Legacy in Cloth Batak textiles of Indonesia

Legacy in clothBatak textiles of Indonesia

k i t l v p r e s s l e i d e n

2 0 0 9

Sandra Niessen

© 2009 Sandra A. Niessen

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted inany form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includingphotocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrievalsystem, without permission from the copyright owner.

isbn 978 90 6718 351 2

First published in 2009by kitlv PressP.O. Box 95152300 ra LeidenThe Netherlandswww.kitlv.nl

kitlv (Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian andCaribbean Studies) is an institute of the Royal NetherlandsAcademy of Arts and Sciences (knaw)

Design Marie-Cécile Noordzij-Pulles, HurwenenPrinted by Thoben Offset NijmegenBound by Van Waarden, ZaandamPublishing assistance: Bergoord Publishing

This publication was realized with the support of:– Netherlands organization for scientific research (nwo)– the Barbas-van der Klaauw Fund, managed by the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation

Printed in the Netherlands

Half title page Toba Batak pinunsaan Cat 7.2f; Detail.Early 20th century, ikat and supplementary warp patterning,natural blue and red dyes. Frontispiece Toba Batak simpar Cat 5.4b; Detail.Early 20th century, chevron ikat, natural red dye.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements 7

Introduction Cataloguing the Indonesian

Textile Arts: a Batak Contribution 13

Acronyms of Public Collections Consulted 23

Part i Design

Design Introduction 25

Design 1 Design Foundations 27

Design 2 Early Design History 45

Design 3 Modern Design History 65

Design 4 Nomenclature 89

Part ii Style Regions

Style Regions Introduction 105

Style Region 1 Samosir 107

Style Region 2 Simalungun 115

Style Region 3 Karo 123

Style Region 4 Si Tolu Huta 135

Style Region 5 Holbung/Uluan 143

Style Region 6 Silindung 155

Part iii Catalogue

Catalogue Introduction 169

Catalogue Table of Contents 173

Catalogue 1 The Blue Textiles 175

Catalogue 2 Warp Stripes without Ikat Embellishment 219

Catalogue 3 Stripes in Warp and Weft: The Batak Plaids 249

Catalogue 4 Stipple Ikat 263

Catalogue 5 Chevron Ikat 291

Catalogue 6 Lozenge-and-Cross Ikat 311

Catalogue 7 Weft Patterning 355

Catalogue 8 Foreign Textiles in the Batak Repertory 389

Catalogue 9 Selected Apparel and Accessory Items 397

Part iv Technique

Technique Introduction 413

Technique Table of Contents 415

Technique 1 Fibre and Yarn 417

Technique 2 Fibre and Yarn Preparation 421

Technique 3 Dyes and Dyeing 433

Technique 4 Warping and Warp Ikat 447

Technique 5 The Loom and Weaving 461

Technique 6 Decorative Warp 477

Technique 7 Decorative Weft 499

Technique 8 Finishing Techniques 519

Appendices

Appendix 1 Research Methods 535

Appendix 2 Technical Vocabulary 545

Maps 547

Bibliography 551

Index 559

fig. Acknowledgements 1 Loom used to weave the tumtuman Cat 7.3.Toba Uluan. 1986.

7

During a six-month tenure at the National Museum ofEthnology, Osaka, Japan, in 1992, I had undisturbed time towork on the text of this book, as well as logistical support ofevery kind.

I was delighted to be able to complete a draft of this volume in2001 at the Banff Centre in Alberta, under the auspices of theirSelf-directed Writing Program.

Rudolph Zwamborn of Lotus Studio, Edmonton, Canada, andIrene de Groot in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, took the bulk ofthe studio photographs. Ben Bekooy and Koichi Nishimuraprovided others. Thomas Murray, Mary Jane Leland, PamelaCross, Lesley Pullen, Georges Breguet and Mary Hunt-Kahlenberg, loaned me studio photographs of textiles in theirown collections. Herman Bloem of Thoben Offset, Nijmegen,applied the innovative strategy of scanning textiles to yieldhigh-quality detail images for the book. Bob Gale, BeatrizPremselaar, Bill Rice, Ria Lumbantobing, Erna Lohuis, IngridMathew, Robert Visser and Martha and Bunga Sirait helped bysharing photographs and textiles in their collections. Archivalphotographs were obtained from many of the museums listedbelow. The diagrams were done by Marie-Cécile Noordzij-Pulles. Leia Gillespie, Linda Turner, Heide Leigh-Theisen, MariaChristou loaned assistance.

My debt to Rita Bolland is enormous for her guidance while Icollected, and later analyzed the technical weaving informationin North Sumatra, and to Sandra Fearon for her expert review ofPart iv. Rita died suddenly in 2006; my regret is deep that I wasnever able to show her the finished book. Sander Adelaar, TimBabcock, Susan Berry, Nancy Kerr, Edward Edwards-McKinnon,Lynne Milgram and Loan Oei assisted with other parts of thetext. I received editing assistance from Deborah Tout-Smith,George Pitcher, Pamela A. Cross, Meg Taylor, Grace Fairley andRuth Chernia. Peer reviewers offered valuable suggestions forimproving the text.

Museum research has been a major component of thispublication and the assistance that I have received frommuseum personnel has been indispensable to my project. Iwould like to extend my thanks to: Tropenmuseum,

Acknowledgements

This book has been a long time in the making. Over the years,many people and institutions have generously loaned theirassistance.

The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of TropicalResearch (zwo-wotro) funded the project (1985–87) with apost-doctoral research grant. The late Professor P.E. de Josselinde Jong, then still at the State University of Leiden, gave it hisunstinting support. On this grant, I was able to conduct themuseum research and the first stage of field research. It tookplace in 1986 under the auspices of lipi, the IndonesianInstitute of Sciences, and with the sponsorship of Universitashkbp Nommensen in Medan, North Sumatra. Rector F. AmudiPasaribu, was more than generous in fulfilling his side of theagreement.

From 1988 until 1990, I was the grateful recipient of an IsaakWalton Killam Post-doctoral Research Fellowship in theDepartment of Clothing and Textiles at the University ofAlberta. During the period of tenure of this second grant, I wasable to visit North American museums and also to sift throughand collate the data I had collected. A third research grant fromthe Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada(sshrc) (1988–90) allowed me to make another short trip toIndonesia in 1990 to fill in gaps in the data. A small CentralResearch Fund Operating Grant from the University of Albertain 1988–89 supplied the resources to put together a publisher’sproposal. Two grants from the Small Faculties Fund at theUniversity of Alberta paid for some of the studio photography,computer drawings, map production and incidentals.

In The Netherlands, the staff of the Royal Institute ofLinguistics and Anthropology (kitlv) in Leiden was alwayshelpful; the library and archives of that same institution wereunsurpassed for my needs. I also profited from being able toconsult the library of the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdamand the National Archives (Rijksarchief) in The Hague.

At the University of Alberta, ongoing research was feasiblebecause of the excellent interlibrary loan facility. I am gratefulto Linda Turner, Dick Woolner, and Susan Hunter for theirassistance with illustrations and maps.

Amsterdam, especially Rita Bolland, Koos van Brakel, and Irenede Groot; Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Switzerland; StaatlicheMuseen Prüssischer Kulturbesit, Museum für Völkerkunde,Berlin, Germany; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, usa; MuseumNusantara, Delft, The Netherlands; especially Rita Wassing-Visser; Museon, The Hague, The Netherlands; Museo di StoriaNaturale, sezione di Antropologia, Florence, Italy; Museum derWeltkulturen, Frankfurt, Germany; Volkenkundig Museum‘Gerardus van der Leeuw,’ Groningen, The Netherlands,Hamburgisches Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg,Germany; Musium Nasional, Jakarta, Indonesia; Rauten -strauch-Joest Museum für Völkerkunde, Cologne, Germany,especially Brigitte Kahn Majlis; Deutsches Textile Museum,Krefeld, Germany; Gemeentelijk Museum het Princessehof,Leeuwarden, The Netherlands; Rijksmuseum voor Volken -kunde, Leiden, The Netherlands, especially Jan Avé and Pieterter Keurs; Museum of Mankind, London, England; StaatlichesMuseum für Völkerkunde, Munich, Germany; Museum voorLand- en Volkenkunde, now Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, TheNetherlands; Museum of Anthropology, University of BritishColumbia, Vancouver, Canada; Museum für Völkerkunde,Vienna, Austria, especially Heide Leigh-Theisen; AmericanMuseum of Natural History in New York; Textile Museum,Washington; Vereinte Evangelische Mission in Wuppertal-Barmen, Germany; and Bronbeek Museum, Arnhem, TheNetherlands. It is my hope that the information contained inthis book will in some measure repay the confidence, manyfavours, support and kindness I received at these museums.

It is also my hope that this book will be able to return to theBatak homelands — albeit in published form — some of thetextiles collected during the twentieth century. During mysojourn in Indonesia, every day was filled with meetings anddiscussions with weavers, textile sellers, yarn suppliers, dyersand people knowledgeable in the area of ritual. The followinglist acknowledges with gratitude just some of the people whograciously extended to me their time, patience, hospitality andknowledge.

In the Silindung Valley: boru Marpaung Ny Siahaan; Ina andAma ni Ganda Hutagalung; Ina and Ama ni Risma Hutagalung;Nai Maria boru Hutabarat, Ny. Panggabean; Ompu ni EsterHutagalung; Linda boru Hutagalung, Ny. Situmeang; Rose boruHutagalung; Jon Hutagalung of Linda’s Ulos Fashion; Nai RatnaSiagian; boru Hutabarat, Ny. Tobing of Sait ni Huta; boruTobing, Ny Hutabarat; boru Pardede, Ny. Tobing; NaiRumintang, boru Hutagalung, Ny. Manurung; boruSitumorang, Ny. Hutagalung; boru Manik, Ny. Naibaho; boru

Tupang, Ny. Hutagalung; boru Panggabean, Ny. Hutagalung;boru Hutagalung, Ny. Simorangkir; Nai Bulang, boruHutabarat, Ny. Tobing; boru Simanungkalit, Ny. Hutabarat;boru Tobing, Ny. Nainggolan; boru Hutabarat, Ny.Lumbantobing, boru Pasaribu of Sait ni Huta; Nai Arta, boruSimatupang, Ny. M. Sihombing; Henry Hutabarat; Ny.Simanungkalit of Pea Raja; boru Nambela, Ny. Tobing; OmpuTohap Lumbantobing of Parbubu; Ompu ni Pesta, boru Tobingof Sitompul; Nai Gindo, boru Hutabarat of Lumban Pinasa;Ompu Harold, boru Silitonga, Ny. Hutagalung; boru Nambela,Ny. Hutagalung; boru Tobing, Ny. Simunjuntak; TobaTampubolon; Ompu Simangihut, boru Marpaung, Ny.Tampubolon; Elly Siagian of Tarutung; Zilla Monna Siagian; andNery Siagian. A special thanks is due to all of my fellow villagersin Hutagalung where I resided for several weeks.

In Toba: Ompu Mangihut, Ny. Tampubolon; Ompu Pahala,boru Tobing, Ny. Simbolon; Raja Gomal Sinambela; A.Butarbutar of Porsea; W. Tambun of Porsea; Nai Basa, boruSiagian, Ny. Simatupang; boru Sitorus, Ny. Sirait (Ompu SiMasta) textile seller from Laguboti; boru Manurung, Ny.Napitupulu; S. O. Sibarani of Laguboti; Ompu Risma, boruSianipar, Ny. Pardede; boru Panjaitan of Lumban Sitorang;‘Ompung Tampubolon’ of Tampubolon; Ompu Simangihut,boru Marpaung of Tampubolon; W. Tambun of Lumban Julu;the twiners of Pintu Bosi in Kec. Laguboti; boru Panjaitan ofHuta Lumban Saba, Lumban Julu; the family of Ama ni PaungPardede, Balige; Mutiara boru Napitupulu, Ny. OscarHutabarat, and her son Sebastian, of Balige; Ompu Senti boruSirait, Ny Manurung of Jangga Dolok, boru Tambunan whobrings textiles from Pematang Siantar to sell in Balige, Porseaand Tebing Tinggi. Figure Acknowledgements.2 depictsweavers in Muara with whom I spent some time.

In Pakpak, Raja Salomo Ujung and Fatimah, boru Lembong,resident in Sidikalang were generous hosts.

In Si Tolu Huta, I relied on J.D. Munthe and boru Munthe, inTongging and in Silalahi: Ina and Ama ni Hormat Silalahi; boruMunthe, Ny. Silalahi; Ompu Si Olo, boru Munthe, Ny. Silalahi;and Nai Iwan, boru Silalahi, Ny. Simarmata.

In Samosir: boru Situmorang, Ny. Nai Baho from LumbanSuhisuhi; boru Nainggolan from Pangururan; boru Tanggang,boru Sinaga, and boru Situmorang all from Nainggolan; boruHite from Mogang; Pak Simbolon from Simbolon; boru Purba,Ny. Sitohang; Ompu Horas, boru Hutabarat from Tomok;Ompu Togi, boru Mandalahi, Ny. Sitanggang and RajaSitanggang from Polma Enterprises, Panompangan; boruSilalahi, Ny. Sidauruk and Amang Adir from Simanindo; Nai

a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s8

Mangantar, boru Manik from Janji Maria; boru Saragih fromMogang; R.G. Sinambela from Lumban Raja, Bangkara; andboru Giro, Ompu ni Kristen from Panompangan.

In Karo, from Kaban Jahe: three indigo dyers, Nande Indra,Nande Pulung and Nande Peringitten; Haji Sibayak, RajaSungkunan Ginting Suka; Si Ukur boru Simbiring, KembrahanSuka, Lena boru Tanggang. In Desa Kuala: boru Sebayang, Ny.Ginting.

In Simalungun: Nai Hotlin, Roslina Purba, her husband andsix children from Talasari, K.N. boru Sinaga, Ny Purba fromSipanggu, Tiga Runggu; Ned and Johanna Purba from SondiRaya; boru Saragih-Geringging from Sondi Raya; Esteria, boruPurba and Lertiana boru Purba from Negori Tongah; Mamak SiSirita, boru Lalahi from Simpang Naga Panei; Dr. and Ny.Sarmedi Purba, and boru Manik from Pematang Siantar.

In Medan: Vera Aminuddin, boru Tobing; Nai Bob, Ny.Hutabarat, boru Situmorang; Ny. Sidabutar, boru Situmorang;Ny. Sinaga, boru Hombing; Ny. A. Situmorang, boru Sihotang;Masna, boru Tambunan, Ny. Siregar; and the weavers fromSampali, Jl. Pancing, especially Dina boru Lumbangaol, NySinabariba.

