Museum and the Online Archive of California

Flores Island

Indonesia

Lio

Nualolo Hamlet

Onelako Village

Textile; senai; man's shoulder cloth. Indonesia

1988-1988

fabric

hand woven

back tension loom

tapestry weave

sewn

cotton

morinda dye

248.0 cm by 66.0 cm

Fowler Museum of Cultural History. University of California, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, California 90095-1549

UCLA FMCH X88.1280

- fabric hand woven back tension loom tapestry weave sewn cotton morinda
dye

Content/Description

REMARKS BY ROY HAMILTON (1988): Commissioned to serve as an example of a type of cloth no longer made; modeled after existing cloth. Two cloths of this type were examined during the course of field research by the collector, one in Wolowaru Subdistrict and the other in Ndona Subdistrict. As far as is known, these are the only two surviving examples. There is no mention in the literature of such cloths occuring on Flores, although one similar cloth appears without any comment in a published photograph from the Manggarai region in western Flores (Kahn Majlis 1984:unpaginated color plate section). In fact there is no mention of the use of the tapestry technique anywhere on Flores. This type of cloth is documented however from the neighboring island of Sumbawa, illustrated in Gittinger 1979 (plate 144). The two existing cloths were indisputably made on Flores in the villages where they are preserved by descendants of the makers. Both probably date from the 1920s or the 1930s. One of the two was made by a woman who died c1933. Two elderly weavers who recalled the techniques involved were interviewed and one of these was commissioned to make an example. Due to technical problems adjusting the warp count to the size of currently availabel yarns and reeds, a second attempt produced a better result. This second cloth is the one which was acquired for the museum. It was woven by a young weaver who assisted on the first cloth under the direction of the elderly weaver. The cloth examined in Wolowaru Subdistrict was referred to as "luka bara wo'e". This type of cloth was said by informants to have been part of the ceremonial dress of middle-aged men who had not yet assumed the rank of clan elders. The elders wore higher-status ikat shoulder cloths known as "luka semba". In Ndona Subdistrict, if such distinctions once existed they are no longer recalled. Here the same type of cloth is referred to as "senai poke dubu" ("poke" = weft, "dubu" = discontinuous; a reference to the use of multiple weft elements in the tapestry t
echnique). They are recalled merely as an alternative style of man's shoulder cloth. The lozenge-shaped centerfield of this style of cloth is reminiscent of cloths made in India and Java, using a variety of other techniques including even batik. Clearly the design of the cloth is not indigenous to Flores. The style may have been introduced through the Dutch-controlled colonial era trade system, as has been documented for other styles of imported cloths such as Indian "patola". The establishment of the style on Sumbawa however points toward another link as well. Especially the kingdom of Bima on Sumbawa was an offshoot of Islamic Makassarese expansion from South Sulawesi. The development of the coastal Ende culture was also a part of this sea-based Islamic expansion. It may be that the introduction of this style of cloth was more directly a result of Islamic rather than Dutch trade. It is likely that the loom reed and the blouse style "lambu" are other elements of Ende and Lio textile traditions that became established on Flores primarily through Islamic channels.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Kahn Majlis, Brigitte. 1984. INDONESISCHE TEXTILIEN: WEGE ZU GOTTERN UND ANHEN. Krefeld, Germany, Deutsches Textilmuseum.

http://ark.cdlib.o…

ark:/13030/ft0000030 v