Fiber, Loom & Technique

Palu’e basketry

Stefan Danerek — Wed, 23 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article discusses the basket inventory of the Palu’e (Palu’e Island, eastern Indonesia) in the comparative framework of the Flores linguistic-cultural chain. Fibers, technique, and usage are identified, with notes on current distribution and skill transmission. The basketry is made of lontar leaves by women, who are also responsible for the agricultural products that the baskets are mainly used for. The most common function and shared denominator of smaller basket types in the Palu’e-Flores cultures, shown with the aid of museum collection items, is to keep betel for chewing, highlighting its tremendous cultural importance. Decoration is limited to triangular curls/twists on mad weave (dense triaxial) works, while smoking adds color and makes the basketry more durable. Only the ceremonial head-strapped betel basket, common also on Flores, is decorated with supplementary objects, such as beads. This basket only is made with one of the other two main techniques, oblique checker work and twill. All the basketry, with few exceptions, is still in wide use, but makers of more intricate works tend to be elderly. Comparison with baskets on the main island of Flores shows that Palu’e basketry is a close affine to this tradition but with locally distinctive features. Future comparative research could consider geographic and linguistic proximity in cultural contacts as a significant element in skill transmission, which is otherwise vertical (via closest kin), and relationships with migration patterns to and from Flores.

A 700-years old blue-and-white batik from Indonesia

Sandra Sardjono; Christopher Buckley — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article describes a blue-and-white batik found on Sulawesi that dates from the 13th or 14th century. The textile is a 3-meter-long banner in a fragmentary state, with a design of two guardian animals flanking a temple-like structure and large concave-diamond motifs. A reconstruction of the original design reveals a close relationship to double-ikat gringsing textiles from Bali and weft ikat textiles from Gresik in East Java and from Lampung in South Sumatra. Wax residues present on the cloth indicate that a wax resist technique, similar to contemporary batik, has been used. This article argues that the cloth was probably woven in India, but that the pattern was created in Java. It is the earliest material evidence (to date) for sophisticated batik production in Southeast Asia. This cloth offers a glimpse into the early history of batik in Java and its connection with double-ikat weaving traditions.

A techno-ethnography of Toraja-Mamasa tablet weavings from Sulawesi, Indonesia

Keiko Kusakabe — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This article focuses on the technique of tablet weaving, a particular method of weaving using a portable loom equipped with tablets, and its geographic distribution in Sulawesi. Specifically, it discusses the development of the technique in the highlands of Sulawesi, Indonesia, and compares the practices in the highlands with those in the lowlands and the bordering enclaves. This study is based on the author’s field research in the Toraja and Mamasa regions (1997 to 2017). The field research shows that current Mamasa weavers employs a unique system for manipulating the tablet, which has not been reported from any other place in the world. Part 1 of this article addresses the common misnomer of this unique tablet weaving as simply ‘Torajan’ or from ‘Sulawesi’ by showing a more accurate geographic distribution of tablet weaving in this island and proposes that the system should be called the Toraja-Mamasa tablet weaving. Part 1 further compares the Toraja-Mamasa tablet weaving in the highlands with the Bugis type in the lowlands and the interstitial Pitu-Ulunna-Salu type between the two regions.1 Part 2 describes in greater detail the tablet-weaving technique practiced in the Mamasa region today. It also puts the Toraja-Mamasa double-faced weave in global context by exploring four structural variations of the double-faced weave around the world.