In Jakarta: boru Siahaan, Ny. Sigalingging; Dr. PoltakHutagalung; Martha Sirait of Martha Ulos.

In Minangkabau: Ny. Ida Fauzi from Payakumbuh, and PakAliuner Singkuang from Kubang.

With pleasure I acknowledge the following friends andcolleagues who have helped in the production of this book inother ways: Professor T.O. Ihromi, Didi Karni, Jaap Erkelens,Margaretha Dirkzwager, Daniel van der Meulen, Mrs.Waldemar Stöhr, the late Grietje Wolff, Sitor Situmorang, thelate Petrus Voorhoeve and Pater H. Promés — both of whom werealways generous with their Batak archives, Ron and Han Swart,Dolorosa Sinaga, Toeti, Fritz and Ari Kakiailatu, Zr. NuriaGultom, Zr. Sitiawan Hutahaean and Zr. Bonaria Hutabarat fromBalige, the late Roswitha Pamoentjak, Dr. ReinhartTampubolon, Luckman Sinar, Judith Hofenk-de Graaf, MelissaRinne, Keiko Kawashima, Ken Kuwahara, Jan van Bremen, thelate Paulina Hutabarat, Vera Tiodara, boru Situmorang, andRobert Voskuil.

The publishing process was a joy due to the professionalismand skill of the book’s designer, Marie-Cécile Noordzij-Pulles,and the co-operation and support of Thoben Offset Printersand the Director of kitlv Press, Harry Poeze. Guus de Vries andPamela Cross gave their considered and welcome advice atpoints when the process threatened to overwhelm me.Publishing grants from The Netherlands Organization for

Scientific Research (nwo) and the Prins BernhardCultuurfonds made it all possible.

The last years of intensive work were only possible becauseof the boundless support and patience of Jan Hofstede whowas determined that I bring this lengthy undertaking to aconclusion. I hope that he will now enjoy his well-earnedrespite from what I took to calling ‘The Endless Tome’.

Sandra NiessenOosterbeek 2009

a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s 9

a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s10

fig. Acknowledgements 2 Weavers in Muara.1986.

a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s 11

fig. Introduction 1 Motif in the end field of the Toba simpar Cat 5.4.

Joseph Fischer pointed out in 1979 that knowledgeabout Indonesian artisanship was ‘still at an inchoatestage’ 1979b:339. He was writing at the onset of animportant new phase in Indonesian textile studies.His catalogue entitled Threads of Tradition 1979aappeared in the same year as Gittinger’s SplendidSymbols: Textiles and Tradition in Indonesia 1979a.1

Gittinger organized a symposium for researchers ofIndonesian textiles to coincide with the publicationand exhibition. The events brought Indonesiantextiles into the public eye, and researchers andaficionados/collectors into contact with each other.The symposium proceedings Gittinger 1979b includedthe first review of North American museumholdings of Indonesian textile collections. Theoccasion was one of taking stock of what had beenaccomplished, and constructing a vision of what stillneeded to be done. Fischer pleaded for

contemporary research that would focus on field studies ofartisans in relation to their cultures and on systematicsurveys of museum and private collections throughout theworld. Some of this has already begun, but it is often thenature of such efforts that they are too piecemeal, tooinfrequently a result of scholarly collaboration, and tooseldom a reflection of needed and careful researchpractices Fisher 1979b:339.

I agree with Fischer’s assessment. However, it isimportant to recognize the progress that had alreadybeen made by the time Fischer put pen to paper. TheEnglish-language literature was building on acentury of inquiry by European scholars.

The Dutch avidly documented the wealth of theirAsian colony. At first indigenous textile productioninterested them because they wished to corner thesame markets. When it became clear that

1 Fischer’s catalogue accompanied an exhibition in the Lowie Museum ofAnthropology and the University ArtMuseum in Berkeley, California;Gittinger’s catalogue accompanied anexhibition at The Textile Museum inWashington, DC.

13

Introduction

Cataloguing the Indonesian Textile Arts:

A Batak Contribution

Taking stock

Indonesian textiles constitute a spectacular diversity of design, technique and material. They

are distributed over an archipelago comprising approximately 15,000 islands and hundreds

of social, cultural and linguistic groups. The challenge in writing about Indonesian textiles is

the familiar one of approaching the ethnographic Other, of translating and interpreting

accurately and responsibly across cultural boundaries. To write about Indonesian textiles is

inevitably, whether implicitly or explicitly, to impose some kind of order on the body of

material. Texts about Indonesian textiles can be read both for what they reveal about the

unknown and what they reveal about the interests of the person/culture conducting the

inquiry Clifford 1988. The descriptions need to fall within the intellectual frameworks of the

inquiring culture(s) if they are to be of any use at all. However, to convey as much as possible

about the artefacts, they also need to respect and somehow convey the intellectual frame-

works of the culture(s) hosting the inquiry. The museum professional who catalogues the

objects meets the same challenge.

indigenous production could no longer compete with externalindustrial production, more scholarly interest was sparked forthe now vulnerable Indonesian textile arts. Some were studiedby colonial officials, missionaries and others stationed in far-flun g corners of the Netherlands East Indies. Other work wasdone by researchers in Europe who had access to Indonesiantextile collections. At the beginning of the twentieth century,these collections were still growing rapidly Niessen 1991b. Such awealth of early writings exists that it is impossible to review allof it in an introductory chapter.

Notable, however, is the early focus on the physical aspects ofthe textiles and how they were made. J.A. Loebèr Jr. was one ofthe first to take stock of that literature, and of the textiles in thearchipelago. He worked with the collections of the ColonialMuseum (Koloniaal Museum) in Haarlem (now housed in theTropenmuseum, Amsterdam) and also consulted a vast numberof documents about the textiles of the Netherlands East Indies.He surveyed the processes of Indonesian textile productionbeginning with the fibre used, and ending with the finishingtouches put to the cloth Loebèr 1901, 1902, 1903, 1914. The looms andtechniques were so different from those familiar to Europeansthat certain basic terms and their meanings had to be agreedupon. De Lorm 1938:87, for example, noted that the Malay wordikat was first applied in Dutch in 1901. Similarly, the Malayterms batik and plangi were borrowed. Excellent, detailed andgroundbreaking, Loebèr’s surveys belong in the same class asJ.E. Jasper’s publication on the Indonesian weaving artsillustrated by Mas Pirngadie 1912. Jasper, a civil administratorwho occupied various posts in the colonial regime, collectedand collated detailed information from the entire archipelago.His systematic enquiry has become a foundational classic in theIndonesian textile literature.

These foundations have engendered specific, deeperenquiries. B.M. Goslings, for example, could look at ‘theimplications of the insertion of the comb in the Indonesianloom’ 1922. Rita Bolland was able to explore cultural-historicalreasons why two different kinds of looms were used on Bali andLombok 1971b. Nettleship 1970 had sufficient data to traceantecedents of the Indonesian loom to China. Based onlinguistic analysis, Robert Blust could argue ‘that the originalAustronesian speakers (c.4000 bce) were sedentary villagerswho possessed … probably the loom’ 1976: 43.

Since 1979, Indonesian textile scholars have met several moretimes, each meeting resulting in published proceedings Gittinger1979b; Völger and von Welck 1991; Nabholz-Kartaschoff et al. 1993. In thesecompendia, the boundary between survey and single-culture

description blurs. While consisting for the most part of specificstudies, the published proceedings in themselves constitutesurveys of a particular kind. They take stock not just of thetextiles, but also of the scholarship used to acquire knowledgeabout them.

Roy Hamilton observed that the Indonesian textile literaturehas tended to be either detailed ethnographic, single-culturedescription or broader in scope and more general in nature1994:12. It is clear that the two approaches are complementary,each gaining from, and contributing to, the other. Hamilton,however, wished to emphasize the merits of regional enquiry.Regional studies, he claimed, would allow for ‘more detailedinvestigation, while at the same time, especially in ethnicallydiverse areas such as Flores, promoting productivecomparisons among the textiles of neighboring ethnic groups’1994:12. The popularity of studies of this scope has increased e.g.Hauser-Schäublin et al., 1991; Yeager and Jacobson, 1996; 2002. They arealso indicative of the growing number of researchers ofIndonesian textiles, and the availability of in-depth studies thatmake comparisons within a more limited geographic regionworthwhile.

Hamilton’s stated preference for surveys of greater scholarlydepth may have been, in part, a reaction to the methods ofapproach used in some of the extensive surveys. (Thepreference of publishers for more general works to appeal to ageneral audience is a factor not to be discounted.) Ruth Barneshas also been critical of ‘studies in Indonesian textiles [that]have focused too exclusively on the spectacular cloths’ 1989:1.Nevertheless, the success of some enquiries of very broad scopesupports a counter-argument that breadth of geographic scopeand depth of scholarship are not necessarily inversely related.In a work that has become an important classic, Alfred Bühlertraced the origin and distribution of the ikat technique 1942,

1972. His subsequent research on the design and technique ofdouble ikat patola from Gujarat, India, and their influencethroughout Southeast Asia 1959, 1979 is a highlight of bothdescription and comparison. Robin Maxwell’s Textiles ofSoutheast Asia 1990 is another accomplishment of tremendousreach. The book constitutes a review of how the tides of cultureinfluence that swept through the archipelago over the course ofthousands of years left their mark in cloth design andproduction techniques. Both surveys are supported by extensivespecific scholarship. Both works advance Indonesian textilescholarship considerably. Their significance is due, in part, tothe appropriateness of the scope of the research to the topicstreated.

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s14

Hamilton’s preference for smaller regional comparisons invitesfurther reflection. What he calls a regional approach is not new.In Sprekende Weefsels (Telling Textiles) 1952, Johannes JagerGerlings explored some of the advantages of regionalcomparison in Indonesian textile scholarship. His study wasunique in that he did not focus on a ‘coherent weaving region,’but rather pulled together information and collections from theDayak, Toraja, Sangihe and Talaud. …in the area treated here, such a variety is found as to include almostall weaving and decorative techniques that are applied in Indonesia …I hope then also, that despite, and maybe because of, its regionalrestrictions my study shall be of use for the analysis of weaving andtextiles of other Indonesian ethnic groups 1952:7.

Clearly, how ‘region’ is defined is critical to evaluatingHamilton’s recommendation for regional studies.

With no ultimate criteria or discriminating terminology todistinguish a region from a sub-region, a sub-sub-region, or asuper-regional composite, it is possible to make the claim thatpan-Indonesian surveys are also regional studies. This claimwas made by Dutch scholars in the 1930s. Ethnographers withinwhat has become known to the English-speaking world as theLeiden School2 of anthropology Fox 1980:1 proposed that theNetherlands East Indies be considered a Field of Ethnological(later Anthropological) Study (fes/fas). They considered thearchipelago to be one of the ‘areas of the earth’s surface with apopulation whose culture appears to be sufficientlyhomogeneous and unique to form a separate object ofethnological study, and which at the same time apparentlyreveals sufficient local shades of differences to make internalcomparative research worth while’ J.P.B.Josselin de Jong 1983:167–8.The Dutch ethnographers first highlighted themes ofindigenous social organization which, as they discovered, werefound in variation throughout the archipelago. Laterethnographers expanded the number of themes that could befruitfully compared P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1984.

I proposed that Indonesian textiles be considered a candidatetheme for comparative study Niessen 1984, 1985a. At the time, Iwas interested in the correspondence between beliefs abouttextiles and social organization as described by Leiden scholars.It is evident, for example, that by and large textiles throughoutthe archipelago are classified indigenously as ‘female’, aclassification rooted in the Indonesian type of social structurebased on asymmetric marriage exchange and double unilinealdescent. This insight has engendered scholarly enquiry into theway the ritual giving of cloth demarcates social structure e.g. Fox

1980. In a wider comparative reach, the conceptual ‘femaleness’of cloth that has been noted in various places around the worldcan be compared and contrasted with the Indonesian variantNiessen 1984.

While Indonesian textile scholars have not explicitly adoptedthe strategies and goals of Leiden anthropologists, we grapplewith parallel challenges in comparing textile traditions.Defining regional levels and fruitful themes of comparativetextile analysis are two such challenges. In many ways, however,our challenges are distinct. As cultural artefacts, textiles haveunique characteristics. Their physical features (design, materialand production techniques) are cases in point. As I have notedabove, these features, the primary focus of the present volume,have been a most rewarding as well as universally accessibleentry to explore this cultural phenomenon. Nevertheless,material qualities are too often ignored in the logocentricdomain of Western knowledge production Niessen 1994,although their study has much to contribute to the broaderenquiry into cultural phenomena.

A standard approach to describing and comparing textiletraditions of the entire archipelago has never been developed.The material is varied, and regions and traditions appear toinspire tailor-made approaches. I have already pointed to thesuccess of a broad regional study of ikat, and an analysis ofIndonesian textile design and technique as exhibiting foreignculture influences. Other studies, which have a narrower regionof focus, demonstrate the value of alternative approaches.Brigitte Hauser-Schäublin et al. 1991 found it useful to organizethe study of Balinese cloth by design type. Rens Heringa andHarmen Veldhuisen developed ‘batik formats’ as an organizingprinciple to facilitate ‘the ’reading‘ of batiks, which at firstglance may seem to comprise a welter of motifs and colors’1997:84. Traude Gavin 1996; 2003 found pattern to be the mostuseful point of entry for understanding the diversity of Ibanfabrics in Borneo. Textile themes, depending on their nature,may be conducive to intercultural comparison of broader ornarrower scope. Clearly, however, it is time to take stock not justof the findings that our approaches have yielded, but of theapproaches themselves and their potential for application toprojects of vaster comparative scope.

2 P.E. de Josselin de Jong has argued against the characterization of Leidenanthopology as a ‘school’ 1983 [1977]:9,

15, pointing out that the ethnographicfacts have always been more informativeof the anthropological findings than acommon training program or a grandtheory. The latter did not exist.

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s 15

About the present project

The Batak are an agricultural people inhabiting the northernpart of Sumatra, the westernmost island of the vast Indonesianarchipelago. Their territory is located between Aceh to the northand northwest, Minangkabau to the south, and Malaysettlements along the east and west coasts. The Bukit Barisanmountain range runs the length of the territory and the relativeisolation of the Batak people from Europeans – until the end ofthe nineteenth century – has been attributed to the ruggednessof the terrain. On the east side of the island, the mountainsdescend to a vast alluvial plain; on the west side, the plain isconsiderably narrower. The highlands are broken by grassyplains, volcanic peaks and mountain valleys, but most notablyby a large and deep lake, an ancient volcanic crater. SamosirIsland in the middle of Lake Toba is the uplifted floor of thecaldera. The variety of terrain and climate has fosteredregionally specific cultural adaptations. The Batak comprise sixtribes: Karo, Dairi/Pakpak, Simalungun, Toba, Angkola andMandailing Map 1, with much regional variation in each. Whiledistinguished by language and tradition, the groups are alsounited by profound and fundamental social and historicalcommonalities, forming as it were, a nested field ofanthropological study with patterns of unity and diversitycomparable to what is found throughout the entire archipelago.

