Ancient technique of ikat in danger of disappearing

A 19th-century shawl from Palembang, Sumatra, using both songket and weft ikat techniques. This limar textile was the preserve of the royals and the nobility. Photo: Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia

Remembering their headhunting days

Ikat cloth used to be worn daily on Indonesia’s Sumba island. But today it is only worn on special occasions – births, graduations, marriages, and funerals. Fewer women are weaving ikat Sumba, and even fewer children want to learn the technique. And the textile is also under threat from fakes.

“Occasional use of the cloth for ceremonies may not be sufficient to guarantee its future as a living cultural heritage,” warned the delegation that tried in 2013 to nominate ikat Sumba for Unesco’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

The Intergovernmental Committee meeting in Azerbaijan at that time had asked for corrections and 12 of the state parties wanted more information, remembers Roseri Rosdy Putri at Indonesia’s Education and Culture Ministry. “We didn’t get much time to explain it all,” she writes in an e-mail. The nomination failed but Indonesia plans to try again and is suggesting a joint submission with Malaysia.

The process for ikat Sumba and Malaysian ikat is the same, notes Rosidah Abdullah, curator of KL’s National Textile Museum. “Both tie-dye the warp thread and have animal motifs, but they have different patterns, following their own creativity.”

Textile enthusiast Marie Tseng points to a common motif in ikat sumba, the skull tree which displayed headhunting trophies at the entrance of a village. Photo: The Star/Faihan Ghani

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“Ikat Sumba designs are bigger, less abstract, not based on dreams, not religious, do not tell a story, and each piece does not have a name,” says Malaysian textile enthusiast and consultant Marie Tseng. The motifs are mostly status symbols.

Ikat Sumba is also open to outside influences, she adds. From the 1970s, some pieces had a fringe design from batik and designs similar to the Indian ikat called patola. “Catering to the tourist market, ikat Sumba often has the skull tree which displayed headhunting trophies at the entrance of a village,” she says.

Textile Tales Of Pua Kumbu will be on display from June 13 to July 17 at the UM Art Gallery, Level 5, Chancellery Building, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.