MAGIC CLOTH BALI - Threads of...

18 WILDFIBERSMAGAZINE.COM 19FALL 2015

MAGIC CLOTH OF BALI

Story and Photos by Torie Olson


ith its Arctic temperatures, ten foot snowdrifts, and soul crushing darkness at 4 p.m., my world is out of whack. For such an extreme winter, Bali is my cure. I go directly to Ubud, the cultural center of

the island, where I discover rituals that can make your world right. I wear sarongs and sashes; eat the perfect balance of sweet, sour, salt and bitter; attend sacred ceremonies in roof-less temples; and learn to make offerings. Offerings are everywhere in Bali—on the ground, up in the god houses, floating down waterways. They are tied to the handlebars of scooters and placed at the foot of looms. Ketut hands me a strip of palm leaf and teaches me how to weave an offerings tray. We fill it with flower petals, rice and incense, then present it to the spirits, both good and bad. “We must please both or they will cause mischief in our world.” she explains. I light a joss stick, say a prayer and wave it upwards with the smoke. I am warm for the first time in months, but not too warm; each afternoon, the monsoon shows up to cool the

land. The fields are greener than green. There are kingfishers with turquoise wings, and deep red dragonflies. In Bali, the colors are caffeinated. To find out more about this island’s revitalizing hues, I contact Threads of Life, an organization working to sustain and revive Indonesia’s spectacular weaving arts. An introduc-tion is made to the erudite Chee Choy, who agrees to be my guide. He takes me ten minutes north to Petulu, a tiny town known for its wood carving, the white herons that roost in its trees, and a dye farm, research center and studio sponsored by The Bebali Foundation, an affiliate of Threads of Life. The Bebali Foundation’s year-old dye garden contains over fifty varieties, collected from all over Indonesia. With-in the next year, that number will double. Head horticultur-ist Komang points out three kinds of indigo (Indigofera tinc-toria, Indigofera suffruticosa and Strobilanthes cusia) in the garden’s blue section. In the red section, he shows us henna, madder and the morinda tree. There are tannin-based plants for browns, and jackfruit, mango, turmeric and mangrove plants for yellow. With deforestation, some of these dyestuffs

are disappearing, so part of the foundation’s effort is aimed at teaching weavers across the archipelago to propagate plants, manage dye gardens and harvest sustainably. Project director Pong explains that Bebali is also an open air laboratory where he and his colleagues work with dyestuffs and a va-riety of drying, rinsing and mordanting tech-niques to recover, document and redistribute Indonesia’s traditional dye knowledge. “We are not scientists, just passionate experi-menters,” he says. In the studio, I meet a master dyer called Frog. He has several indigo vats in the works. Purple bubbles are visible on the surface. The Indigo tinctoria leaves have been soaking and fermenting for forty-eight hours. Frog removes the plant material and adds quicklime to sep-arate the chlorophyll from the indican, and I have a chance to see what his dye can do. A piece of undyed cotton is taped to a drawing board. I pick up a canting and fill it halfway with hot wax. Examples of tradition-al batik motifs are provided, but without an artist’s skill, I opt for abstract and let the uni-verse guide my hand. Frog lowers my cloth into his indigo vat, aerating it with vigorous handling. “This ties the indican to the cloth,” he says. The cloth is hung in the sun to dry, then retaped to my drawing board. The uni-verse guides my hand again. Again, the cloth is dipped and dried. Then it is placed in boil-ing water with soda ash to fix it and tapioca powder to remove the wax. Finally, it is rinsed with rubaree (a plant in the mint family) to make it smell better. In the studio, I also learn about morinda, the archipelago’s most highly valued red col-orant. Every weaving community has its own identifying shade of red. (It has been taboo to share dye recipes.) Choy shows me a skein of cotton that has been dyed here with morin-da. The thread is a lovely auburn color, but I suspect it will return to the dye bath several times before Frog is satisfied. While dyeing with morinda produces the deepest, most sought-after reds, it is a complicated, multi-step process that can take years to complete. Chee Choy explains that only the bark of the morinda root is used. “In the U.S., we call it noni and use it to make a health drink,” he says. In Indonesia, morinda is pounded to a pulp, added to water, and mordanted with dry leaves of the symplocos tree that have been

Morinda Workshop. Ibu Sri works on a loom in the background.

W

Top to bottom: Cotton skeins, plain on the left, oiled on the right. A piece of morinda root. Indigo vats percolating outdoors.

Glorious herons and kingfishers decorate the colorful path to an ancient Balinese weaving history.


gathered from the forest floor. The mixture is then hand-squeezed to release the dye. But that is just the beginning. A time-consuming method of fiber preparation is required to dye cotton with morinda. For better absorption, the fi-ber must first be hand spun. Then it must be soaked in oil, sometimes up to twenty times, and between each oiling it must be dried in the shade. “This gives the dye more ‘arms’ to grab hold of the fiber,” Choy says. The communities don’t share their oiling procedures either. Some use chicken fat, but most use candlenut oil that has been augmented with a mishmash of secret ingredients. It is tea time and I am revived by two, red-belled flowers: hibiscus. After the pistils have been removed, the blossoms are crumpled and covered with boiling water, then a squeeze of lime is added. This, too, makes a nice red.