This volume takes into account only the textiles that originatefrom the regions around Lake Toba, including Karo,Simalungun and Toba Batak, and a small segment of Dairi (SiTolu Huta) Map 1. I refer to the corpus of textiles from this regionas the ‘Lake Toba tradition’. It comprises a significant repertoryof more than 100 textile design types (Toba ulos; Karo uwis;Simalungun hiou) according to the classification systemdeveloped for this volume.

For as long as there have been historical records, it appearsthat the Toba Batak have had pre-eminence over the othergroups in the weaving arts Joustra 1910, and also that the Toba artspredominate in the Lake Toba territory. If linguistic and culturalanalyses are accurate, both the Simalungun and the Si Tolu HutaBatak have branched off from the Toba and the foundations oftheir craft are Toba. Furthermore, the earliest phase of weavingdevelopment in the region appears to be common to both theToba and the Karo. In other words, an ancient cultural unitybinds the region.

The repertory of textiles made in the region has bothconsiderable coherence and considerable diversity. Some of theelements of that coherence are found in the textile traditions of

neighbouring regions with which there have been centuries oftrade contact. Reviewing Sumatran textiles, one perceivesgraduations in design themes whereby the only obviousconclusion is that any assignation of style region boundariesmust be a heuristic and thematic choice. The diversity withinthe Lake Toba region itself is considerable. On what grounds,then, have I drawn the boundaries around the Lake Toba regionas the site of textile analysis for this study? This geo-culturalentity has no precedent in the succession of political divisionsthat have been recognized since the colonial era, and it is alsoabsent from the ethnographic literature. I have not made theselection of a Lake Toba textile region a priori, however, but onthe evidence of textile design, technique and history.

Granted, the focus on Batak textiles constitutes an a priorichoice. This choice made the decision to exclude the regions ofAceh and Minangkabau an obvious one. Despite some sharedfeatures, the textiles from these regions are qualitativelydifferent in material, design and technique. The morechallenging decisions have related to the Batak boundaryregions. The textiles in Gayo and Alas – sometimes consideredBatak, sometimes Acehnese – show strong similarities withBatak textiles and the regions share many textiles throughtrade. Furthermore, the Karo, with respect to some languageand culture features, have more in common with their northernneighbours than with the other Batak groups. It would makesense to explore the textiles from this northern region as adistinct tradition. Circumstances are comparable at thesouthern end of the Batak territory. Mandailing and AngkolaBatak textiles exhibit many features of transition and cross-fertilization between Batak and Minang kabau. Here, too,linguists have grouped the Toba together with these southerngroups, as distinct from the northern Batak languages Voorhoeve1955:9. Indonesian textile traditions are not mutually exclusive,but overlapping. The validity of including these boundaryregions in the present study is logical, and in futurecomparative research is likely to be rewarding, but practical andcircumstantial factors have also informed the selection of thepresent research focus. The Lake Toba region has been wellstudied, and the textile data from this area are relativelyextensive and accessible. For the purposes of the present study,the inclusion of the peripheral regions, while valid, would havebeen unwieldy.

I settled on the boundaries of the Lake Toba textile traditionwhen it became clear, from historical analysis, that theenormous flat surface of the lake situated in roughmountainous terrain had facilitated connections among the

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s16 Introduction

peoples around its shores for millennia in such a way as to serveas a crucible for the sharing of design and technique. Therepertory provides evidence of an ancient core of design andtechnical features. On these grounds, the design themes typicalof this region have been given research precedence and theoutlying northern and southern Batak areas have peripheralstatus in the present analysis.

In vast Batak areas, such as Pakpak/Dairi and Habinsaran,populations use the fruits of Batak looms, but do not weave.This posed another challenge to establishing the researchboundaries. Furthermore, changes in the distribution ofweaving have taken place. Weaving appears to have been morewidespread in the past than it was during the period offieldwork for this volume. The final selection of design corpusand research site reflects the central goal of this volume toexamine design and technique relative to each other. This, too,was not an a priori decision, but based on a significant featureof Batak textile culture. Only those areas where the techniquesare still practised, or for which there are good records ofweaving, are included in the present analysis. The regionswhere weaving has ceased, or has never been practised, falloutside its scope.

Establishing the internal boundaries of style divisionspresents challenges comparable to those faced whenestablishing the external boundaries of the Lake Toba textileregions. The distribution of textile design types has changedthrough time; new types have emerged and others have beenphased out. In addition to what I refer to as the centrifugal pullof the lake that has given coherence to the region’s textiles, thecentripetal pull from regions further afield has encourageddifferentiation within the territory. In addition, the sheerdistance from one end of the lake to the other has encouragedlocal developments and specializations in textile design andtechnique. If the external boundaries of the Lake Toba textiletradition reflect the centrifugal forces, the six style divisionsthat I have identified within the territory on the basis ofrepertories of design and technique see Part ii reflect thecentripetal forces.

While this study concerns Batak textiles exclusively, andrepresents a whole of some coherence, as a regional study itincorporates variety as found in numerous Batak sub-regionsand sub-sub-regions. The challenges experienced in developinga way to present the diversity of Batak cloth in this publishedform have meant that this volume is simultaneously anexploration of textile classification and an experiment in layingout a strategy for future comparison of classification systems.

Some of the challenges will be met again when comparing thetextiles from neighbouring ethnic groups or even farther afield.The present analysis presents possible themes for futurecomparative study.

A complete inventory

This catalogue raisonné has been assembled on the convictionthat Indonesian textile scholarship is still limited by the scarcityof detailed information on the full range of indigenous textileswithin the various traditions of the archipelago. Were detailedinventories of each tradition available, this would enable deeperenquiry into the distribution, diffusion and invention ofdesign, technique, nomenclature and social function of thecloths, and of weaver responses to social change and culturecontact. This is one reason, therefore, why the present cataloguehas been constructed to include all Batak textiles, from thefanciest and most elite to the everyday, and even those locallyconsidered by the Batak to be too insignificant to ritual processto deserve a name. It incorporates a wide temporal range fromthe earliest known (collected and written about) to those cutfrom the loom and sold on the market while the research forthis volume was being conducted.

Semiotically, this makes good sense. The value of each textilein the Batak repertory is relative to the value of all of the othermembers of the set. Knowledge of the full repertory is requisiteto understanding the significance of each of its components.Pending the completed documentation of numerous fullrepertories of textiles, future Indonesian textile scholarship willsurely involve comparison of the organizing principles ofrepertories.

The goal of documenting the full repertory of Batak textiles isnot unprecedented. While most museum collections arehaphazard assemblages from the legacies of many casualcollectors, a handful of serious early collectors tried to gatherone of every design type available in their time (e.g. H. N. van derTuuk, J. E. Jasper and Tassilo Adam whose collections are housedin the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam; and Dr. JohannesWinkler, the post-war remains of whose collection are stillfound in the Museum für Völkerkunde in Hamburg). Thistheme emerges more prominently in North Sumatra wherethere have been numerous small inventories published locallyin the Batak region, many by museums and exhibitors of thetextiles e.g. Aneka Ragam Ulos Adat… 1981, Aneka Ragam Ulos Adat… 1985,Laporan Penyelenggaraan Pameran, n.d., Marbun u.p., Siahaan 1983/84. Thepresent volume has a broader scope than these works, and a

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s 17Introduction

longer temporal framework including the modern period, butmy scholarly debt to these earlier endeavours is considerable,and I have consulted them extensively.

In 1979, during my first period of fieldwork in North Sumatra,

I was concerned about the loss of old Batak textile types. Myconcerns had been informed by writings dating from early inthe twentieth century mourning the decline of the dignified,ancient Indonesian textile heritage e.g. Visser 1918/1919. To besure, I did learn in North Sumatra that several textile types wereno longer being made and that many had even faded frommemory. But I also learned that a formidable store ofsophisticated skill and knowledge about Batak textiles was stillvibrantly alive, and that there was also textile invention. Idiscerned that the greatest inhibitors to the vitality of Bataktextiles were an economic climate that often discouragedweavers from making the best textiles of which they werecapable, and the profound loss of old textile types (often sold tomeet a need for cash) which could serve as sources of designinspiration and technical guidance Niessen 1992a, 1993b.

A persistent Western bias against modern Batak textiles is afactor in this neglect. The bias is a function of a false historicismthat honours a past era of presumed authentic productionabove production that betrays any sign of modern Westerninfluence. In addition to playing out in museums and galleries,this bias has served the pocketbooks of North Sumatranweavers exceedingly poorly because their work is consideredsecond-rate and cannot command the prices of the ‘authentic’old pieces. Nevertheless, the Batak textile tradition is alive andstill shaping itself today precisely because it is able toaccommodate external social and economic influences. This hasalways been the key to the survival of the art form Niessen 2003.Modern textiles are therefore integral to the compendiumdocumented in this study.

During the course of the research for the present publication, Ibegan to perceive a salvage function for the catalogue that couldmeet the needs of Batak weavers. Many weavers were excited bythe photographs of old museum cloths that I had brought withme from Europe. They asked for copies so that they could have arecord of the designs depicted. During photoelicitationinterviews Appendix 1, I learned which photographs were themost helpful to weavers. They needed to see the layout of thewhole cloth, as well as fine details such as the colour sequencingof the warp and weft yarns. This awareness subsequentlyinformed the way I assembled illustrations for the presentcatalogue. It had become a priority for this book to be useful inreturning, in photographic form, some of the Batak textile

heritage to North Sumatra. As Fischer noted, ‘True preservationsurely has something to do with maintaining and promotingthe art in its context’ 1979:347. It is not just about museumstorage of textiles and written documentation. The prohibitivecost of this publication is a challenge to be faced to ensure itsdistribution in North Sumatra.

From the outset, this project has been conceived as an aid tomuseums and to scholars of museum collections. A completedocumented repertory would enable museums, researchers andthe interested public to evaluate their own Batak textileholdings in terms of completeness of the collection, textilevariety and quality, and accuracy of their documentation. Itwould also assist collectors to develop collection priorities. Thisvolume is a compendium of documented textile types that alsoexplains the logic of their indigenous classification. Collectionscholars, all of whom are faced with the challenge of fittingindigenous objects into an exogenous, standard system ofclassification, may use this volume to develop an under -standing of individual cloth types, as well as the tradition as asystemic whole. Because it represents a composite of manycollections, both public and private, it should have value for allmuseums with Batak textile holdings.

Limitations of the research

Having just argued for the importance of documenting thecomplete repertory of Batak textiles, it is time to point out thechallenges, some of them insurmountable for circumstantialand practical reasons, to executing the task.

In the first place, the data are inevitably and inexorablyincomplete. Collection has a flawed and haphazard history. It iscertain that not all Batak textile types known in the past areeither represented in museums or available in North Sumatra.In North Sumatra it is unlikely that all textile types would havesurvived: the humid climate is hard on textiles; they wear out;the hardship of the war years meant that many Batak used uptheir textile heritage for clothing; many textiles havedisappeared into the hands of private collectors (although someof these may yet find their way into public collections); andmany textiles leave the region when Batak migrate. Whileexcellent and detailed Batak textile collections were made insome regions, there were also relatively unexplored regions onthe colonial Batak textile map where collecting did not occur.Some of these dark spots on the map remain. Many are not wellconnected to markets and, if at any time in the past textileproduction was popular there, it is no longer economically

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s18 Introduction

viable, thus ensuring that the dark spots remain dark spots.Many of these regions could only be accessed with greatdifficulty, and sometimes I found the difficultiesinsurmountable. Furthermore, it is simply impossible to gainaccess to all extant textiles. I was able to visit many museums,but not all. I met and interviewed many Batak, but not all, andnot all of them would or could share the contents of their closetsand chests with a stranger. I watched many weavers at work,but not all. Finally, the nature of the textile tradition is such thatthe compilation of a complete data set, although strived after, isan unattainable goal. The appearance of textile types changesinevitably through time, sometimes subtly, sometimes moreradically. The relentlessness of social change lays claim to sometextile types. Some of them make comebacks and some do not.Weavers may give different apparel expressions to relativelystable textile designs, for example, by making a shoulderclothfrom a motif that was always used in a hipcloth, or by making asetelan (sarong-shouldercloth set Cat 9.3) from a design onceused in a different way. Frequently they derive inspiration fromother textiles, Batak or foreign, brought in by trade or othercircumstances. Textile design undergoes transformationthrough the gradual accretion of small, individual, creative,weaverly acts that inevitably also have a regional tint.

The limits of my knowledge of the Batak languages andcultural diversity are reflected on the pages of this volume, asare the comparable limits of my scholarly predecessors whoselegacies have informed this work. Given the predominance ofthe Toba in the weaving culture around Lake Toba, my scholarlyconcentration on Toba Batak culture is a boon, but thedisadvantage for the study of the Karo and Simalungun is alsoobvious.

Furthermore, the limitations of disseminating the findingsthrough the printed medium are profound. Because Bataktextile types are clearly defined and named, a printed catalogue,by its nature static, is suited to depicting the static qualities ofthe Batak textile tradition. However, the complementaryprinciple of dynamism that equally characterizes the Bataktextile tradition is more difficult to convey using this medium.Each textile-type category has distinctive features, but alsoincludes a rich range of variations because no two textiles arethe same. Every design type implies all the variations that pairsof hands have woven through time. By understanding howthese variations are ‘read’ locally, it is possible to discern theessential and non-essential features of a cloth design. But eventhese are subject to change. It is not feasible to depict allvariations of a cloth type using the printed, published medium,

even if it were possible to collect all the extant variations. Asmany variations as possible are depicted in the catalogue, butwritten documentation is used to convey the dynamic facets ofthe tradition. It explains how this compendium constitutes atextile system, rather than just a series of depicted textiles.

