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Home , Balinese textiles, Geringsing

FEATURE

AN ADVENTURE INTO TRADITIONAL BALINESE . BY STEPHANIE MEE LONG ago in a small village close to the sea, Bhatara Indra, even today villagers must marry within their own community the Creator gcl'd, was sitting in a tree admiring the moon and or be forced to li ve outside the protective walls of the vil lage. the stars. The divine beauty of the celestial bodies inspired But times have changed, and tourists are now welcome him to teach the women of the vi llage the meaning of the to visit Tenganan. In fact, visitors are enthusiastically stars and how to reproduce those messages in cloth. encouraged to enter the workshops and homes to learn about To this day, the women of Tenganan village continue the village's unique weaving techniques and to purchase to weave the same designs into sacred double single and double ikat cloths. known as , and the purity of these cloths is.believed I Wayan Sukardana is a native of Tenganan and a to have the power to protect against evil spirits and black custodian of culture who believes that tradition is exactly magic. what makes Tenganan and the geringsing cloths so valuable. Geringsing are perhaps the most intricate, revered and He says, "There are only four places in the world that famous of all , yet has no shortage of make cloth like this: Guatemala, India, Japan and Tenganan, cloths used for spiritual purposes. These textiles are called but the motifs in other places are different. Our motifs go beba/i, and they purify sacred spaces and protect against back hundreds of years, and every weaver knows all 12 motifs illness and evil spirits. by heart, so we don't need to write them down in books. From the black and white checked pa/eng cloths you Some people do experiment with new designs, but in general, see wrapped around shrines and trees to shiny silk we never change the motifs or techniques and the cotton and cloths used at weddings and tooth filings, and the geometric dyes are always natural." patterns of endek, textiles have long been an integral part of A typical geringsing features the colours red, white Balinese spirituality, and no Balinese Hindu would dare attend and black to represent the gods Brahma, Siwa, and Wisnu a ceremony or ritual without wearing some form of sacred respectively, and motifs include geometric maps of the village cloth. surrounded by hills and jungle, Wisnu's kn ife for protection, Traditionally, Balinese textiles were made by hand and madala-like patterns with interconnecting lines that using cotton and silk threads, age-old and weaving represent the balance and connection between humans and techniques, natural plant-based dyes and wooden looms. the gods. With the advent of tourism, people were gradually lured away Only the women in Tenganan can weave the complicated from the looms, and time-consuming dyeing and weaving patterns, because according to Wayan, "Men are impatient, processes were replaced with synthetic dyes and machine­ so they work too fast and the quality is not good". produced fabrics. The production of these cloths is by no means easy. The As you can imagine, many techniques that were women must take great care to maintain the correct tension traditionally passed down through the generations were of the threads on the loom and be sure that each weft and lost and the knowledge of particular motifs cast aside or warp thread is lined up perfectly One medium cloth can take forgotten. up to six months to produce. Not so in Tenganan . This ancient village was However, a large cloth around the size of a can wel l established long before the mass migration of command up to 25 million IDR. For an antique geringsing, the Hindus from Java to Bali, and the villagers here believe they sky is the limit, and there is certainly no shortage of demand are the descendants of those chosen by Bhatara Indra to tell for either new or antique geringsing. the story of the stars. Wayan says: "A lot of collectors come here to buy Until recently, Tenganan was not open to outsiders, and geringsing to put in museums or galleries, and we als o get

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35 FEATURE

.. many people who come to the village with tour guides to see In 1999, she began testing out different dye plants to try the double ikat textiles and how they are made. Many people to reproduce the bright colours that were used in the past. are so impressed that they buy one or two pi eces to take With the help of Threads of Life, she connected with dye home with them. experts from around the archipelago and began teaching "Sometimes we also do exhibitions, but we rarely sell songket patterns to the younger generation of wea vers geringsing in the market because it is too difficult to tell the in Sideman. After many years of experimentation and story there. Also, we almost never do custom orders because determination, Ayu has finall y succeeded in reintroducing the it takes too long to make one cloth. If someone wants a vibrant hues and complex songket designs that Sideman is special order, they must wait anywhere from six months to a once again famous for. year and they can only have a trad itional design." Another master of the dyes, Tjokorda Agung Pema yu n, The villagers of Tenganan are not the only ones who runs a workshop in Pejeng that uses only natural, are sticklers for tradition. According to William Ingram, organic indigo and plant-based brown dyes from his own co-founder and co-director of Threads of Life, a fair trade crops grown by local farmers on fallow rice fields. business that works to conserve and revitalise traditional Batik is made by drawing or stamping designs on cloth weaving techniques in , a well -travelled and well­ in wax, dyein g the cloth, and then boiling the wax off. The heeled sector of the Balinese population is fuelling a new process can be repeated many times for multi-co loured market for traditional bebali made in the old ways. textiles or left as is for dual toned pieces. "The new generation is now looking back to what their Peruse through the stalls in an y market here, and you parents abandoned and reclaiming their culture, or even would be forgiven for thinking that batik is at the heart of using traditional textiles as status symbols to show position," Balinese textiles. However, this dyeing technique actually he says. has its roots in Java. In fact, very few people in Bali actually "For example, 20 years ago, songket cloths were only make batik the traditional way, so Tjok Agung made a made and used by the Brahmana - people of the highest reconnaissance mission to central Ja va to learn the art. caste. But with the breakdown of the feudal system, these Today, his workshop (which is staffed mainly by women objects now mark status, so you see the strongest market from the village and surrounding areas) produces some of is wealthy Balinese buying songket for we ddings and other the finest examples of batik in Bali , made using the traditional ceremonial purposes." methods from Java and using only natural and sustainable William also alludes to the desire of many people in Bali materials. and other.parts of Indonesia to express and maintain their William predicts that the future of te xtiles in Indonesia identity through traditional cloths. wi ll go the same way as Japan , in that what yo u'll see is a "With the formation of the Republic of Indonesia, there small number of master producers supported by a small was a big push to de-emphasize ethnicity to create unity. number of patrons. While the prod_uction of material culture was supported and "Of course, that depends on economic development. On maintained, the actual spirit and ceremonial aspect of adat the production side, economics must work at a community (traditional) cloths was undermined. Now you find many level and sustainability is also a huge issue," he says . people who want to hold on to that ethnicity in the face of Although Threads of Life works diligently to conserve nationalism and commercialization." traditional techniques of weaving and dyeing, William While Threads of Life works with independent weaving also believes that evolution is not only inevitable but also cooperatives throughout Indonesia to protect and promote necessary. He says, "It's not for us to bring back meaning traditional weaving and dye ing techniques that are in danger to textiles. Our job is to let people decide what traditions to of vanishing, Bali is a different story. William says, "Here you keep alive and what to leave behind". see less weavers forming groups, and more entrepreneurs Whether it's the storytellers of the stars using the ancient with a cu ltural interest in conserving traditional techniques". designs of their ancestors, dedicated revivalists seeking Ida Ayu Puniari is a perfect example of this. Ayu was to preserve discarded motifs and techniques, or forward concerned that the women in Sideman-a small town thinkers appropriating arts from neighbouring islands located in the lush hills of Karangasem ha has long been a and working to promote natural and sustainable materials, it traditional centre for songket production- were abandoning seems that the people of Bali are indeed choosing their own natural colours and designs that they believed to be too meanings and creating a new generation of master textile elaborate or labour-intensive. producers who would make Bhatara Indra, himself, proud. ~