The Magic Cloth of Bali Aga A few days later, Choy takes me to another village to see morinda and indigo in action. We travel east through rainfor-est and ricelands where farmers nap in tin-roofed shacks or replenish offerings at one of the little field shrines dedicated to Dewi Sri, goddess of grain. At the entrance to Tenganan Village there are roosters in basket cages awaiting victory in a cock fight or sacrifice in a temple ceremony. For either oc-casion, they have been dyed Bazooka pink, neon orange, and screaming zonker yellow. Choy assures me that this is not a bad omen, that we will indeed find cloth that has been natu-rally dyed. Tenganan is home to the Bali Aga people, the island’s ear-liest settlers. So vigilant are they to keep their bloodline pure that marriage to outsiders is forbidden, and foreigners (which

A weaver’s skilled hand working on a morinda cloth.

Depending on the intricacy of the pattern, the tying of a double ikat

(weavings believed to cure or prevent illness) can take up to a year.

includes the rest of the Balinese) are not allowed here after dark. Cars are banned as well, so we are dropped at the gate to walk up stone avenues dividing long rows of stone-walled compounds. Most are thatched with black sugar palm fiber, and caged songbirds hang from the eaves. Seeing the sign for Morinda Art, we step over offerings and enter a courtyard. Just inside the door, there is a shrine where two durians (a prized fruit that reeks but tastes sub-lime) have been offered to ensure a good visit. Ibu (Mother) Sri stands in front of it. Her torso is wrapped in a marvel-ous old cloth, and another is draped over her right shoulder. These double ikat weavings are called geringsing (“no sick-ness”). Invested with the power to cure or prevent illness, they are also called magic cloths. Double ikats are woven in only three places in the world: Patola, India; Okinawa, Japan; and Tenganan, Bali. In this village, there are only four weavers left who can make ger-ingsing, and Ibu Sri is one of them. She sits down at her tying frame and gets to work on a weft. Following a template, she picks up bundles of threads and binds them with red or blue raffia. This will tell her which sections should resist dye and stay natural, which should be dyed red with morinda, and which should be overdyed with indigo to turn them black. When she is done with the weft, she will tie off the warp. Depending on the intricacy of the pattern and the size of the double ikat, the tying can take up to a year. The dyeing is only done in the dry season and can take as long as three years. To achieve the desired hues, threads are dyed and re-dyed, unbound and rebound again and again. “The best weavers work with the threads their grandmothers prepared,” Ibu Sri says. Once the loom is warped, things pick up speed. Producing a cloth as fine as gauze may only take a few months. After it is taken off the loom, it is consecrated and empowered in a ceremony. And then, like fine wine, it is put away for several more years to age. As far as Ibu Sri is concerned, a cloth is not ready to wear or use for at least ten years. Ibu Sri’s son, Wayan, tells me what to look for in a finished geringsing. He identifies the clearly defined motifs that can protect the wearer—mandalas, chakras, ceremonial figures, lotus flowers, butterflies, scorpions, and other signs “deter-mined by the gods” and unnamed. Showing off his mother’s neatly woven borders, he says, “Our weavings are containers of magical power. All the edges, always white or black, must be perfect so the magic does not leak out.” It isn’t the weaving that gives geringsing its high value: it’s the lustrous color. It is easy to see the difference between a “young” morinda and an “old” morinda. From new to antique, these magic cloths range in price from $2,000 to $12,000. I know which ones I like, but my pockets are not deep enough.

Part of Life in Bali Back with Choy at my Ubud hotel, a three-inch spider jumps onto our table in search of a meal. We don’t kill the


laba laba. We change tables. I have no geringsing to protect me, and this demon in disguise should be propitiated. The next day, I put on my factory-made sarong and sash and proceed to temple along with hundreds of women girdled in ceremonial ikats. On their heads, they carry fifty-pound pyramids of offerings—dragon fruit, little pink cakes, pigs’ heads, chicken feet, money, flowers, rice—and anything else a god might like. We proceed through the temple gate, past fierce stone guardians skirted and sashed with black and white check-ered cloth. Inside, there is more sacred cloth. Cloth wraps the offerings, shrines and devotees. Cloth pennants wave in the wind to attract the gods. Cloth umbrellas stand ready to shade the gods. Like a road to the divine, cloth flutters down to us from the god towers. Today, there is a birthday party for this temple, and the gods are invited to be worshipped, wined and dined.

While the gods eat, we sit on the stone ground and pray. Palms together, we clasp a frangipani blossom between our middle fingers. After each prayer is complete, the priest rings a little bell and we tuck the flower into our hair. Tonight, each petition is also punctuated by thunder, and by the time we’re done with the whole cycle, the women’s chignons are full of flowers and the sky has opened up. Offering baskets are used as rain hats. Under a checkered umbrella, I take shelter with the gods and watch the astonishing eye, hand and leg move-ments of young dancers also swathed in sacred cloth.