The typologist is forced by circumstances to draw lines ofdistinction between types and sub-types even while the data arechanging and incomplete. Moreover, the compiler of thecatalogue is also confronted with choices about cloth quality.The selection may represent the most typical, the mostsophisticated or the oldest cloth. It may illustrate a particularlycreative rendition, or a pattern embellishment typical of aparticular region. Selections always shape the reader’sperception or understanding of a type category. While this mayor may not have consequences as profound as thoseexperienced on the northwest coast of North America, whereBill Holm’s classification of indigenous design influenced thedirection taken by the revival of indigenous art McLennan andDuffek 2000, here too it is important that the reader be aware ofthe gap between a dynamic reality, and the limited ability of thepublished medium to represent that reality. A goal of thewritten portions of the catalogue is to bring to the attention ofthe reader the many factors that must be considered whenlooking at a textile, and when trying to place it within a system.The on-line catalogues that museums are developing will allowfor more flexibility in the dissemination of visual information.This compendium will not be superseded by such on-linepresentations of data, however. Its value will remain in theframework which it offers for ordering and understanding thedata and in having taken stock of the extant information. Thepresent catalogue is a tool through which principles ofindigenous classification can be accessed, changes in the Bataktextile repertory can be evaluated and collections of Bataktextiles can be assessed.

The use of the ethnographic present in the catalogue wouldhave heightened the risk of typological reification that inheresin a compilation of static images. I have chosen, therefore, todescribe my observations as specifically as possible. Weaversare mentioned not just because they deserve recognition fortheir skills, but also because their styles and techniques are localand have been developed within their own particularcircumstances. Technical processes are presented as havingtaken place at that moment in time when I watched them, andnot as general processes used by all Batak weavers at all times.In this way, this publication is located within temporalboundaries, even while incorporating historical information.

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s 19Introduction

How to use the book

The book has four parts, an extensive index and an appendix.The catalogue portion Part iii forms the core of the volume. Eachof the textile types in the Lake Toba repertory is numbered,named, described and depicted in a standardizeddocumentation format. These documentations are arranged innine chapters according to prominent design themes. The otherparts of the volume explain, complement and augment thecontents of the catalogue.

Design, technique and nomenclature are central themes ofthe study. In Part i (Des), I introduce these themes. Design hasbeen chosen as the point of access to the catalogue. I explainhow the themes of technique and nomenclature are interlacedwith Batak textile design in the Lake Toba tradition. In addition,the design features of the textiles, according to which they aredescribed and compared in the catalogue, are explored in thispart of the book, relative to indigenous thought and history. Thebook begins broadly, in other words, with an overview of thevisual themes that are found in all of the textiles andthroughout the book.

A closer focus is used in Part ii (sr) of the volume. In the sixchapters, one devoted to each style region, I explain how thedesign themes, already generally introduced, are expressedregionally. This part of the book constitutes a complement tothe catalogue (Part iii, Cat). It is here that the reader can gain asense of the regional repertories and highlights. Furthermore,the catalogue depicts the textiles two-dimensionally so as toshow their design features optimally, even while these textilesare, in the first instance, apparel items. In Sumatra, they aremost commonly seen as living materials, draped, folded andmoving with the body of the wearer. This is captured in theethnographic photographs presented in this section of thevolume.

Part iv (Tech) constitutes a technical resource for all of theother parts of the book: the specific details of how technique islinked with indigenous design and design nomenclature, howtechniques are emphasized regionally and detailedexplanations of the technical features referred to in thecatalogue. In addition, it is a stand-alone resource documentingBatak weaving practices.

Appendix i describes the research methods used to carry outthis project. I have tried to make the research process astransparent as possible, so that the reader can evaluate thereliability of the data and, if desired, adapt the strategies todocument other Indonesian textile traditions.

Appendix ii is a list of weaving vocabulary. Weaving is not acommon household activity as it once was in the past, and as aconsequence, weaving terms are no longer as familiar as theymight have been. Moreover, the techniques deployed are alwaysrelative to a specific tradition. This poses challenges whendescribing a weaving tradition in another language to othercultures. Weaving terminology has been deployed veryconsciously and carefully in this volume to serve rather thanencumber communication of cross-cultural uniqueness.

The composite index serves a variety of functions. Itincorporates themes and non-English words found in the text,names of authors and collectors and technical terminology, inEnglish and other languages. The reader can use it to look uptextile types using indigenous textile names. I chose to make asingle, though complex, index, in response to the need for acomprehensive referencing system that – because this project ismulticultural by nature — incorporates different languages. Areader may need to look up words the meaning or status ofwhich he or she is unsure. For example, by looking upangkatangkat, the reader will be referred to the design and thetechnical meaning of the word as well as the cloth type namederived from that feature. The reader will not be required tolook up the word in a textile-name index, and/or index ofindigenous words and/or a weave-technical index. A singlecombined index, while complex, better meets the reader’sneeds.

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s20 Introduction

Conventions

Illustrations

The illustrations in the book are numbered consecutively foreach chapter. The system references the chapter and thesequence in the chapter (e.g. fig. Des 3.4, the fourth illustrationin the third Design chapter and fig. Cat 3.7, the seventhillustration in the third Catalogue chapter). Tables are similarlynumbered (e.g. Table Des 4.1, the first table in the fourth Designchapter). Detail illustrations reference text on the page onwhich they are found.

Unless otherwise indicated, the illustrations are by the author.

Language and Orthography

Batak and Indonesian are more or less mutually unintelligibleMalay languages. Indonesian is the lingua franca of the country,and the Batak languages are indigenous to North Sumatra.Most, but not all, of the textile names and technical weavingvocabulary used by the Batak are in the Batak language.

Recording the relevant indigenous terminology in thisvolume has been a complex undertaking. A variety oforthographic conventions has been used since ethnographybegan in the area. To begin, Batak has its own script, derivedfrom Sanskrit. When Batak words have been written usingLatin characters, the conventions of transcription have varied.Most of this variation occurs where the spelling of a worddiffers from the pronunciation of the word see Van der Tuuk1864:9–13. Batak pronunciation has clearly informed the spellingfound in some archival and published sources (e.g. simallasiak(for simarlasiak), djinoekit (for jinungkit), pinoetsaan (forpinunsaan) Fischer 1914a:48, 49). In the present publication, aspelling based on Batak script (the original combination ofletters) rather than Batak speech is used Table Introduction.

Furthermore, Batak script employs no spaces between words.Consistent conventions for word spacings and capital lettershave not been established. SiBisa may also be written si Bisa andSi Bisa. All of these forms are found in the present publication.

Foreigners have applied orthographic conventions influencedby their own linguistic backgrounds. Some Dutch orthographicconventions differ from those developed and applied later inindependent Indonesia (e.g. ‘oe’ for ‘u’ and ‘dj’ for ‘j’). The matteris further complicated by regional variations in the Bataklanguages (e.g. bintang maratur and bintang marotur areequally correct). Furthermore, archival materials and museum

documents were often written by people unfamiliar withIndonesian and Batak languages, so errors have crept into therecords. These are not always easy to distinguish fromlegitimate variations used in the past.

The Indonesian and Batak ways of referring to people havebeen blended to some extent. That blend is reflected in thisvolume. Martha Sirait boru Napitupulu, for example, revealsthat Martha is married into the Sirait clan and was born into theNapitupulu clan. Use of the Indonesian Ny. to indicate amarried woman is common in the Batak region. Bothconventions are used in this volume. The Toba prefixes Nai, Ama(ni) and Ompu (ni) before a name refer respectively to themother of, father of and grandparent of the personsubsequently named. All of these forms are found in thisvolume.

Indigenous languages often incorporate exogenous termsassociated with borrowed textile techniques and designs. Forexample, kristik, derived from the Dutch kruissteek (English:cross-stitch), is used in both Batak and Indonesian, and pita,Indonesian for ‘ribbon’, is used by the Batak to refer to theribbon that sometimes was used as a replacement for thetwined edging of the cloth, so it becomes accurate to refer to theword as Batak. Batak migration has interwoven linguistic aswell as textile traditions. Since the latter half of the twentiethcentury, it is primarily Toba Batak who weave and sell textiles inthe Karo Batak region, for example, and their textile vocabularyhas become a mixture of Toba and Karo. To complicate mattersfurther, the language I used to conduct interviews about Karotextiles was usually Indonesian, with a combination of Toba andKaro technical terms. It has been a higher priority to documentextant linguistic variation see Appendix 2 than to impose a falseconsistency.

Table Introduction Orthographic conventions followed in this volume.

c a ta l o g u i n g t h e i n d o n e s i a n t e x t i l e a r t s 21Introduction

Combination Pronunciation Orthographic choicesof letters in in Batak speechBatak script

ngh/ngk kk jungkit rather than jukkitBangkara rather than Bakkarasingkam rather than sikkam

ngt tt nangtulang rather than nattulangns ts pansur rather than patsurnt tt pantis rather than pattis

bontar rather than bottarmp pp gompul rather than goppulmg ngg gomgom rather than gonggomrl ll simarlasiak rather than simallasiaknl ll sanlapis rather than sallapis

fig. Introduction 2 ragi panei Cat 1.1.6.Detail. Collection kit a5157.

aedta Association pour l’Étude et la Documentation desTextiles d’AsieAssociation for the Study and Documentation of Textilesof Asia, Paris, France

dtk Deutsches Textilmuseum, Krefeld German Textile Museum, Krefeld, Germany

em Museon, Den Haag Education Museum, The Hague, Netherlands

kit Tropenmuseum, Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen,Amsterdam Tropenmuseum, Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam,Netherlands

kitlv Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land-, en Volkenkunde,LeidenRoyal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian andCaribbean Studies, Leiden, Netherlands

lma Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit, Wisconsin

mdk Museum der Kulturen, Basel Museum of Ethnology, Basel, Switzerland

mqb* Musée du quai Branly.Quai Branly Museum, Paris.

mnd Museum Nusantara, Delft Nusantara Museum, Delft, Netherlands

mnh American Museum of Natural History, New York

msn Museo di Storia Naturale, Sezione di Antropologia,Università di Firenze, ItalyMuseum of Natural History, Anthropology Department,University of Florence, Italy

mvb Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kultur besitz,Ethnologisches Museum, Abteilung SüdasienSouth Asian Department, Ethnological Museum, Berlin,Germany

mvh Museum für Völkerkunde, HamburgEthnological Museum, Hamburg, Germany

mvw Museum für Völkerkunde, WienMuseum of Ethnology, Vienna, Austria

mwf Museum der Weltkulturen, FrankfurtMuseum of World Cultures, Frankfurt, Germany

rjm Rautenstrauch Joest Museum für Völkerkunde, KölnRautenstrauch Joest Ethnographic Museum, Cologne,Germany

rmv Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, LeidenNational Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, Netherlands

smv Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, MünchenState Museum of Ethnology, Munich/Munich’sAnthropology Museum, Germany

vem Archiv- und Museumsstiftung, Vereinte EvangelischeMission, WuppertalArchive and Museum Foundation, United EvangelicalMission, Wuppertal, Germany

vhm Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany

wmr Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam, World Museum, Rotterdam, Netherlands

* The Tropenmuseum incorporates the Batak textiles formerly held by theGemeentelijk Museum Princessehof(now National Ceramic Museum) inLeeuwarden. ** The Quai Branly Museumincorporates the collections formerly heldby the Musée de l’Homme, Paris.

23

Acronyms of Public Collections Consulted

fig. Des Introduction Textile buyer in the market.Tarutung. 1986.

In the early morning the weavers try to sell their textilesto textile stall proprietors at the market. Here, a stallproprietor inspects a sadum Cat 7.5 textile to decidewhether she wants to purchase it. The transactionoccurs very quickly.

Design

Introduction

A compendium of foreign textiles can only be a relatively meaningless,

more or less compelling array of colours and motifs. A central goal of this

volume is to render the repertory of textiles from Lake Toba meaningful

to the reader beyond the level of individual taste. The textiles can be

approached from a variety of perspectives, the most obvious being design,

technique and social function. I have selected design as the initial and

primary entry because the visual qualities of the textiles are universally

accessible while Batak textile production techniques and social

oranization are less familiar to most readers.

Nevertheless, design is a tricky entry. Seeing is always through culturally

tinted lenses. It is essential, therefore, that readers learn to see the textiles,

to the extent possible, through Batak eyes, and from the perspective of

Indonesian textile history. Part i of this publication presents the

distinctive and characteristic design features of the textiles Des 1, how

design may have developed over time to become the repertory as we know

it today Des 2; Des 3 and how the textiles are named locally on the basis of

appearance Des 4. The theme of technique is present throughout these

explorations. By bringing this to light, the integral importance of the final

part of the volume Part iv is made clear in these opening chapters.

25

fig. Des 1.1 Bindu matoga, the Toba Batak symbol of totality, carved and painted on a Batak house.1980.

According to the esoteric Batak thought, the bindumatoga is the origin of all design and a depiction of theessence of time and space.

Design 1

Design Foundations

fig. Des 1.2 Karo women weaving together on the village plain.c. 1870. Photograph K. Feilberg. Photoarchives kit 6002 5557.

27

During an early stage of fieldwork for this volume, I showed fanciful tie-dyed fabric from

Ecuador to Batak weavers. I wanted to see how they would react to a very different aesthetic.

First, they examined it to try to figure out how it had been made. Then, frustrated by not

being able to detect a regular order in the patterning, they lost interest in it, claiming that it

was arbitrarily constructed and could not be replicated. Their reaction was telling. Regularity

characterizes Batak textile composition. The design of a Batak cloth is fully planned by

weavers before they even buy the yarn. Because the Ecuadorian cloth did not meet their

expectations of regularity and order, they did not value it.

To a great extent, learning to see Batak textiles through the eyes of their makers means

learning to see the design components of the textiles and how they are arranged. Batak

textiles are readily recognized by those familiar with Indonesian textiles. My task in this

chapter is to translate that kind of intuitive recognition into a typology of typically Batak

textile design features.

Design 1

Putting visual and material features of material objects intowords is complicated, however. In a seminal article on materialculture, Jules Prown 1982 pointed out that material culture istwo-sided. It is the physical object, and it is the values, ideas,attitudes and assumptions invested in them by their makersand users. Consequently, according to him, analysis of an objectmust take both into account. This seems straight forward, butthe challenge is to put it into practice. Batak textiles are a goodcase in point. There is no clear division between them asphysica l objects and as cultural objects. Furthermore, themateria l, the textile production techniques and the resultingtextiles, are all invested with meaning, so that Prown’s two-sided program becomes multi-layered, and applies as much tothe finished object as a whole, as to its components and howthey are made. The analytical process is complicated by the factthat different cultures are involved. Even when the views of thecultura l participants are taken into account, they are under-stood through the lens of the researcher. On top of all of that, tosucceed in making a single-culture analysis useful for futurecross-cultural comparison, the vocabulary has to be carefullyselected, and wielded transparently and precisely.

