Colorful Tradition Of Weavers` Villages

Lifetime dedication: The weavers of Griya Kawan in Budha Keling, Bali: (from left to right) Ketut Sidi Mandyani, Made Sukerti, Nyoman Asmani and Erawati with the songket they weave. JP/JB Djwan

Karangasem, Bali - Women from Kawan, a tiny village in Budha Keling, Bali, have been weaving the songket (a traditional sarong) for centuries.

“We don`t know how long our family has done this – it`s been forever. I started when I was very young,” says 68-year-old master weaver Ida Ayu Nyoman Asmani.

She explains that learning to create the fabrics used in wedding ceremonies, the filing of teeth and the three-month and six-month baby celebrations of the Hindu religious calendar are osmotic.

“We learn automatically. From a young age we help our mothers and grandmothers prepare the silk threads, going with them to the market to buy threads; by the time we are 20 we are ready to weave ourselves,” says Asmani.

She was lucky to be allowed to learn the weaving art from her maternal ancestors.

“During the Japanese occupation of Bali we were banned from weaving. The Japanese took our threads and our looms. I think they wanted us to lose our history. So our mothers and grandmothers continued to weave in secret,” explains head of the household I Wayan Murdhika.

The songket of Budha Keling is unique says Murdhika. “It is very light, the weft is very tight. Each sarong is weaved with 1,000 threads,” Sidemen songket is heavier, the silk threads a thicker gauge, he explains.

Setting the looms to weave 1,000 threads is tedious work, says Asmani. Each single thread is poked through a fine bamboo comb. “It can send you crazy,” laughs Asmani of the necessary chore.

The women of Griya Kawan weave not only dramatic gold and silk threaded lengths used to wrap female upper bodies for religious ceremonies, but also the humble cloth of yellow and white gingham, or green and blue tartan.

Their work is devout rather than entrepreneurial. “We don`t sell anywhere except from this house. The songket here is special - bought once in a lifetime. It`s not like songket in the markets. People come here and order their fabric. They know it will take two months to weave,” says Murdhika.

Motifs for the fabrics are designed at Griya Djelantik, some distance from Griya Kawan. Murdhika says designing songket motifs is a specialized art form, different again from the weaving.

“All our designs are traditional. The silk is bought at the market. In the past we bought white thread and colored it ourselves, but now we can buy it in many colors,” Murdhika says of the songket.

The songket can never be washed, explains Murdhika, “The colors run. No fixers are used in the dyeing, but these weavings are for ceremonies only, not for everyday.”

The heavy gold threaded lengths are sold for around Rp 300,000. A full wedding songket including a sash and sarong is worth Rp 2 million.

Up the road in Sidemen, 67-year-old Dutch textile artist, Reik Albronda, is working with local weavers to revitalize what she sees as an otherwise dying art.

“I saw the songket here and wanted one that I could wash. I couldn`t find one so I started working with the local women with natural dyes. I have been working with these dyes for the past 35 years in silks and wools back in Holland.

“The women weavers here are very proud of their work and are enjoying the natural dyeing techniques,” says Reik who exhibited the songket in Holland in an attempt to stimulate wider interest in the art form.

One of the weavers using natural dyes is Nengah who learned to weave from her mother. “I am now learning to make my own dyes from Reik. From the indigo plant in the garden I make blues, from betel nut we make the browns and for reds we use the lipstick plant and sapan wood,” says Nengah of some of the colorfast natural dyes being used in Sidemen.

She points out the dedication needed to both dye and weave cloth. “To make one sarong length from white thread to coloring and weaving takes at least three months,” says Nengah of her traditional art. Trisha Sertori

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com (30 April 2009)

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