My Textile Trip to Indonesia by Joan Diamond

 This past May, I was lucky to have participated in a very special textile tour to the Lesser Sunda Islands, which, on a map, are islands that are more easterly in this large archipelago of over 17,000 islands. By boat while we slept, we traveled to the different islands.  The boat was a beautiful 8-cabin schooner, and it was my first time on a boat. Looking up at the stars and trying to find constellations in the southern hemisphere sky was great fun -there are apps for everything!!

I think of this trip as a National Geographic moment. Should my own children visit these places when they are at my present age, I suspect much of what I saw will have gone extinct. The picture below is one example of very fine work with very tiny shells sewn in an intricate pattern that has disappeared. Larger shells in isolated patterns (like an interrupted row) can be found.

The villages we visited live in ways I might only read about: very, very simply. Some villages have a hunter/gather-er culture. All the villages had no electricity for lighting or cooking (although many had cell phones, so there are charging stations available somewhere).  There is a symbiotic trading agreement among many islands: those who live at the base of volcanoes trade principally fish and meat, and sometimes weavings for agricultural products that their soil won't yield. We visited the islands to see the indigo- and morinda-dyed weavings of these indigenous peoples.

 

The picture above illustrates how the weavers are indeed aging. Younger women-it is the women who weave here-are not attracted to this labor-intensive work. Every aspect of the process takes time and effort. By way of example, the morinda dye comes only from the bark of the tree, which needs to be hunted, stripped from the tree, and brought back to the village. Sometimes it is purchased in small bundles at the market if available. 

 The ikat weavings, especially, are labor-intensive. We could see the expertise as bindings were laid along the warp bundles by this weaver without any cartoon or guidelines to ensure alignment of the design. 

Bindings are wrapped and rewrapped to build the design through resist (the wrapping prevents the dye from getting to the fabric). In these pictures, red and blue raffia are used to "resist" the dye penetration.

 Each material (cotton, indigo, morinda principally) needs to be gathered, prepared, and dyed. Below is the morinda bark after soaking and being removed from the basin. The fibers of the bark cause the hands to get itchy, and oil is used at night to soothe the skin. Morinda warp bundles dyed at least twice.

Then there is the weaving!

Some finished products.

 

Me with the weaver showing off her work, my purchase!

Each village treated us like royalty. The chief of the village gave welcome prayers, there was drumming and singing, and much dancing by young and old, a presentation of scarves gifted to the two picked representatives for our group, and an offering of food, sometimes simple and sometimes a banquet! Folks were dressed in their best. Then we had a demonstration of their weaving process, and then shopping. In quite a few of the villages, we were probably their only visitors (since Sue and David Richardson's last annual visit). The Richardsons are a fun couple whose expertise in weavings from this part of the world is well-regarded.  Here you see one village waiting for us to arrive. And then the aforementioned ceremonies.