"Lurah of a village, was thinking about something. When he came to a thought, 'They would never know,' then he circulated a letter asking residents to collect funds.And when the planned day arrived, Pak Lurah's supporter, the invited local artists, and all the residents, gathered around in a place. The event was the inauguration of the building and a banquet. Then the host announced, 'Ladies and gentlemen, we call this building 'Pak Lurah's Hall', because it was built by Pak Lurah, the fund comes from Pak Lurah, the dishes are available by Pak Lurah, and all that provide here, because of Pak Lurah, by Pak Lurah and from Pak Lurah.'Hearing this, Pak Lurah's supporter and the invited local artists cheered up, 'Whatever!' But only a few residents agreed, the rest and most of them grumbled, 'Pak Lurah, what's wrong with this, it'is our money, why did you take it for yourself?'Apparently, 'They already knew.'""Why is Batik so special?" said Sunflower while looking at a piece of fabric. "In Indonesia, and in Indonesian's hands, a piece of 'kain' (fabric) may serve many functions, from simple clothing to currency for payment of a fine, all intimately related to the life of Indonesian people. Indonesian textiles are not only Batik, you will find various 'Indonesian patterns' fabric on almost every island in this land of thousands islands.In some parts of Indonesia, handwoven textiles are still used daily or even in ceremonies and rituals— as baby carriers, headcloths, sashes, belts, bags, and the popular sarong and slendang. They may be seen in the rich dance costumes of almost every region, and are worn for weddings, circumcisions, tooth filings, funerals, and other rites of passage.In Maumere, Flores, there are handwoven cotton textiles, patterned with flowers and intended for everyday use as sarong (skirts), selendang (shoulder scarves), and selimut (multipurpose blankets). In Borneo, known as pua, decorate the inside walls of the longhouse and drape over verandas at feasts. For the Balinese new year festival, galungan, a rare woven version of the lamak (a striking ornament usually made from strips of young palm leaves) may be hung from the offertory altars of the inner temple. Sumbanese ruling families save many of their very finest textiles for funeral rites. The corpse is draped until it becomes a huge mound.In Central Celebes, the kolokompo, a small piece of weaving of no practical use, given to signify the transfer of the groom from the hearth of his parents to that of his parents-in-law. Batak parents present their pregnant daughter with an ulos ni tondi (cloth of her soul); they put it around her shoulders symbolizing the transfer of their strength to her. In South Sumatra, the square 'ship fabric' known as tampan is involved in symbolic exchange between members with corresponding positions in lineages related by marriage.Kebaya, a traditional blouse-dress, the national costume of Indonesia, although it is more accurately endemic to the Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese peoples.Bentenan cloth is made in Tombulu, Tondano, Ratahan, Tombatu, and other areas in Minahasa, however the name Bentenan is taken from the name of the main port area in North Sulawesi, namely Bentenan, because it was from this port that Bentenan cloth was first exported in the 15-17th century outside Minahasa.The Sa'dan Toradja know maa' as been woven by an ancestor who sat on one mountain with her loom resting on another. The brilliant patterns of the Sumba kain and the decorated lau (skirt) were for members of the highest social class.In some areas of Indonesia where weaving is not done, such as West Irian, parts of the Celebes, and parts of Borneo, the manufacture and ornament of bark cloth reached a high standard. Koffo, once made in the Sangi and Talaud islands, was a quite fine, flexible fabric combining a cotton weft and a fiber warp.So what about Batik? Actually, Batik isn't 'Indonesian invention', however, if the style is influenced by a combination of Arabic-Muslims, Chinese and Hindu-Buddhist, even a little European, that is what is better known as 'classic' Batik, and also because of it, Batik become 'best known' as Indonesian Batik.Thomas Stamford Raffles, arrived at Java in 1811 as the English began a brief but important interregnum there—Inger McCabe Elliot tells us. Some twelve thousand Englishmen landed in Java, capturing it from the Dutch. He studied the Javanese language; he uncovered the ancient monument at Borobudur, which by then was buried deep in the jungle; he encouraged restoration of other ancient temples. He amassed one of the greatest collections of flora, fauna, textiles, and artifacts ever collected in the archipelago and packed it all up for shipment home. The boat and its contents burned fifty miles offshore. Undaunted, Raffles began a second collection, which he brought back safely to England.Raffles wrote, 'The cloths termed batik are distinguished into batik latur puti [putih], batik latur irang [ireng], or batik Iatur bang [abang], as the ground may be either white, black, or red.