Design conventions, conservative and dynamic

Batak textiles are readily recognizable because their designfeature s are organized according to clearly defined rules. Whena Batak weaver sits down in her loom, her goal is to make a cloththat meets social expectations. The Lake Toba repertory is madeup of what I refer to in this study as established ‘design types’.Each of these so-called design types (see the divisions of thecatalog ue Part iii) has a specific set of required features arrangedin a characteristic way. The cloths may also include optionalfeatur es. When they learn to make textile design types, theweavers learn not only the design characteristics to which theircloths must conform, but also their creative latitude. All of thisis laid down by convention: informal, but clear, socialagreement that is generally known and unquestioned.

In this regard, Batak textiles are, in a very important way,social and not individual creations. I have seen some (but veryfew) textiles that have been made to ‘use up’ leftover yarn anddo not conform to design conventions. Such individualcreation s are locally considered to be just ‘pieces of cloth’without any social merit or significance.

However, while some design conventions are common to theentire repertory, others are specific to particular regions or

periods in the evolution of Batak textile design. Designconventions pertain to the features of the textiles, how they aremade and their placement on the two-dimensional clothsurface. The unit elements of design are the visible buildingblocks, as it were, of which the design is composed. Theyinclude the component parts of the cloth as a whole and thepatterning. The weaver arranges these design elements in hercloth according to the image that she has in her mind and therules that make her cloth recognizable, and desirable. Theserules are the invisible or abstract elements of design that informtextile appearance. I refer to them as the principles of Bataktextile design.1

A focus on the visible unit elements of design inspires animage of a stable, if not unchanging, design tradition. A focuson the abstract principles by which the visible elements aresituate d and combined, however, invites an image of Bataktextile production as a creative process. Change and develop -ment are also integral to the tradition. These contrastingbut co-existing images illustrate the tension between theconservative and dynamic dimensions of Batak textile design.

Design development appears to have traditionally taken theform of progressive elaboration of the visible design elements,and also the invisible principles by which they are combined.Weavers have progressively elaborated visible design elements:by expressing the same motif in different techniques (e.g. thelozenge in supplementary warp, supplementary weft, ikatand twining); by developing variations on a single motif(e.g. the lozenge as narrow, wide, multi-layered and variouslyjuxtaposed with other lozenges); by combining or juxtaposing asingle motif with various other pattern options (e.g. the chevronin the design types in Cat 3)2; by combining motifs and/or techniques typical of other textile design types to make a newdesign type (Cat 6.12.3 combines design elements of Cat 6.12and Cat 6.10)3; and by choosing to use a pattern in a textilelayout typically found in association with a different pattern(the bintang maratur ikat in a textile of ‘Indian’ layout Cat 7.2).Elaboration of invisible design elements is expressed in theever more complex application of the principles of dualism andtripartition as I go on to describe. Elaboration in Batak textiledesign may not always be immediately striking to an outsider,but it is evident from careful examination of the cloth. TheBatak particularly appreciate cloth that exhibits this kind ofdesign coherence and complication.

In 1963, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz used the term‘involution’ to describe progressive elaboration in the socialorganization of an agrarian community in Java. He wasfollowing Alexander Goldenweizer, who had used the term to

1 I am modelling the distinction between the visible design elements and theinvisible, abstract principles of the designafter the distinction between parole andlangue as this was developed by the‘father’ of modern linguistics, Ferdinandde Saussure 1993 [1916].2 I have adopted Yeager’s and Jacobson’sdistinction between patterns and motifs:‘Motifs are combined to form a pattern’2002:88.

3 Traude Gavin’s terms ‘fission’ and ‘fusion’ to describe ikat patterndevelopment among the Iban 2003:234

appear to apply here.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s28

describe how complexity in design can be ‘brought aboutthrough a multiplicity of spatial arrangements of one and thesame unit … The inevitable result is progressive complication,a variety within uniformity …’ in Geertz 1963:81. This descriptionfits the most complex and highly valued Batak traditionaltextile s. The dictionary definition of ‘involution’ suggests anegativ e progression, an evolution that turns inward uponitself.

In the case of Batak textiles, however, the progressivecomplexi ty of design that has resulted from weavers workingwith a finite set of elements using a strictly laid out set ofprinciple s, has yielded a specific, characteristic and generallyappreciated Batak aesthetic. The dichotomy between static traditional textiles and modern innovative textiles crumbleswhen these strategies of the weavers are taken into account.It is possible to imagine that the traditional repertory of Batakcloth was constructed through ‘progressive complication’ ofthe finite set of available design elements. The reactions of theBatak weavers to the spontaneous tie-dye Ecuadorian designsthen becomes completely understandable. Even the creativeand dynamic features of the Batak art are guided by strict rules.

Extant forms of Batak design exhibit, therefore, the balancethat has been struck between the conservativ e and dynamicelements of Batak textile design see Part iii.

The importance of technique

Batak do not see textile technique as something separate fromdesign; design and technique are inextricably interconnected.This observation extends far beyond the platitude that design isa manifestation of technical process Niessen 1999a. Someindigenous technical terms equally denote design categories,and some technical processes appear to be informed by thesame mental images or thought structures that inform design,as I explain below. It is because the present analysis of Lake Tobatextile classification is based on design, that textile-productiontechniques are an integral component of it. In the presentchapter, I cull from the detailed technical descriptionspresented in Part iv of this volume to make this point. The studyof Indonesian textile design does not commonly include thestudy of technique. I therefore take this opportunity to argue atgreater length for an approach that integrates the two.

The early phase of data collection on Indonesian textileproduction techniques took place in the nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. These yielded descriptive accountsparticularly aimed at introducing the reader to techniques that

they were unlikely to be familiar with: ikat, batik, the parts ofthe backstrap loom and how they were manipulated and so on.

Later, anthropologists began to emphasize symbolic aspects oftextile production above purely technical details, a rich vein ofexploration. Brinkely Messick 1987, for example, pointed out theverbal/conceptual conflation in North Africa of certain weavingactions and the process of a mother giving birth and bringingup a son. Roy Dilley described weaving in Senegal as male ritualspace into which the weaver is inducted 1987. Barbara andDennis Tedlock 1985:127, 128 showed how the conceptualpractice of weaving in Mayan culture, just as planting corn,philosophically collapses time and space. Marie Jeanne Adams1971 demonstrated how Sumbanese textile technique s areconceptualized in terms of relations between individuals andsocial groups and in terms of natural processes. In a previouspublication 1985a, I explored the symbolic connection s betweenBatak weaving practices and indigenous conceptions of time,space and fertility. Notably, these symbolic analyses requiremore knowledge of language, myth and indigenous texts thanof weaving techniques.

Batak textile history is Batak women’s history. Batak textilesare woven by women and are conceived of locally as belongingto the female part of the cosmos. The frequent association ofweaving and women has sparked some excitement in theanthropological search for women’s social and culturalexpression s. However, the claim that verbal expressionsassociate d with weaving might offer access to a women’s world -view e.g. Messick 1987 is not fully convincing because theassociated vocabulary may equally serve the male image ofwomen’s social role Wiegle 1982:vii. This appears to be the case inBatak mythology Niessen 1994. Batak associations between clothand women are strong, but verbal descriptions of women’sdomain are an ambiguous key to female contributions toculture. The cloth itself, on the other hand, given that it iswoven exclusively by women, could hardly be a lessambiguously female contribution to culture fig. Des 1.2. Women’sweaving labour and skill produces tangible, visible forms. Theresponsibility of transcribin g social meaning into aestheticform in textiles is a cognitive and technical matter borne solelyby weavers. However, the agency of the weavers and theproduction technique s as skills of the producer were commonlyoverlooked because the artefact rather than the artist was thecentre of attention, because students of material culture weremore familiar with the pen than the loom and because there hasbeen a regrettable tendency to ignore the factor of women’swork.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 29Design 1

I include descriptions and analyses of technical procedure inthe present study to better explain Batak textile design. Most ofthat is descriptive: how the yarn is prepared, how the loom is setup, the different manipulations of the loom that yield thepatternin g on the textiles, and so on. The inclusion of suchtechnica l description in textile studies is familiar and accepted.

There are also other levels of technical process to whichresearchers should be attending, however. The great scientistand philosopher of science, Michael Polanyi 1969 used the term‘tacit knowing’ to refer to a form of knowledge that is‘indetermina te, in the sense that its content cannot be explicitlystated.’ He explained it in terms of skill.If I know how to ride a bicycle or how to swim, this does not mean that I can tell how I manage to keep my balance on a bicycle or keep afloatwhen swimming. I may not have the slightest idea of how I do this oreven an entirely wrong or grossly imperfect idea of it, and yet go oncycling or swimming merrily… I both know how to carry out theseperforma nces as a whole and also know how to carry out theelementary acts which constitute them, though I cannot tell what theseacts are… Polanyi in Merrill 1968:585.

Tacit knowledge related to skill has been neglected as a facet oftextile production inquiry. Because it cannot be put into words,it is difficult to broach. Luckily, not all knowledge related to skillis tacit. However, it is fundamentally present in textile produc-tion. It is comparable to the knowledge one has ‘in one’s hands’when one peels a potato, ties shoelaces or knits yarn. One takesone’s own method for granted to such an extent that when onehappens upon another doing it differently, it ‘feels’ wrong. Oneis incredulous that someone else might prefer that ‘other’method to one’s own, or find it at all efficient. Tacit knowledge ispassed down through the generations, and it is conservative tochange. If one knows a little about different knittingprocedures , therefore, one may be able to discern from aknitter’s technique whether she or he hails from Holland,Germany, Peru, Afghanistan Bolland 1971a or a particular socialclass in Mexico Chamoux 1982.4 The knitter does it the way she orhe was taught. Cultural identity is deeply grounded in suchsocial behaviours, and they are unquestioned by theirperformers . Similarly, tacit knowledge in textile productionprocedures may carry useful cultural information.

That textile-production practices are infused with specific,identifiable and recognizable skills became evident to me whileI was conducting fieldwork. Influenced by Rita Bolland, expertin textile production techniques, who had impressed upon methe importance of ‘doing it myself ’ in order to truly understand

technical procedures Bolland 1979b, I was clumsy like a childwhen I tried to do the things that my teacher, Ompu Sihol,made look so simple. I had not built up most of the skills thatshe had, and the skills that I did have were ‘strange’ to her. Iremember her shaking her head, and her neighbours pointingin amazement, when I wound a ball of yarn the ‘wrong way.’ Tostop myself from cutting a ridiculous figure, I learned to do itthe way they did, by moving just the right hand, keeping the lefthand stable, rather than moving both hands while winding seefig. Tech 2.13.

Another example is the regular, rhythmic act of weaving Tech5.4. A Batak weaver lays in the weft from the right or from theleft depending on which shed (opening in the warp yarns) shehas. Ompu Sihol did not tell me which way to do this (Because itwas too obvious to her? Because she taught by example, andsuch lessons were not verbalized?), but when I threw the weft inthe ‘wrong’ direction, she was uncompromising. She cut myweft yarn immediately and had me start again. Perhaps this iscomparable to giving the instruction, ‘Peel the potato towardyou, not away from you!’

Skills knowledge, as a form of women’s knowledge, has beenlargely neglected, as has the stock of historical information thatcan be found in weavers’ skills.5 The work of the Frenchanthropologist Marie-Noëlle Chamoux is a notable exception1982:99. She studied textile-production techniques in Mexico,paying attention to the kind of knowledge that appeared toreside in the hands, and observed that such practices wererelated to class and ethnicity. She advocated using the termsavoir-faire for what I refer to here as tacit skills knowledge. Herterm connects the pure ‘how to’ with cultural and socialprocesses and frameworks.

The Andean archaeologist, Junius Bird, pointed out thatbecause technical procedures such as ‘spinning, twist direction,warping procedure, and construction details’ are conservativeto change, they may provide clues about past cultural relationsand diffusion. His examples involve both conscious and tacitskills knowledge. Twist direction in spinning certainly residesin a weaver’s hands, but the twist selected by the weaver alsomay depend on the kind of fibre being spun or the ritual valueof the textile the spinner plans to weave Bird 1960:2, and there-fore may be the result of a deliberate choice. Similarly, thepassage of the first weft laid in the warp can be explained interms of a weaver’s understanding of the order of weaving, butit is also a skill, a kind of cultural inheritance that is transmittedthrough apprenticeship. Although Bird does not make explicitreference to tacit knowledge involved in skill, he seems to

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s30 Design 1

suggest that conservatism is inherent in these technicalperformanc es. His guide to textile research 1960:4–9 invitesresearchers to collect a broad spectrum of data about rawmaterial s, equipment and strategies employed by the weaver, aswell as social and conceptual systems associated with thosestrategies. I perceive that the spectrum of tacit knowledgerelated to the skills of weaving is much broader than just whatis involved in spinning and twisting yarn or setting up the warpin the loom, which he points to as containing ‘significant cluesin tracing cultural diffusion and relationships’ 1960:1. It is there-fore not entirely clear where Bird believed the conservatism intextile production resides. For present purposes, it is hisrecognition of the link between technique and cultural andhistoric al process that is important.

A group of researchers has developed the concept of ‘style’ intechnology Lechtman 1977; Lechtman and Merrill 1977. This is anotherway of framing the connection between skills and culture.Struck by the fact that the same patterns can be expressed in aparallel way in different cultural phenomena, for example inthe verbal, the visual, the kinesic and the technological, HeatherLechtman referred to these patterns as cultural style. ForLechtman, this kind of style is culturally relative and is to befound in every level of activity by which culture (re-)producesitself. It is a culture’s defining, and characteristic, way of being.She advocated that this kind of cultural insistence become afocus of study. Applying that concept to an analysis of the wayikat bundles are tied and indigo dye is fermented in far-flungcorners of Southeast Asia, Adams 1977 suggested thatconnection s between cultural style and technology may alsohave regional expression. She pointed to a ‘culture’ of binding –with rope, or with yarn, in different dimensions of social andmaterial life – relative to ritual throughout Southeast Asia.I believe that this direction of research into technique holdspromise for exploring that nexus between the conservativeembodied aspects of textile production and other culturalphenomen a, the research direction in which Junius Birdseemed to be headed. The approach requires detailed knowledge of technique, includin g the skills involved.Researchers will need to become familiar with the loom,and will find the video camera as indis pen sab le as the penfor recording this kind of information.6

In the technical descriptions in Part iv, I have included thephysical stances of the weaver, the position of her body whileshe works, the actions of her hands and the divisions of labourbetween them. These can be consciously recognized, verbalizedand therefore described with some degree of success. I include

this kind of technical information so that it is available forfuture comparative analysis, whether of cultural or regionalstyle, technical process as such, women’s knowledge or the linkbetween technique and culture. The detail provided in thetechnica l descriptions in Part iv may not be sufficient to sustainthe kind of minute analysis that may be needed for acomparative study of technical skills, but it points to how thiskind of data holds potential for future data collection and textileanalysis . It is also because the technical procedures of theweavers appear to be informed by the same principles thatinform textile design that I include them here.