Finding Meaning For a better understanding of Bali’s sacred textile tradition, Choy takes to the east again, past old teak houses and fields where old women in conical hats wave cloth flags to scare birds out of the kerneling grain. From the coastal road, we head into the foothills of Bali’s most sacred volcano where, in the village of Sidemen, we meet with Ibu Dayu Ngurah Puniari. Ibu Dayu has spent years interviewing the island’s elder priests and weavers and scouring its secret texts and palm leaf scriptures for information on traditional production

“Once upon a time, our women of the

loom practiced meditation in hopes

of seeing the meaning of the universe.

They asked the gods, ‘May we tell

these stories?’ The designs they

created in thread were codes for the

meaning of the universe.”

Photo opposite page: A special offering to the gods elegantly wrapped in silk.


methods, usage, and the transformative powers of ritual cloth. A revered teacher of the weaving arts and the found-er of a textile cooperative, she has convinced many of Bali’s textile artisans to return to the old dyes and the old patterns. She supplies them with traditionally dyed fiber and design templates and instructs them to “weave the way your grand-mothers wove.” We meet three of the coop’s expert weavers—Dayu Raka, Dayu Anom and Dayu Oka. They are making songkets, the traditional, supplementary-weft story cloths depicting scenes from Hindu literature and worn by brides, grooms and royal-ty. Instead of a backstrap, the weavers are held to their work by a piece of wood curved like Cupid’s bow. To create a mo-tif, they lift warp threads, insert a pattern stick, and weave in the weft string with their fingers. Some motifs require three hundred to five hundred of these pattern sticks. We admire their woven banyan trees, fire dragons, all-seeing peacocks and a demon who ate the moon, all set against naturally dyed grounds. Ibu Dayu explains how Bali’s weaving traditions began. “Once upon a time, our women of the loom practiced medi-tation in hopes of seeing the meaning of the universe. They built up their spiritual strength to receive this sacred in-formation, then asked permission of the gods, ‘May we tell these stories?’ The designs they created in thread were codes for the meaning of the universe.” Next, we see Ibu Dayu’s collection of ritual cloths. Most are supplementary-weft weavings in complex plaids and sim-ple stripes in a variety of significant colorways. Like gerings-ing, they are medicinal cloths, both curative and preventive. We are told that they have been empowered to protect, purify and heal. They can bring joy and longevity, provide strength or self control, increase initiative or creativity, impart humility or discernment, make the wearer passionate and fertile. . . “During life transitions, people are most vulnerable to evil influences, so protective cloths are required at all our rites-of-passage ceremonies,” Ibu says. At birth, for example, a newborn is placed on a ritual cloth to have its umbilical cord cut. During its first year, the baby is wrapped in cloth for ceremonial hair cutting, ear piercing and for the moment when its feet first touch the ground. Sa-cred cloth is also required on half birthdays and birthdays. At puberty, it plays an essential role in the tooth filing ceremony, which entails grinding down six teeth that represent the six bad behaviors and is meant to stave off teenage rebellion. We also see textiles that are integral to marriage and death rites. But the one that most interests me promises good health and a calm and happy temperament for my coming grandchild. This time I have the good sense to buy a magic cloth. That night, several drunk tourists wake me at 3 a.m. For an hour, they laugh, shout and do cannonballs in the pool outside my door. Today, the plumbing has gone to hell and a green snake crawled up my steps and looked me in the eye.

I report these incidents. The hotel staff tells me there were no drunks. They hack at the garden and find no snake. “Very strong magic in Bali,” they insist. “Black magic.” I’m thinking it’s time for another trip to the temple. The receptionist brings me to a special ceremony starring the bar-ong, a hairy, lion-like creature with fangs, bulging eyes and an I’m-going-to-eat-you expression. Sitting on either side of the railroad tracks that run through her village, we watch the spirits dance to expel evil, restore balance and bring bless-ings to us all. A train approaches then squeals to a halt and waits out the sacred play. The energy is so strong that peo-ple in the audience fall into trances. Little boys, old women, strong young men shout, shake and thrash. Fire is held to their skin and they return to consciousness without posses-sion or burns. Tonight white magic overpowers black magic, but the Balinese know that evil will never be fully thwart-ed—that there will always be a need for another ceremony, another offering and another magic cloth. wF

Threads of Life advances the work of 1,100 weavers on thirteen Indonesian islands. To visit their fabulous Ubud gallery, or take a class or a textile tour, visit the website at http://threadsoflife.com/

Chee Choy holds up a skein of cotton that has been dyed with morinda. It will likely be dyed several more times until it reaches the desired red.


Reflectionsof Bali

At a water temple, a priest tidies up the flower offerings made by devotees.

Photos by Torie Olson


Draped in sacred cloth, dancers enact the stories of their Hindu gods and demons.

Bottom (from left): Drummers in batik sarongs and headbands process to the temple.

At an all night temple ceremony, dancers are blessed before they perform.

Carrying offerings to the temple on a full moon day.

In a god house, a temple attendant organizes colorful offerings of fruit, rice, and skewered chicken parts.


Right: Cloth has many ceremonial purposes in the roofless temples.

Below: To propitiate the gods and demons, offering trays and incense are placed outside every shop and home.

Opposite page: Boy at prayer with frangipani blossom.

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