[...] In these cloths, the patterns being carved on small wooden blocks are stamped as in India. They serve as coverlids, and are employed as a substitute for the Indian palempore, whe the latter is not procurable. The price is about four rupees.The natives of Java, like those of every other country, must have been, from the earliest times, in the habit of manufacturing various articles of leather; but the art of rendering it more compact, more tough,and more durable, by the application of the tanning principle, has been acquired only by their connexion with Europeans. They now practice it with considerable success, and prepare tolerable leather in several districts.'Raffles may well have collected batik by the gross—he wrote that there were a hundred identifiable patterns. Illustrations in the Raffles History show numerous ways of wearing batik, along with many different patterns. He also wrote in detail about how batik is made.The roots of batik are ancient, everywhere, and difficult to trace, says Elliot. No one knows exactly where and when people first began to apply wax, vegetable paste, paraffin, or even mud to cloth that would then resist a dye. But it was on the island of Java and nearby Madura that batik emerged as one of the great art forms of Asia. Batik is known to have existed in China, Japan, India, Thailand, East Turkestan, Europe, and Africa, and it may have developed simultaneously in several of these areas. Some scholars believe that the process originated in India and was later brought to Egypt. In A.D. 70, Egyptians applying designs to cloth in a manner similar to the batik process. The method was known seven hundred years later in China. Scholars have ascertained that batik found in Japan was Chinese batik, made during the Tang Dynasty. Thus batik was already an ancient tradition by the time the earliest evidence of such Javanese work appeared in the sixteenth century, Elliot added.By the thirteenth century, the Hindu-oriented Majapahit empire, claimed most of Java. It was a golden age. But internal feuding and lack of access to overseas trade eventually eroded Majapahit power, and within two hundred fifty years the mighty kingdom had been reduced to the royal courts of Mataram: Jogjakarta and Surakarta.In the meantime, Java’s north coast was becoming commercially active. Small harbor states, usually founded by rulers of obscure ethnic origin, began to appear. These states—Cirebon, Gresik, Japara, Demak, and Tuban among them—prospered because of their strategic location on the coast. They were on the sea route to the spice-producing Banda and Molucca islands farther east.Malacca, about two hundred miles north of Singapore on the southwestern coast of Malaysia, it was once the greatest commercial center in Southeast Asia. Geographic position accounted for Malacca’s importance: at a time when deep-water ports were not necessary, it dominated the Strait of Malacca through which nearly all shipping passed, east and west. Malacca was also a trading post for religious ideas, and it was in this realm of the mind and the spirit, as much as in the marketplace, that Malacca’s influence on Javanese batik would make itself felt.Although Muslim communities had existed in Java as early as the twelfth century, it was from Malacca and Sumatra that the major drive for Javanese conversion came. Traders from Java carried rice from Demak and Japara, nutmeg and cloves from Gresik and Tuban. If Javanese merchants were to win Arab support, they would have to open their doors to Islam. Commercially, the Muslims were the world’s leading traders, with connections throughout Asia, Europe, and Africa: association with them meant new routes and more riches. Politically, a community benefited when a former Hindu kingdom became Muslim because to some degree the caste system was eroded.A Muslim was judged by his fervor, not his rank. All believers were equal, so, no more castes. By the end of the fifteenth century, there were twenty Muslim kingdoms on the north coast of Java, and Javanese traders from the north became the most influential people in Malacca. Not only did Muslim traders expand the batik market but because of the Muslim prohibition against depicting human forms, design motifs also changed. New shapes—flat