Design and the loom

In Part iv, detailed information about Batak textile productiontechniques provides a thorough understanding of how Bataktextile design and technique are related. At this introductorystage, my goal is just to illustrate degrees of enmeshmentbetween design and technique, by introducing the Batak loom,the most fundamental determinant of design coherence in theregion fig. Des 1.3. Scholars have typified the Batak textiletraditio n as ancient, having features in common with those ofother ‘isolated’ peoples in the archipelago such as in theinterior s of Sulawesi (Toraja), Borneo (Dayak) and EasternIndonesia, for whom trade contact came relatively late e.g.Gittinger 1977:25. These features include use of a backstrap loomwith a circular, continuous warp, and warp-faced textiles withan emphasis on warp-related patterning such as warp stripes,warp ikat and supplementary warp. The closeness of techniqueand design is already evident in this characterization. I willshow how the design features are related to the capacities of theloom. The Batak loom varies regionally in only small detailsrelated to form (e.g. length and width of components) and thereare only slight regional differences in the way it is manipulatedTech 5.

First, the loom accommodates a circular and continuous warp,the lengthwise yarns in a Batak textile. Only one textile iswoven from a warp, and therefore no two textiles are everexactly the same.

Second, the size of warp that a weaver can handle determinesthe outer limits of the size of her cloth. Because the loom isbody-tensioned (also known as a backstrap loom), the weaverneeds to work very hard while she weaves, leaning backwardsand forwards to apply and release the tension on the thousandsof warp yarns that compose the warp. The physical capacities ofthe weavers are finite — although the length of ancient Batak

4 I am grateful to Rita Bolland for sharing her broad knowledge of differentways of knitting. Many aspects ofknitting vary. The tension of the yarn canbe maintained by looping it over the babyfinger of the left or right hand, hangingthe yarn around the neck, or pulling itfrom a spool resting on the hip or from aball neatly tucked under the arm. Themethod of holding the loops is just asvaried. They can be held on a needle thatmay or may not have a hook, and thatmay or may not be anchored in a pouch.

They can be held on nails pounded into a stable wooden frame, and so on.5 Minnich1990 has claimed that‘science’ is rooted in particular ways ofknowing such that accepted modes ofinvestigation may preclude other ways inwhich the investigated can be known. 6 Film footage shot by Urs Ramseyer and N. Ramseyer-Gygi on double ikat inBali1979 is a superb example of the detailthat may be captured.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 31Design 1

fig. Des 1.3 Batak weaver manipulating a simple loom.Early twentieth century. Photograph C.H. Japing.Photoarchives kit 6002 3658.

The photograph clearly shows the circular warp in theloom. Beyond the heddling device, and the sword, thereare no additional sticks in the loom. By bracing her feetagainst a horizontal bar under the loom, the weaver canuse her body weight to increase and decrease tension onthe warp yarns.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s32 Design 1

textile s attests to the remarkable strength of their back, leg andstomach muscles, as well as their patience and endurance.Similarly, the span of the weaver’s arms, and the strength in herarm and chest muscles required to make the insertions of theloom parts and the weft, limit how wide the warp can be. Itmakes sense that the textiles are longer than they are wide.

Third, because the warp in the ancient Batak loom is circular,the place where the weaver begins to weave is essentially alsowhere she stops weaving because the warp is then filled withweft – with the exception of a handspan of warp where theheddlin g device is located. She uses this mechanism to createthe spaces in the warp through which she shoots the weft.When weaving is finished, normally the warp in that unwovensection is cut to release it from the loom and to extract the warpyarns from the heddling device. The dangling warp yarns arethen, usually, twisted into a fringe Tech 8.1. Fringes are thereforea normal feature of textiles woven on this kind of loom. To keepthe fringe edges of the textile tidy, weavers commonly twineweft yarns into them along the edges of the textile. The twiningtechnique, also ancient, is an off-loom weaving process Tech 8.3.The edging that the weaver makes can be narrow or wide, plainor patterned.

Fourth, the Batak loom does not have a mechanism (reed orcomb) to space the warp threads. As a result, the warp yarns areso densely juxtaposed that when the weft is inserted, it isscarcely visible. Such a textile is called ‘warp-faced’. If a weaverusing such a loom wishes to decorate her cloth, she is largelyrestricted to making embellishments in the warp threads.Changes of colour are the simplest option. Changes of colour inthe warp yarns result in stripes in the finished textile Tech 6.1.Ikat patterning (a decorative technique achieved by bindingsegments of the yarn so that it resists the dye and results incolour variations in the same strand of yarn Tech 4.2) is a morecomplicated decorative option. Ikat patterning is executed onlyin the warp yarns. It makes no sense to ikat-dye the weftbecause it is hidden by the warp in the woven cloth.

Weft-related techniques characteristic of ‘ancient’ textiletradition s that scholars have signalled, include weft wrapping(the weft yarns are literally wrapped around warp yarns byhand) Tech 7.9 and twill weave patterning Tech 7.6; Tech 7.7, inaddition to the twining technique already mentioned. These arestrategies that make the weft visible despite the textiles beingwarp-faced. In this regard, it makes sense that these weftfeatures are found in association with the kinds of textiles justdescribed. Because of the way these techniques are deployed inthe oldest of Batak textiles, the resulting decorative features are

the same on the two sides of the cloth, like a plaited mat orbasket, in positive and negative image, with two good sides, andno ‘wrong’ side figs Des 1.4a and 1.4b. Two-sided design is the resultof the way Batak weavers manipulate the loom. This decorativeoption is available, given the nature of the loom, but it is notdetermined by the loom.

The yarn selections made by Batak weavers and the way theyare deployed also influence the appearance of their textiles. Theloom offers some limitations, but many options. The absence ofa comb is a limiting factor, for example, because it makes itdifficult to weave silk yarn. The Batak loom is an indication thatthe associated textile tradition relies on cotton – although otherplant fibres were also used in the past, and synthetic yarns areused today see Tech 1. On the other hand, the weaver is at her owndiscretion to select the weight of yarn that she will use. She canvary the thickness of her yarns in order to make a textile feature,such as a colour or a pattern, stand out.

figs Des 1.4a and b A supplementary-weft motif in positive and negative image, on the front and the back ofthe textile. The patterning is constructed in such a way that thetextile is two-sided. This motif is taken from the end fieldof the pinunsaan Cat 7.2.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 33Design 1

fig. Des 1.5 Stylized representation of conventional Lake Toba textile layout showing the standard designcomponents: warp border, sides, centre, border betweensides and centre and weft border.

Textile layout

Each textile design type represents a unique set of designfeature s. Conventions of vocabulary are emerging in theIndonesian textile literature, but a standard design vocabularyhas not yet been settled on. I use the right-angled grid of inter-laced warp and weft in the textile web as a framework to refer todesign features. All patterning is oriented in columns (in thewarp direction) or bands and rows (in the weft direction). I haveselected the design terms that follow as a standar d idiom fordescribing Batak textiles.7 In the catalogue, these terms are usedin the documentation protocol see Cat: Introduction.

Summary of design components of Lake Toba textiles

Warp border: a term for ‘those edges parallel to the warp, usuallyending in selvage’ Yeager and Jacobson 2002:86. In Batak textiles, thisborder may be undifferentiated, or indicated by a stripe. Thestripe may be simple, compound, and/or embellished with ikatpatterning, supplementary warp or warp technique see Tech 6.The design of this border is often an indication of provenance,status and/or age of the textile.

Sides: two identical components of the textile flanking themiddle section. When the sides are woven separately and sewnonto the middle section, they are referred to as ‘panels’ Yeager andJacobson 2002:86. The sides include the warp border and selvedgeedge and the warp stripes marking the border between thesides and centre of the textile. With few exceptions e.g. Cat 2.3,they are otherwise plain or unpatterned.

Centre: the component of the textile between the two sides.The diagnostic patterning of the textile is usually found in thiscomponent. Dominant patterning is in the form of ikat, stripes,supplementary weft and, although rarely, supplementary warp.This component of the textile is also referred to as the body, afterthe indigenous term, badan. When this centre component isdivided into three sections, as in textiles having what I call‘Indian’ layout fig. Des 1.6, I refer to the sections as fields: two endfields and one centre field. Almost all traditional Batak textilesinclude at least a little white, black and red; the colours aredeployed by convention. Several design types have more thanone standard colour format, for example, a red version (na bara)and a blue-black version (na birong).

Border between sides and centre: this commonly consists of awarp stripe of varying complexity, or it is signalled just by thedifference in patterning and/or colour between sides andcentre. Supplementary warp, ikat and warp technique may beused to embellish these stripes. The stripes are commonlyexecuted in the sides of the textile.

Weft border: ‘edges parallel to the weft, which end in fringe orraw edges’ Yeager and Jacobson 2002:86. The Batak decorate thisborder using a variety of techniques, including weft twining,knotting, braiding and crochet Tech 8.

In the Lake Toba repertory, the whole-cloth layout is relativelystable and the design/technical elements are deployed andcombine d within that arrangement according to rules ofconventio n. The repertory of Lake Toba textiles can beconstrued as a record of the design possibilities inhering inthe standard or conventional layout, as developed by weaversthrough out the ages. With the exception of supplementar y-weftpatterning, when it predominates in the appearance of the textiles Cat 7, the characterizing features of Batak textile designare in the warp: stripes and ikat patterning. These features aredominant in five chapters of the catalogue Cat 2–Cat 6.

In this chapter, I place more emphasis on design organizationthan on patterning. Patterning receives more emphasis in thestyle region analyses Part ii, the catalogue Part iii and the technicaldescriptions Part iv.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s34 Design 1

7 I have adopted some of the terms used by Yeager and Jacobson 2002:86-88

to describe the organization of Timoresetextiles. The similarities in layout ofTimorese selimut and Batak textilesmade from three separate panels arestriking: the emphasis on bilateralsymmetry, red, black and white colouring,and three as an expression of ‘two plusone’ to create totality. 8 Certain textiles, including sashes, headcloths, and blankets are not tri -partite. Notably, the relative proportionsof sides and centre vary regionally. This

facet of textiles can be used as an indicatio n of provenance see Highlightsand Features in each style region. 9 Bühler, Fischer and Nabholz 1980:7, 8

describe this layout as characteristic ofsaris: ‘the division of the rectangularground into one centre piece and twoend-pieces, which usually have length-wise selvedge borders on both the sides.’The similarity between the layout of patola fabric, as depicted by Bühler, Fischer and Nabholz 1980:9, and Bataktextile layout is strong.

Principles of design

With few exceptions, the layout of textiles in the Lake Tobarepertory is based on the principles of symmetry andtripartitio n. These two principles are not mutually exclusive.Rather, they are thoroughly interconnected. They inform everylevel of design from the construction of a single motif to thelayout of the entire cloth.

Tripartition

The most immediately striking design feature of Batak textilesis their division into three parts; two similar, plain sidesflanking a patterned centre.8 This constitutes tripartitioningalong a centre axis in the weft direction see fig. Des 1.5.

Barnes 1989:51 found that textiles composed of three separatepanels have the highest symbolic importance in Lamoholot.This is not the case with Batak textiles. Instead, the textiles withelaborately decorated end fields in the centre or body of thecloth are the most highly valued. I refer to this elaborate layoutas ‘Indian’ because it is commonly – and perhaps originally –found in Indian textiles.9 These textiles are organized by theprinciple of tripartitioning along the centre warp axis, as well asthe centre weft axis.

The layout is found in three variations fig. Des 1.6:– The most elaborate variant has white end fields bordering acentre field in the centre panel. The end fields are embellishedwith geometric supplementary-weft patterning. Examplesinclude the ragidup Cat 7.1; sr 6, pinunsaan Cat 7.2; sr 5 andbulang Cat 7.4; sr 2.– Another variant is found in the style regions Toba Uluan sr 5,Simalungun sr 2 and Si Tolu Huta sr 4. It is exemplified by theragi hotang Cat 4.2 and the simpar Cat 5.4. Like the previousvariant, the ends of the textile body contain elaboratesupplementa ry-weft patterning. If the cloth has distinct whiteend fields (optional) they may extend across the entire width ofthe textile. The supplementary-weft patterning gives the textilehigh value. – The third variant is exemplified by the jongga Cat 3.1 (Si ToluHuta sr 4 and probably Simalungun sr 2). The supplementary-weft patterning is restricted to bands, narrower and lesselaborate than the patterning in the ragidup, but similarlylocated in white end fields, although smaller than those foundin the ragidup. It was a highly respected textile type reservedfor elite members of society.

fig. Des 1.6 Three variants of Indian layout found in Batak textiles. a. as exemplified by the ragidup Cat 7.1

b. as exemplified by the ragi hotang Cat 4.2

c. as exemplified by the jongga Cat 3.1

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 35Design 1

The tripartite design arrangement is further expressed in thestructure of the warp stripes that mark the boundary betweenthe panels of textiles of Indian design layout Tech 6.3.2, in thetwined edging along the weft border of the cloth Tech 8.3; seefig. Tech 8.23 and some supplementary-weft patterning in thefringe ends of textiles (e.g. tupe Tech 7.8.1) see e.g. Cat 7.2. Maxwellhas proposed that tripartite design may have a technicalorigin related to the narrow width of the warp that can beaccommodated by the backstrap loom: By combining odd numbers of fabric panels, decorative and highlyformaliz ed arrangements of warp bands became possible. For example,two identical panels are often separated by a different central panel.Symmetry is thus maintained while extra width is achieved …Throughout insular Southeast Asia this tripartite design feature hasgradually become a major decorative device on warp-decoratedtextiles … 1990:76.

While these technical constraints may have informed textiledesign, they do not explain the pervasiveness of tripartitioningas an organizing principle in Batak textiles.

Dutch anthropologists have attributed the indigenousemphasi s on the principle of tripartition to what has beendubbed the ‘Indonesian type’ of social organization Lévi-Strauss1963:156, involving asymmetric, indirect bridal exchangeamong a minimum of three exogamous groups.10 Thisconclusion , derived from meticulous and extensive fieldworkobservations see Fox 1980; P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1983 [1977a], coincidesclosely with associations in indigenous thought fig. Des 1.9. Forthe Toba, the tripartite social arrangement is typicall y signifiedby the tripod (consisting of three stones) that supports thecooking pot in the hearth (Toba dalihan na tolu).11 Furthermore,it informs the Toba understanding of the universe , as dividedinto an upper, under and middle world, with a triumvirate ofgods in the upper world. The triadic colour scheme, red, whiteand blue-black, found in almost all conventional ly designedBatak textiles (see e.g. the talitali tiga bolit Cat 8.4), signifiesthese tripartite structures Tobing 1956; Kipp 1977.12 Given the keyimportance of the tripartite principle in indigenous Batakthought, it makes sense that the textiles that exhibit thatprinciple most elaborately along both the weft and the warpaxes are the most important cloths in the repertory.

