Textiles of Southeast Asia. Robyn Maxwell
ña sinapowan woman shaman's headcloth Tinguian people, Luzon, Philippines handspun cotton, natural dyes supplementary weft weave 152.0 x 19.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1984.3190
This white head cloth, with an ancient Southeast Asian interlocking oval design in floating indigo wefts, was worn by female shaman during the dawak ceremony. Early twentieth century
COMMUNICATING WITH SPIRITS AND ANCESTORS
Supernatural beings are believed to have the power to intrude upon the lives of humans and affect the course of an already uncertain natural world. In legend, they are often credited with the creation or the discovery of the most fundamental objects upon which a culture is founded - staple foodstuffs such as rice, domestic animals such as the buffalo, and the basic raw materials from which clothing is fashioned such as cotton. Legends often refer to the role of great ancestors or gods in the discovery of important skills such as the art of spinning and weaving and the invention of many sacred designs.67 Great care is taken to appease the wrath of ancestors and spirits and to ensure their pleasure, and their protection is invoked at times of crisis. Textiles are often a central part of the many mediating rituals that are performed to achieve and maintain this cosmic harmony and personal health.
Related to these notions about the role of ancestors and spirits are beliefs in omens and magic. Throughout Southeast Asia certain textiles are incorporated into magical practices and are believed to have sacred qualities. These qualities are invoked at life and death ceremonies when the ancestors and spirits are attracted or appeased by prominent displays and offerings of sacred fabrics, while dangerous or malevolent beings are kept at bay and their evil work thwarted.
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Among the Iban of Sarawak there is evidently a close relationship between textiles and a belief in omens and dreams (Vogelsanger, 1980). Dreams seem to provide inspiration, in particular, for the arrangement of Iban motifs, and for the special name and the meaning that a cloth assumes. Iban women, however, clearly re-create the fabrics of their dreams from the artistic symbols available within their culture, and certain powerful and visually appealing patterns have been repeated from generation to generation, with minor design changes resulting from aesthetic or personal reinterpretations. Consequently when dreams are translated on to cloth it is sometimes possible to recognize familiar elements or even complete designs, although one Iban design may have a specific contextual meaning and it may be interpreted differently in another longhouse or district.
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Communication with spirits for the benefit of individuals or the social group is often performed by a shaman, a specialized religious practitioner who possesses the personal qualities and sense of calling essential for this dangerous task. Since natural disasters and personal misfortunes are widely believed to be the work of malevolent supernatural beings, a shaman is required to call back the wandering soul of a sick person, ensure the safe arrival of a new baby, or clean and cool the village after a visitation of pestilence. Throughout Southeast Asia a shaman may either be male or female. In fact, the restoration of the cosmic order is often best performed by religious practitioners who incorporate both male and female qualities. Bisexuality is displayed in transvestite apparel, and in certain societies a male shaman, after initiation, wears women's clothing and performs women's tasks, including weaving.68 Some Southeast Asian textiles, like the shaman, harness these complementary yet opposing forces, and display symbolism containing male, female, or even bisexual elements.
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Among the various Batak peoples of north Sumatra, there are a number of important ceremonial textiles that have male and female ends where each set of gender-related elements is concentrated. These include Toba Batak cloths (such as the ulos ragidup and the ulos pinunsaan), the Simalungun Batak headcloth, and some nineteenth-century Mandailing and Angkola Batak textiles. The most northerly weaving districts of the neighbouring Minangkabau people also appear to have integrated comparable pairs of schematic shapes into a striking band at each end of certain cloths. Further south in the Bengkulu and Pasemah region of Sumatra, the arrangement of different designs and the structure of the pattern at each end of the shouldercloth suggest an interesting comparison with the overt and intentional sexual imagery of Batak textiles.
While Batak elders readily identify the male and female ends and the sexual images on their textiles, such explicit identification of sexual symbolism is no longer apparent in neighbouring Sumatran areas. Minangkabau weavers understand the lozenge motifs on their supplementary silk textiles to be ceremonial cakes or heaps of sirih (an ingredient for betel-nut chewing), and triangular shapes are believed to represent bamboo shoots or 'the tree of life' (Sanday and Kartiwa, 1984: 18-25). While these motifs are now reduced to geometric patterning, and are identified with familiar everyday objects from the world around them, the weavers' ancestors may have intended motifs such as these to represent human figures.
Certain textiles are specifically designed to communicate with spirits. When physical danger threatens, such as an unexplained ill ness or pregnancy, a shaman or seer may prescribe the weaving of a special cloth to protect the owner and dispel the evil. A Batak village priest might suggest the weaving of an ulos ragidup as a cure for personal difficulties. This striking cloth, woven by a complex series of procedures, was also used in the past as an aid to divination. Textiles are also used by shamans among the peoples of northern Luzon, where they appear in a variety of ceremonies designed to placate the spirits. But instead of being read to predict the future, in this part of Southeast Asia they appear to hold the key to past events, such as the performance of great ceremonies (Ellis, 1981: 224-30).
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At lban ceremonies performed to re-establish order after a tragic and unexpected occurrence, such as the death of a child, the shaman hangs an appropriately decorated pua at the entrance of the longhouse in his attempts to destroy the incubus believed to have caused the disaster. During the initiation of a manang bali (the transformed shaman with particular abilities to communicate with terrestrial shaman and draw upon their assistance to return a wandering or stolen soul and vanquish evil spirits69), a pua completely covers the initiate, as he attempts to climb over a symbolic wall of fire (pagar apz) constructed of timber and decorative textiles.
In such rites the pua themselves are believed to be transformed into objects of supernatural power. This notion is implicit in an alternative Iban term for these textiles, bali, meaning 'to change in form'.70 These textiles become avenues of communication and even the temporary dwelling place of supernatural beings. Particularly during the era when head-hunting activities held a central place in the life of the Iban, the longhouse communities constructed temporary shrines (ranyaz), in which the gods who were called to attend at ceremonies might dwell. These structures were walled with large and valuable pua depicting beings from lban mythology. Pua were also used as hangings to decorate the longhouse at every major celebration or ceremony invoking the gods' blessings. Amongst the Mien of mainland Southeast Asia, an initiate shaman is assisted by the head shaman, to climb a ladder of swords covered with a white cloth that is believed to represent a pathway to heaven (Campbell et al., 1978: 46). These rites make implicit demands on the qualities of sacred textiles, as protectors and as communication links with the benevolent beings of the Upper World.
Two Toba Batak elders discuss the meaning of the motifs on the man's ulos ni tondi (soul-cloth), a finely worked ulos ragidup ('design of life') from the Taratung district south of Lake Toba. The ulos ragidup and ulos pinunsaan can be read by experts as an oracle to predict the future and particular cloths or designs might be prescribed by a Batak shaman as a cure for misfortune (Gittinger, 1975: 13-15).
pua kumbu ceremonial cloth Kajut anak Ubu, Tiau River, Kapit district, Sarawak, Malaysia cotton, natural dyes warp ikat 240.0 x 117.0 cm Australian National Gallery 1981.1116