LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER TWO

      Endek

      Ikat Production in Transition

      THE form of traditional textile most commonly seen on Bali today is endek. This is the most highly-developed process in terms of technique and design; largely as a result the fabrics have acquired many new, non-traditional uses and are now seen far beyond the island's shores. Once the prerogative of noble families, endek has become a popular article of dress and an important badge of cultural identity for Balinese men and women of all social classes.

      The patterning technique known here as endek is actually a variant of the ikat process widely practiced throughout Indonesia. Ikat (Indonesian "bundle," mengikat "to tie") is a complicated and time-consuming resist-dye technique in which undyed yarns are mounted on a frame in bundles according to the pattern and tied in places with short lengths of banana bast or plastic strips. During the dyeing process, the tied areas resist the absorption of dye and remain uncolored; repeated tyings and dyeings can result in a multihued pattern of great intricacy. The preprogrammed designs may be applied to either the warp threads alone (warp ikat), or to the weft (weft ikat)—or to both thread systems at once, so that the patterning of each one supplements the other (double ikat)..

      Two forms of ikat are known in Bali: weft ikat, called here endek, has the pattern in the weft only; double ikat, known as geringsing, has patterns in both the warp and the weft. The latter procedure is exceedingly complicated, as the two designs have to be brought precisely into register with one another, and is undertaken in only one place in the whole of Indonesia—the tiny village of Tenganan Pegeringsingan in eastern Bali (see Chapter 9). In recent years, combined warp and weft ikat processes have been used in some establishments in Gianyar (central Bali) as well, but here the warp is patterned in some places and the weft in others, while the two are never blended together as in Tenganan.

      Figure 2.1: Outer hip cloth for men (kampuh). Endek and songkèt on silk. Bulèlèng, 1920-30. 141 x 109 cm. MEB IIc 17571.

      COURTLY SYMBOLS OF STATUS

      For a long time endek cloths were solely the prerogative of the princely families of Bali. They were worn on special occasions in palaces and temples as sumptuous wraparounds (wastra, kampuh), as breast cloths (selendang, anteng) or as shawls (cerik), frequently containing added songkèt or supplementary weft patterns (see Chapter 3). Elaborate production methods and exotic imported materials such as silk, special dyes, gold and silver threads greatly enhanced the value of these traditional status symbols of the courtly culture.

      Figure 2.2: Breast or shoulder cloths (anteng, cerik). Endek on silk. Bulèlèng, Buhunan, first half 20th century. 294 x 46 cm.; 252 x 41 cm. MEB HC 17574; 13992.

      The earliest extant endek textiles date from the late 19th to early 20th centuries and come from the north Balinese principality of Bulèlèng, which was at this time an important and influential textile-producing center. Endek patterns from this period are predominantly geometric, and are combined with songkèt patterns to form an artistically unified whole. Endek crossbands patterned with lozenges, crosses and arrowheads alternate with strips of geometrically patterned songkèt. Likewise; endek triangles with small, multicolored dashes nest together with contrasting songkèt ones to form rectangles. The basic color of these early endek-songkèt fabrics is red—varying from a deep purple-red to a warm brick-red. Only later do yellows and greens appear.

      Early figural representations are rare and very sumptuous, consisting for example patola patterns with lions and riders on elephants (see Chapter 8). This tendency to imitate patterns produced by other techniques—thereby creating, as it were, a substitute product—can also be observed in endek versions of the geringsing patelikuf double-ikat cloths. The dominant feature of these geringsing cloths, highly esteemed throughout the island for their ritual and magical properties, is the large four-pointed star with crenelated internal pattern which divides up the surface of the fabric into large, semicircular segments (see Chapter 9), Outside Tenganan this pattern is known as kota mesir (from kota, etymologically meaning "battlements," in modern Indonesian and Balinese "town; and mesir, "Egyptian" often referring to swastikas and other meander-like patterns). At the beginning of our century, it came to be applied to silk endek fabrics from Bulèlèng; in the 1930s it was imitated in Nusa Penida (possibly also in Lombok) in coarse materials of handspun cotton with dark backgrounds. Recently this pattern has cropped up again in mercerized cotton cloth sold by the meter (from Sidemen and Sampalan, near Klungkung), and has now gained acceptance as the dernier cri for wraparounds worn by Balinese on festive occasions (Fig. 2.13).

      At the beginning of the 20th century, endek cloths from Bulèlèng came to be produced without the addition of songkèt in small strips of fabric which women wore as breast or shoulder cloths, and in broad outer hip cloths composed of two widths of fabric sewn together. Here again some of the patterns, such as tiny, flowering trees, are reminiscent of the patola motifs (Fig. 2.2, left). Innumerable endek silks containing geometric cepuk patterns with their characteristic rows of gigi barong ("barong teeth"—see Chapter 8) also date from this period. Other designs create a more expansive effect, forming huge flowers and stars (Fig. 2.7). One of these stylized four-petal patterns (Fig. 2.2, right) has survived to the present day and is still woven in one of the purl or palaces of Singaraja in Bulèlèng under the name of tampak beta ("poinsettia blossom").

      Figure 2.3: Ritual cloth. Endek on gauze-like cotton. South Bali, first half of 20th century. 71 x 43 cm. MEB IIc 14014.

      During this period, the range of figural endek patterns was greatly extended. Depictions of the evil witch Rangda with flaming hair and lolling tongue, as well as of the demon Kalarau (who according to Balinese belief swallows the moon during eclipses) and many other gods and demons—even the much-beloved "go-between" or penasar figures from the Balinese wayang play (Fig. 2.4)—became popular motifs in endek cloths of exceptional artistic merit. The placement of these figures at right angles to the direction of the woven piece—technically a very difficult feat—is required by the way the cloths are worn as garments. Their production is said not to have been confined to Bulèlèng at this time, and the princely courts of Karangasem and Klungkung in eastern Bali are also believed to have been centers of endek weaving. In this period, the puri of Tabanan and Kerambitan also produced a unique geometrically patterned endek with multicolored stripes known as serapit Uncertainty still prevails as to the precise origin of certain coarse, gauze-like endek fabrics with similar geometric patterning that were used as ceremonial cloths in Gianyar and Tabanan (Fig. 2.3). Their patterns and their names, recorded by foreign observers already in the 1930s, suggest a certain affinity with cepuk cloths (see Chapter 8). Like

Скачать книгу