Biaxial symmetry

Except in instances of weaver error, all conventional Bataktextiles are symmetrical around centre weft and warp axes.Furthermore, many motifs are biaxially symmetrical. Thisresult may be strongly informed by technical procedures usedto construct them. For example, the supplementary-weftpatternin g in the end field of the ragidup is constructed usingpattern rods, or shed savers inserted in such a way that whenthe weaver is finished constructing half of the pattern, she hasto use them in the reverse order to construct the other half. As aresult, the pattern is perfectly symmetrical. The major patternrows in this textile have a couple of picks of red supplementaryweft to mark the centre axis of reflection Tech 7.8; fig. Tech 6.17a.

Not all symmetry is built into technical procedure. Forexample, the weaver must warp each stripe – and the textile as awhole – so that the two sides mirror each other. She counts thecycles of the warp as she winds to attain perfect symmetry Tech4.2.2. To ensure that the side panels of the ragidup are the same,another innovative and unusual technica l adaptation isdeployed: the two panels are warped as one, and woven as one,but two separate shuttles are used Tech 5.5.

My weaving teacher in Harian Boho taught me that all warpstripes and supplementary-weft patterns are made from an oddnumber of components. Textiles are often ‘read’ to determinewhether they will be propitious for their owners. As the stripe isread, each element of the stripe is counted off in combinationwith a line of a couplet: ‘Uloshu (my ulos), Ulos ni halak (someoneelse’s ulos), Uloshu, Ulos ni halak …’ If the number of componentsturns out to be odd, the reader ends up with ‘uloshu’ (my ulos)and feels comfortable taking ownership of it. A comparablestrategy for reading the ragidup consists of counting off thestripes in the centre field fig. Cat 7.1b. The reading takes placefrom left to right, the augur mumbling ulos ni raja (textile of afree man13), ulos ni hatoban (textile of a slave), ulos ni raja and soon, each line of the two-line prognostication corresponding to astripe Jasper and Pirngadie 1912:19. In other words, the number ofstripes in the centre field of the textile is not as important aswhether that number is even or odd. For the textile to bedesirable, it must have an odd number of stripes. Only then,notably, would a stripe mark the centre warp axis of the centrefield. There are other examples of technical language that Batakweavers use in textile-production processes to help themachieve their design goals. For example, while biaxial symmetryis not built into the weft-twining technique, the twined edgingis locally referred to in terms of ‘two times half the number of

10 In principle, group A gives brides to group B, which gives brides to group C,which in turn gives brides to group A,thereby completing the connubial circle.More than three can be involved in aconnubial circle, but three is theminimum number needed to make thesystem asymmetric.11 The same symbolism is found in Karothought Kipp 1977, but I am not aware ofenquiry into this theme among the Simalungun. In his dictionary , Saragih 1989 offers the Simalungun word tungkufor tripartite social order.

12 The tricolour does not appear to have been explored in Simalungun thought,but it is likely, given the system of bridalexchange, that it was also importantthere. 13 The Toba used the title raja todistinguish a free man from a slave.14 How the patterns are labelled is not always consistent throughout the region.It is clear that the opposition male-female is of central importance; how it isexpressed is secondary.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s36 Design 1

rows’ (e.g. 2◊7) that are found in the edging. Each half is a mirrorreflection of the other Tech 8.3. In the case of ikat patterning,regularit y if not symmetry results from the prescribed way inwhich the ties are inserted Tech 4.2.3; see also Theisen 1982.

With the exception of some Karo textiles e.g. Cat 2.12; Cat 2.13, thecentre warp axis is almost never emphasized by patterning;rather, it is implied by the pattern arrangement s in the cloth.The symmetry along this axis is strong because the two sides ofthe cloth are, without exception, mirror reflections of eachother. The centre weft axis, on the other hand, is oftenemphasized by a row of patterning, most commonlysupplementary-weft, as though to compensate for subtleexpressions of asymmetry that can be found relative to this axis.In the jungjung Cat 6.12.1, for example, the lozenge patterningmay be transformed with each repetition, from one end of thecloth to the other. This asymmetry is only evident upon carefulscrutiny. While textiles of Indian design have the appearance ofsymmetry, the patterning in the two end fields flanking thecentre panel is slightly different. The patterning in one end isdesignated ‘male’ and in the other ‘female’ see figs in Cat 7.1.14

The location of the patterning in the cloth is also informed bythe axes of symmetry. When rows and bands of patterning areused to embellish a textile in the weft direction, they are given aconventional arrangement. If there is a single band/row, it islocated along the centre weft axis fig. Des 1.7a. If there are tworows or bands, they are located at the ends of the cloth, near thefringes, in a way that maintains the symmetry of the cloth withrespect to the centre weft axis fig. Des 1.7b. If there are three rows,as is relatively common, the third one is added at the centreweft axis (this is found, for example, in the tolu tuho15 version sof the sibolang, surisuri and bolean Cat 1) fig. Des 1.7c. If thereare five rows or bands (lima tuho), again a centre row is flankedby the other evenly numbered symmetrically arranged rows fig.Des 1.7d. In the Karo textile garagara jongkit siwa Cat 6.14,there are nine rows of supplementary weft, again arranged suchthat the centre row is the axis of reflection. The jongkit dua-

puluh, a kind of garagara named after the twenty rows ofgold supplementary-weft patterning embellishing the cloth,only appears to constitute an exception. Between the rows ofsupplementary weft there are nineteen bands of lozenge ikatpatterning. Here again, eighteen bands are symmetricallydistribute d with respect to the centre band. There is evidencethat these same spatial principles informed the arrangement oftritik Tech 3.7 and fold-resist patterning Tech 3.7 in the Karo batu

jala Cat 1.6.2.

15 According to Myers’ findings u.p.:167, the three tuho are symbolic. Thefirst relates to the stones used to markthe boundaries between rice fields, thesecond to the food and drink brought toworkers in the rice fields and the third tothe versatility in the use of this textile.Jasper and Pirngadie erroneously claimthat tolu tuho translates as ‘the threepart’ textile 1912:266 .

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 37Design 1

fig. Des 1.7 Conventional arrangements of rows and bands of patterning in the weft direction.a. A single row.b. Two rows.c. Three rows.d. Five rows.

Dualism

The above examples of odd numbers of elements beingsymmetrica lly arranged into oppositional structures around acentre point represent mergers of the principles of tripartitionand symmetry. They will be familiar to students of indigenousIndonesian thought. As the Dutch anthropologist, J.P.B. deJosselin de Jong pointed out, ‘… any odd-numbered system canbe reduced to an even-numbered one by treating it as a form ofopposition between the centre and two sides’ in Lévi-Strauss1963:141. Claude Lévi-Strauss found these arrangements to beillustrative of what he perceived to be a more all-pervasivedualism informing social and physical order in indigenoussocieti es.

Concentric dualism and borders

The typical triadic arrangements found in Batak textiles do notresult in a balanced triad, but rather a middle flanked by twoequivalent sides. This tripartition is at the same time a form ofconcentric dualism characterized by the opposition of centreand periphery.

This reading of the spatial arrangements appears to have itscorollary in indigenous Batak interpretations of their textiledesign. The indigenous word for the sides of the textiles (Toba,Karo, Simalungun sisi) has connotations of ‘bordering’ Joustra1907a:200; Van der Tuuk 1861:172 and underscores the inequality ofthe elements in the tripartite arrangement. This emphasis onboundaries is evident in virtually every component of thetextile, such as panels, stripes and pattern rows, as well as in thetextile as a whole. Just as the centre of the textile is bounded,sometimes along both axes, weavers use the warp and weftborders to frame the whole textile.

A variety of design/technical strategies is used to createborders. The plain sides of the cloth contrast with the patternedcentre fig. Des 1.8a. The white elaborately patterned end fields ofthe centre contrast with the centre field fig. Des 1.8b. The mostelaborate expression is achieved in textiles of Indian design, inwhich the combined tripartite arrangements along centre warpand weft axes mean that the centre field is framed on all sides fig.Des 1.8c. In some instances, the use of a single contrasting colour(e.g. red) in the borders emphasizes the frame of the wholetextile fig. Des 1.8d.

There is a tendency to repeat the same patterns in the weftborder and the border between sides and centre, again framingthe centre of the textile fig. Des 1.8e. A common motif used to

‹ fig. Des 1.8 Textile borders.a. of the textile centreb. of the centre field along the centrewarp axisc. of the centre field along both thecentre warp and weft axesd. using warp and weft edgese. using stripe between sides and centre,and weft edging

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s38 Design 1

fig. Des 1.9 The 2-3 model represented by the ‘Indonesian type’ of social organization.The minimum triad of intermarrying clans in which women aretransferred in only one direction emphasizes the oppositions • male –• female and wife-giver – wife-taker.

fig. Des 1.10 The 4-5 model and the 8-9 model of spatialorganization. a. The Four Cardinal Points: a four-five model. An important Bataksymbol for space and time, often used in rites of divination. b. The Eight Cardinal Points: an eight-nine model. A symbol of power,totality, and the universe in which space and time are collapsed. Both are commonly depicted on the carved walls of traditional TobaBatak houses.

frame pattern elements is the stippled stripe/row. Expressedin ikat, supplementary warp Tech 6.3.1, supplementary weft fig.Tech 7.6.5 and twining fig. Tech 8.21a, b, c, the stippled line can bedeployed in both the warp and the weft direction and can therefore accompany any design component of the cloth.

The designation end or tip (Toba punsa) is used to denote theend fields of the pinunsaan Cat 7.2. The Indonesian puncak (theequivalent of punsa), denotes the end, or border, of a largerwhole and the pointed tip of something, such as a bambooshoot see pusuk robung Cat 7.7. The triangle or tooth motif playsthe same role. The theme of framing, a common feature inSoutheast Asian textiles, has received too little scholarlyattention.16

Asymmetric dualism

Concentric dualism is a kind of asymmetric dualismcharacterized by opposition between centre and periphery. Intripartite textiles, the diagnostic patterning is almost alwaysfound in the centre component. In the supplementary-warpstripes marking the boundary between sides and centre, themost elaborate patterning is sometimes reserved for theperipheral components, but this inverted arrangement alsounderscores the principle of asymmetric opposition.

Spatial organization of this sort has been considered at lengthby Dutch ethnologists and anthropologists. P.E. de Josselin deJong summed up socio-cosmic dualism, a recurrent themethroughout the Indonesian archipelago, as being moreprecisely represented by the opposition of two halves ‘with athird, central element as mediator or uniter’ 1983 [1977a]:20. Herefers to what he calls the structuring of bipartition and union,as the ‘2-3 model’ 1983 [1977a]:21. The analogue in Batak socialorganization is the ego group flanked by wife-giving and wife-taking groups to which they are related by marriage fig. Des 1.9.

In its more elaborated form, the 2-3 model is represented bywhat P.E. de Josselin de Jong referred to as the 4-5 model 1983

[1977a]:15. If common Batak textiles, in which tripartition isexpressed along the centre weft axis, illustrate the 2-3 model,the more elaborate textiles of Indian layout illustrate the 4-5model, a centre surrounded by four elements, that is,tripartition along both the centre weft and warp axes. An oldtextile of Karo provenance Cat 7.12 is of particular interest in thisregard. It includes a group of five supplementary-weft motifsarranged in the centre of the cloth in a manner thatrecapitulates the arrangement of the panels and fields intextiles of Indian layout. In the ancient Javanese realm, the 4-5

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 39Design 1

N

Z

W E

NENW

SW SE

N

Z

W E

16 Gavin 2003:238 mentions ‘frame and fill’ as a principle for the organization ofdesign in Iban textiles. Yeager andJacobson refer to ‘borders’ around ikatpatterned panels in Timorese textiles2002.

model was ‘valid for the classification of territories as well as forthe ordering of social and economic classes, offerings to thedivinities, etc.’ P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1983 [1977a]:21. It is notable thatthe Karo comprise five clans. Yet, the 4-5 model also depicts theToba conception of space, time and power, as represented by thebindu matoga, a magically potent square, the corners of whichpoint in the four cardinal directions. When depicted as twonested squares, the corners point to the eight cardinaldirections , the 8-9 model figs Des 1.1 and Des 1.10. The diagonal axesare not used in Batak textile layout, however.

fig. Des 1.11 Textile as anthropomorphic representation.• Ulu (head), a row of divergent patterning in the body ofthe cloth.• Badan (body)• If this row is present, it is variously referred to as ulu(head) or punsa (end).

P.E. de Josselin de Jong noted that ‘To whatever lengths thiselaboration may go, it is always recognized as a development ofthe more fundamental 4-5 scheme – a scheme which, besidesbeing elaborated, may also be reduced to its essentials: a 2-3grouping.’ In reference to Ambonese classification, he gave ananthropomorphic example: ‘There, the head represents thetotality, the right arm and leg the male part, and the left arm andleg the female. The right–left opposition in its turn then servesas the basis for an elaborate dual classification …’ 1983 [1977a]:15.

Dual classification with anthropomorphic features isintegrated in the tripartite organization of Batak textiles. Theword badan or body designates the centre of the tripartite cloth,and the word ulu, or head, the embellishments at the fringeends fig. Des 1.11. Ompu Sihol, my weaving teacher in HarianBoho, included a subtle narrow ikat row along one fringe end ofher ragi hotang Cat 4.2 textile that differed from the rest of theikat in the textile fig. Tech 4.7. She referred to this, too, as an ulu.When I asked her if the other end of the textile also had such anulu, the answer was ‘no’ and she looked at me disparagingly asif I had two heads. Yet weavers in other regions sometimes doinclude subtle, divergent rows or bands at both ends of thetextile, and call them both ulu. While the two end fields of theragidup Cat 7.1 are referred to using the same term — ulu — Myersu.p.:276–8 noted that one end field corresponded to the ‘head’ ofthe textile, and the other to the ‘foot’, and that when the textile isworn over the shoulder, the ‘head’ has to hang in front, and the‘foot’ behind the wearer. She did not indicate how this protocolcorresponded to the male and female patterning at the twoends of the cloth. Inconsistencies in the interpretation of ulunotwithstanding, the asymmetries at the two ends of thetextile, at least in some cases17 appear to have something to dowith a rudimentary anthropomorphic classification mergedwith the biaxially symmetrical layout.

