The Fahnestock Expedition

Indonesia possesses the greatest diversity of traditional textiles in the world-the colorful Bark Cloths of Kalimantan, Irian Jaya, and Sulawesi uplands; the plain weaves songket silk of Sumatra; the beautiful batik of Java and the renowned ikat of eastern island. For Indonesians, textiles reconfirm and maintain many old and hallowed association, and also symbolize wealth, status and religious beliefs.

            This is about the symbolism of producing textiles in Java. The shipping and weaving of yarn were traditionally regarded as symbolic of the process of creation, and of human birth in particular. Weaving was generally an exclusively female activity. Men were permitted to participate only in the dyeing of certain colors of the thread, analogous with their role in human conception. Pregnant, menstruating or stick women were excluded from the work. If a death occurred in the village, the weaving would stop at once; otherwise, the spirit of the departed would do an exact vengeance, bringing sickness upon the weaver and causing the threads to lose their strength.

            An entire language develop. For example, the brown and white rahidup (pattern of life) cloths of the Bataks were presented to a woman of seven-month pregnant with her first child, as ulos ni tondi (a soul cloth). The sacred maa cloths of the Torajans of southern Sulawesi are carefully kept in special baskets, and are still considered necessary for all major rituals. Some maa are considered effective for the population of fertility spirits, and opening a powerful cloth is said to bring immediate rainfall.

            Certain cloths, colours and motifs were set aside for the exclusive of kings and nobles, and certainly, the all-purpose-useful cloth is sarung or body wrap which is worn by the majority-men and women, children and old, the poor and the haves, throughout Indonesia at any season.