Bali's textiles reflect its cultural richness

By Mehru Jaffer

DENPASAR, Bali (JP): Obviously Charlie Chaplin had not done his homework properly on the exuberant tradition of textiles in Bali when he visited in the 1930s.

He was disappointed; it is reported that Bali was not quite the promiscuous island of his imagination, afloat with bare- breasted beauties.

Clothing has been part of Balinese life since prehistoric time, actually, as a basic need along with food, drink and rituals, and the art of decorated ikat textile was practiced as far back as the Bronze Age.

At first, grass covered the body. Then a loincloth was made from tree bark by pounding it into long strips, then wearing it by passing it between the legs and around the hips.

Along with this bark cloth, it is said in the Purana Bali texts that thread from the leaves of the bagu plant was spun and woven into fabric.

Later, colorful textiles began to reflect the island's great cultural richness and diversity and even take on a life of their own.

To this day weaving plays an important role in village life, where women are said to surrender their very dreams and aspirations to cloth using traditional looms and decorating it with designs obtained through prayer, magic formulas, meditation and fasting.

All this woven wealth is a direct product of the mercantile influences going back thousands of years of trade with China, India, the Middle East, Portugal, the Netherlands and also other islands of the archipelago.

The Chinese took cotton from here, leaving behind silk in exchange, and Indian traders brought silver and gold thread, inspiring weavers to transform simple fabrics into intricate and complex patterns full of luster and sheen.

"And the best of Balinese textiles are those that are still woven on a simple loom and display a finish not to be found in those produced en masse," writes Suwati Kartiwa, anthropologist in one of her numerous books on Indonesian textiles.

Some of the well-known designs include the lamak (plaiting and braiding), prada (gold leaf), songket (supplementary weft) and kain endek (ikat), generally made of pure silk. The gilded prada, sacred bebali, archaic keling and cepuk are some of the other techniques known to the Balinese, the most common of them all being the poleng.

With its chessboard pattern of alternate black and white squares, the poleng cannot be missed no matter how short one's visit to Bali is, as the material is used from covering sacred stones, trees, shrines and divine symbols to people.

The poleng represents dualism, or the principle of the two opposites which is of such great importance in the thinking of the Balinese. The black and white pattern is repeated as it is only through contrasting one with the other that both acquire a meaning; for there can be no day without night, no man without woman and no good without evil.

The traditional weaving of the geringsing cloth plays a special part in ceremonies and rituals, too, worn by men as a waist band or neck scarf and by women and girls to cover the breasts.

Woven only by the Bali Aga, the original inhabitants of the island's eastern villages, geringsing is believed to hold magic properties.

It is used in formal festivals and rites of passage ceremonies like tooth filing and wedding ceremonies and to cover the dead before burial.

The muted colors of dark reds, creams and browns are derived from natural vegetable dyes collected from the forest. With the work of gathering plants, extracting the dyes, spinning and binding the thread, and the actual weaving itself, interspersed with farm work and looking after the house, it can take up to 10 years to make one piece of this highly valued textile.

Admired by textile collectors around the world for its exquisite workmanship, it is now feared that the art may be dying out as only a few skilled weavers in the Bali Aga villages are left to create a piece fit for the gods.