This organizational theme may also originate, at least in part,in social organization. Asymmetric marriage relations amongclans, such as are found in the Batak area, mean that theopposition between men and women, who marry in oppositedirections, is as fundamental to the social organization as thetriad J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong 1935; see also P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1983

[1977b], 1984; Fox 1980. Socio-cosmi c dualism, of which theopposition between men and women is a core element, is acharacteristic of Batak culture, and is thoroughly integrated intextile lore, design and classification. The association betweentextiles and women appears to be a component of early Batakthought Parkin 1978:260. Textiles are woven by women, representwomen and, as ‘female’ gifts, are exchanged on ritual occasions

17 I did not ask the weaver of the jungjung Cat 6.12.1 how she interpretedthe asymmetry in that textile type.18 Male activities included writing andwood carving.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s40 Design 1

for ‘male’ gifts typified by the spear or lance (piso).18 In a Tobamyth, the earth originates from the spinning prowess of adaughter of an upper-world deity. Textile production is a femalepower and art Niessen 1985a. There are indications that the textilewarp is conceptualized as female, and the weft as male, suchthat the weaving of cloth accomplishes the production of thetotality that is characteristic of the union of male and female(the 2-3 model).

Another possible origin of anthropomorphic classification intextile design is the role of the body during weaving. The loomis an extension of the body. Strapped in between breast beamand backstrap, kicking against a stone or piece of wood under-neath the loom to give her stability and support, leaning herbody forward and backward to decrease and increase thetension on the warp yarns, the weaver is part of the mechanismof the loom see fig. Des 1.3. It can hardly be a surprise to learn thatthe forerunner of the Indonesian loom was the weaver’s bodyand involved tensing yarn between the feet and waist Nettleship1970.

I have seen Batak weavers use their feet in this way wheninstalling the coil rod Tech 5.2.1 and substituting the warp of thebulang Tech 6.4.2. The rhythms of weaving, from inserting theweft, beating with the sword, wetting (‘crying on’) the wovenweb Tech 5.4.6, and shifting the warp in the loom Tech 5.4.7, arebodily rhythms that, when well done, have an aestheticefficiency, just as in dance and sport. The skills are numerousand complex. They are learned and passed on. And the resultantcloth with a head (ulu), body or centre (badan) and hair orfringes (rambu) is an analogue of the body.

In the act of weaving, the right–left opposition appears to haveconceptual as well as technical importance. The Batak datapresented in Part iv of this volume reveal a remarkableconsistency in the division of labour between the weaver’shands. When manipulating the cotton bow, making rolags,winding weft, winding the reel and winding balls of yarn, theleft hand holds the instrument/ball steady and the right handperforms the action of plucking/rolling/wrapping. Whenworking with the cotton gin and the spinning wheel, in bothcases the right hand turns the wheel while the left manipulatesthe fibre. In warping, the right hand winds the yarn while theleft inserts the heddles see fig. Tech 4.2. The right hand winds theikat ties, while the left holds the group of yarns at the rightplace. The right hand ‘winds’ the (continuous, alternate)supplementar y-weft heddles, while the left hand holds them. Inall of these processes, except plucking the cotton bow, the righthand is engaged in circular, winding motions and the left hand

is relatively stable, holding, guiding and, in the case of pittingand spinning the cotton, pushing and pulling, in and out. Giventhe uniformity of the tasks of the hands, it becomes clearer whymy unconventional (to a Batak) way of winding yarn, asdescribed at the outset of this chapter, was ‘wrong’ to theonlookers. The sense of order that I had disturbed was largerthan just that related to winding yarn.

The direction of motion of the right hand also appears to besignificant. As the weaver makes rolags, winds weft, winds ballsof yarn and winds the warp, she rolls in a direction that can bestbe described, given the embodied action, as away from her body.Without having recorded the direction in which the handles ofthe cotton gin and spinning wheel were turned and thedirection in which the yarn was circulated in the dye pot, Iwould hypothesize on the basis of consistency, that thesemotions were also away from the body. Furthermore, thecylinder of continuou s warp in the loom is woven increasinglyfurther away from the body until the cloth is fully woven, thuscompleting the cycle. The starting point of weaving is at thesame location in the warp as the starting point of warping,namely the left peg (it is substituted by the breast beam in theloom).

Right and left also inhere in actions involving insertions andextractions from the warp. Most obvious is the insertion of theweft – from the left through a natural shed, and from the rightthrough a counter shed. The two throws of the weft areperceive d as a single unit with the weft ending where it began.By contrast, throws of supplementary weft begin and end at theright. Conventionally, two picks are thrown through eachpattern shed, again suggesting that a pair is perceived as acomplet ed unit and complements the alternate throws of themain weft. The importance of completed ‘cycles’ of weft is clearfrom a technical perspective because they ensure order duringthe weaving process.

But it also raises the question of whether ‘cycles’ of weft haveany conceptual correspondence with the circular continuouswarp that is strung in the Batak loom. The special symbolism oftextiles that are removed from the loom without the warp firstbeing cut Tech 5.6 is an indication that the circular warp isperceive d as homologous to cyclical time. Such uncut, circularcloths are woven to promote the life cycle of their owners. Life isa long vulnerable thread. The round warp symbolizes unbrokentime, the ongoing of the generations, connection with the spiritworld, health and well-being Gittinger 1975; Niessen 1985a. Life cycle,or cyclical time, is found in the annual cycle of the patterns ofstars in the skies, the cycle of the crops, the human life cycle and

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 41Design 1

ends see Gittinger 1975:22; Myers u.p.:276-278 offers a variant description. In this case, it is not clear whether there is anumerological correspondence betweenthe verse and the pattern arrangementsin the textile.

the annual ritual cycle. While weaving, the weaver wasintegrated , body and soul, in the production of a complexmetaphor of life. The skills of the weaver mattered: whether thesize of the cloth she warped would be the size of a death shroud,whether her thread broke in an inauspicious way, whether thespirit of the dead entered her dye pot, whether she beat a fly todeath with her sword while weaving, and so on see Tech 3; Tech 4;Tech 5. All of these circumstances would mean that the clothwould fail to promote the well-being of its owner. I am notaware of symbols related to the order of weft insertion, but asnoted above, Ompu Sihol was very adamant, when I tried toweave, that the order prevail.

This raises the question of whether elsewhere in Indonesia/Southeast Asia the division of labour between the hands issimilarl y constant, whether it is the same as is found among theToba Batak, whether it is associated, conceptually, with cyclesand whether direction of motion is consistent and symbolicallyrelevant. Early Dutch ethnographers found the themes ofdualism (right–left opposition) to be deeply embedded inIndonesian culture P.E. de Josselin de Jong 1983 [1977b], 1984; Rassers1982 [1959]. Textile symbolism gives reason to believe thatthis theme may be equally pervasive in textile-production technology in the archipelago. The division of labour betweenthe weaver’s hands has potential for inter-regional comparison.Care has also been taken in the descriptions in Part iv ofthis volume to pinpoint just how a technical process yields symmetry. Researchers of Indonesian cloth need to attendto the relationship between principles of design integrationand symmetry throughout the archipelago and the technicalprocesses that are deployed to achieve these features.

Skills are particularly precious because, unlike artefacts,they cannot be collected, stored or preserved. Nor can they bededuced from finished cloth. They are ephemeral acts andtherefore highly vulnerable to loss. In the modern era, Bataktextile production techniques began to undergo rapid change.By the 1980s, the Karo Batak, for example, were practising onlya small number of the techniques that they once knew. Theirtextile-production practices appear to be as ancient as those ofthe Toba and Simalungun, but, as noted in Part iv, many weredifferent. Some of the insights that could have been gainedfrom comparing techniques within the Batak region alone,have therefore been lost.19

Totality

The theme of totality, according to Philip Tobing’s analysis 1956,is core to Toba Batak thought and religion. The spirit world ischaracterized as having an ‘essential oneness, which is the HighGod himself … the High God can hardly be anything else, but theoneness of all-space and all-order’ 1956:120. Tobing documentshow repeatedly, in magico-religious thought, conceptions oftime and space are collapsed into the oneness of totality: thebindu matoga fig. Des 1.1 that corresponds to what P.E. de Josselinde Jong called the 4-5 and 8-9 schemes of classification. Thebanyan tree of fate extending between the upper- and under-world 1956:133, the anthropomorphic conceptualization of timein the form of the body parts of Debata or the High God 1956:134,and the annual passage of the great underworld, snake-like,creature, Naga Padoha, encircling the earth 1956:135 are furtherdepictions of the unity of time and space. Tobing points out that‘time is identical with the cosmic order, which is inconceivablewithout space.’ The conception of time is inherent in space, andspace is inherent in time. This understanding of cosmic order isfundamental to ritual activities such as the mangase taon orannual cleansing ceremony in which the story of the origin ofthe world is re-enacted and divinatory rites in which theintention s of the spirit world are revealed. It infuses theclassification schemes enumerated above. If the 2-3 and 4-5schemes are interpreted throughout the archipelago astotalizing , then totality is a common theme in indigenousIndonesian thought, and it is hardly surprising that it shouldfind visual expression in the weaving arts.

Colour is a foremost means of expressing totality. In the Batakarea, the individual strands of red, white and blue-blackrepresen t members of the kinship triad, and twisted togetherthe strands represent the system as a whole see also Maxwell1990:98. Totality is expressed as a composite. In 1938, thecolonial official Viktor E. Korn received a visit from threeleading practitioner s of indigenous Batak religion who werewearing turbans made from red, white and blue-black yarntwisted together (bonang manalu) Korn 1953:32; see fig. Des 3.5. Thiswas unusual given that such practitioners commonly wore onlyblack headdresses. Korn was later able to explain the choice ofthe tricolour in terms of the message that the visitors wanted toconvey: they had come with the authority to represent theentire population Korn 1953:38, n12.

Totality in Batak cloth design can be expressed in the form ofpatchworks, or samplers that pull together a variety ofpatterning and colour. The sampur borna Cat 9.1.5 is a jacket

19 A short segment of film depicting Karo weaving techniques allows for somecomparison. Its origin is not clear, but itwas probably made in the second decadeof the twentieth century by the colonialadministrator, Wilhelm Middendorp,perhaps with the assistance of thephotographer, Tassilo Adam. Janneke vanDijk brought this item of theTropenmuseum collection to myattention.

20 Two strategies are recorded in the literat ure. Both strategies are well-known in the Silindung Valley seeMaxwell 1990:119, fig. 171. One strategymakes use of the female supplementaryweft motif found in one white end of thetextil e. Each of the repeating motifscomposi ng this pattern is counted off insuccession while a line of a verse isrecited for each motif. The fate of therecipient of the textile is believed to bebound up with the meaning attached tothe line of the verse where the recitation

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s42 Design 1

stitched together from (imported) fabrics of different colours.While this was not confirmed for me during fieldwork, it islikely that such a jacket expressed the same principle as thetricolour so that, by wearing it, the wearer was assured of‘composite ’ spiritual power. Such jackets were worn exclusivelyby magico- religious specialists.

Comparable to a sampler, the harungguan textile type Cat2.14, is a composite of the patterning found in other textile typesDetail. Such a textile is usually acquired on the advice of a localhealer. It is believed that at least one of the range of patternsdisplaye d in the cloth will appeal to the soul of its owner, whowill then derive protection and strength from it. This beliefsuggest s that the range of patterning in Toba textiles isperceive d as corresponding to the variety of tastes and needsof the human soul.

In Javanese court culture, sacred patchwork patterns withextraordinary magical and protective power are associatedwith, and reserved for, the exclusive use of social and spiritualleaders on special occasions Veldhuizen-Djajasoebrata 1984:74–9;Guy 1998:102–3. At the folk end of the Javanese culture spectrum,Heringa describes how the theme of totality is infused intextiles in the East Javanese village of Kerek. In that village,colours are multivalent symbols; they mark phases in the lifecycle of the human, and correlate those phases with the order ofthe universe. Here, too, totality is represented by the compositeof all colours, as in the cloth called pipitan.When the young wife becomes a mother, she is allowed to wear thepipitan cloth. Blue and red have now mingled to become black,symbolizi ng the union of husband and wife … The pipitan though itlooks blue and black with red, can also be considered to be multi-coloured – incorporating all possible colors …’ Heringa 1989:127

Tobing recognized the ragidup Cat 7.1; Detail (the variantwith stripes in the centre field) as being a symbol of the TobaBatak High God 1956:185 and, as such, a symbol of totality.The composite character of the cloth is expressed in local explanations of its design. As its name indicates, thetextile comprises ‘motifs of life.’ I was told that the black supplementary-weft patterning in the white end fields represents the earth, flora, fauna and humans. The stripes inthe centre field are the sun and precipitation hitting the earth,and the side panels are the cultivate d fields Niessen 1985a:225.The cloth, in other words, was perceived or interpreted as representing the Batak universe Detail.

The meaning of the ragidup varies from region toregion, and from person to person. However, in thedesign of this cloth, the principles of textile layoutare more elaborated than in any other textile in therepertory Niessen 1985a:167–228. That this complextextile is locally perceived as the ‘number one’ TobaBatak cloth, underscores the respect that the Tobahave for repetition and elaboration of designprinciples . It may be argued that if this textilesymbolizes totality, this has as much to do with thecomposite of principles manifested in its designas the meanings associated with its patterning,summariz ed in the previous paragraph.

The ragidup has a key ritual function as a soulcloth (Toba ulos ni tondi). In this capacity, it is givenby her parents to a woman pregnant with her firstchild. Such a cloth will be kept carefully because of itspower to promote well-being and protect the life ofthe mother and her progeny. It makes sense, giventhis important function, that such a complex textilerepresenting totality is also one of theaccoutrements of divination rituals, and that it isconsulted to determine whether it will be auspiciousfor the owner.20

The aesthetic expressed by Batak textiles couldscarcely be more different from the exuberance ofthe spontaneously constructed tie-dyed cloth fromEcuador in which much appears to depend on moodand chance. Batak textiles, whether complex orsimple, are thoughtful, consistent, methodical, andregular: in short, rule-bound. But the twentiethcentury has been tumultuous. As a consequence ofexternal influences, the design of Batak textiles hasundergone change so considerable that it is betterdescribed using the term revolutionary. The conceptof ‘progressive elaboration’ of the ancient designelement s fails to successfully describe what is goingon. These changes are addressed in the following twochapters on Early Design History Des 2 and ModernDesign History Des 3.

ragidup Cat 7.1. Detail.

d e s i g n f o u n d a t i o n s 43Design 1

harungguan Cat 2.14. Detail.