately to ask if he knew where the pasanggrahan was located. We were in luck! He knew! And we were precisely in front of the road leading to it. We were told to go straight ahead and then turn left. It was a forgotten road and it got worse as we drove up it. Eventually it came to a dead end. There was a view over the town below. Presumably the setting had been carefully chosen for the renowned pasanggrahan.

We asked a local – and then barely made out the word pasanggrahan on the edge of the roof covering the dated and declining cement building.

The pasanggrahan from the 70's. Photo by MJA Nashir

The architecture looked too modern to me. I doubted that I had found the real pasanggrahan from the days of the Netherlands East Indies. I went wandering and snapped some pictures of little boys in the wooden building next to the one labeled ‘pasanggrahan’. It, too, was in sharp decline and while a sign indicated that it was a ‘silk centre’, it seemed to be passing as a storage place for wood.

I then spied a neighbour with a long knife dangling by his side and I approached him to ask about the pasanggrahan. 

Luckily the neighbour was there to tell me that the Dutch pasanggrahan was beside the cement structure.

He confirmed my suspicion that the cement building had been constructed after the colonial era. To my surprise, however, the original had not been torn down!  The wooden building with wood stacked on the veranda was the original!

The pasanggrahan in the colonial era.

We set about making pictures and realized that every detail pointed to its colonial origins: the tile floors, the drains along the walkways outside, the kitchen at the back, the doors, the veranda, the expansiveness of the building, the semi-circular stairway leading to the front door. Despite its glory being long past, there were still well tended plants in front and in pots, that brought a caring housekeeper to mind. More recently the end of the building had been used as a tiny dry-goods store.

The end of Claire Holt’s tale brings one down to earth with a thump.

“Little could we suspect at that time that some six months later the neat ex-soldier-housekeeper would be murdered in his sleep by a house-boy he had employed and who was said to have been the lover of his plump, dark Menadonese wife.”

Parepare and Mandar

The first day ended in Parepare. Parepare is south of the Mandar area, and, although 3 hours away in the car, relatively speaking not far. Anybody who has researched Batak textiles knows the word ‘mandar’. It is the Ulos Hela, the ritual sarong given to the son-in-law during wedding rites. I know that the mandar in the Batak area used to be brought in from Minangkabau. Presumably the Minangkabau obtained it from Bugis traders. I declared myself crazy if I did not investigate mandar textiles a wee bit when I was in Parepare.

I discovered that the young woman I was talking to was Mandar!

The first step in this process was to try to find the market and start up a conversation with a seller of sarongs. I never got that far. While my driver was looking for the market, I was standing beside a women’s clothing shop that was just opening. The woman mopping the floor kindly let me in. She turned out to be a Mandar. She called her boss, who was Bugis who promptly ran off to find some mandar sarongs for me as she had none in stock.

I wanted to know if there was any weaving left in the Mandar region or whether it had all become centralized in Bugis hands. I was told that the weaving was in sharp decline. The young woman remembered women weaving with backstrap looms when she was growing up. She, herself, had not learned it. She did not know the current state of affairs.

They made the distinction between weaving with the walida (or balida), that is, weaving with the sword, and bola-bola weaving, that is, weaving with the ATBM. As I understand it, the bola-bola refers to the shifting of the heddles using the feet. I was pleased to learn this. In Pekalongan, this distinction is not made. It seems as though backstrap weaving has been forgotten entirely there. They refer to weaving with the ATBM as gedogan – the word that is used by the Batak to refer to backstrap weaving in contrast to weaving on the semi-mechanized ATBM.

The women could tell me that there used to be natural dyes in Mandar, but they could not tell me whether there were still natural dyes being used. They obtained a maroon and a black colour using natural dyes. These colours are still popular, although obtained using synthetic dyes.

The sarongs they showed me had the traditional simple pattern of squares made by stripes in warp and weft. The stripes now contained synthetic silver yarn so that they would gleam. This is currently all the range and is woven into virtually everything that is made. The Batak are not the only ones to obsessively follow this flashy trend!

I now long to visit the Mandar villages as I wish to know whether I will hear the sword beating the weft into the fabric, where they obtain their silk, whether they are still using natural dyes, what their looms look like, whether there is a revival movement, how they used to market their textiles and how they do it today…. This time around, I did not get that far.