arabesques and calligraphy—were introduced and became integral in the evolution of batik.The influence of the Chinese on Javanese batik was also profound. Trading such prestigious commodities as silk and porcelain forJava’s textiles—not to mention its birds’ nests—the Chinese had long been doing business in the area. From the ninth to the twelfth centuries, the princes of Java sent colored cotton cloth as tribute to Chinese leaders; indeed, they even sent silk to China, not as part of the Chinese empire, but only limited to trade relations. Now the Chinese brought mythical lions and lyrical flowers to batik designs along with a bright new palette of colors.The city of Tuban, was known to the Chinese as early as the eleventh century, and by the fifteenth century it had become Java’s greatest trading center. Nearby Gresik rivaled Tuban, and in the fourteenth century it boasted a Chinese-born ruler. Fair Winds for Escort, a navigation guide, gave instructions for sailing to Lasem, Tuban, Jaratan, Demak, and Banten. Farther west along Java’s north coast, Cirebon had been visited by Chinese traders hundreds of years earlier. But, direct trade between China and Java virtually ceased after the beginning of the sixteenth century. The long-reigning Qing Dynasty (1644-1894) in fact forbade Chinese trade and overseas settlement. Yet, by 1700, Java had about ten thousand Chinese residents; within another hundred years there were one hundred thousand Chinese, many of them married to Javanese. And even in those early times, the people now referred to as 'overseas Chinese' exerted an influence beyond their numbers.In 1602 the Dutch put together the Dutch East India Trading Company, known by its initials, VOC (Vereenigde Oost' lndische Compagnie). The VOC included a military force; more important, it was a monopoly operating in a single large geographic strea. The VOC established a commercial settlement in Java. The Dutch settlers called it Batavia and built steep-roofed houses and dug canals that reminded them of home. Batavia flourished. Within fifty years it had become a center for trans-shipment of goods from the entire world.Adam Smith, the laissez'-faire economist, wrote, 'What the Cape of Good Hope is between Europe and every part of the East-Indies, Batavia is between the principal countries in the East-Indies. It lies upon the most frequented road from Hindustan to China and Japan. [...] Batavia is able to surmount the additional disadvantage, of perhaps the most unwholesome climate in the world.'The Dutch had also destroyed Banten in western Java, seized Malacca from the Portuguese, and were aggressively expanding their power. In return for Dutch protection, the sultans of the courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta were forced to give the Dutch a strip of land on the north coast. Dutch influence would change all aspects of Javanese life, so would the establishment of the VOC affect north-coast batik. Money was now to be made in produce shipped directly from Java: coffee, tea, and palm oil among other items. What virtually bankrupted the VOC, however, were savage doses of dysentery and malaria—along with piracy and corruption. The oppressors will meet their end in an unfortunate way.So, the origins of batik are diverse in origin, but over time this ancient art has become closely associated with the identity of Indonesia. So, the origins of batik are diverse in origin, but over time this ancient art has become closely associated with the identity of Indonesia. From its city of origin, batik varies: Jogja batik, Sola batik, Bali batik, Cirebonan batik, Jepara batik, Banyumasan batik, Pekalongan batik, Gresik batik, Madura batik, there is even Palembang batik as a legacy from the Palembang Sultanate and Jambi batik such as Angso Duo batik. Batik is an art form as well as a social, cultural and economic treasure. It is also a sacred symbol and generally associated with health and well being.Until well into the twenty one century, batik was used almost exclusively for clothing and for ceremonial occasions. In a rank-conscious society, class distinctions were made by the type of cloth worn and its pattern. In a tropical, humid climate such as Java, batik was ideal. As a costume, it was ingenious because batik demanded no zippers, buttons, or pins. Batik can be used as sarong, dodot are usually worn only by the sultan, a bride or groom, or dancers at the court, kain panjang, kain panjang or 'long cloth'—often simply called kain—is an ankle-length batik, pagi-sore or 'morning-evening' batik is the Javanese version of reversible clothing, selendang is a long narrow cloth used exclusively by women as a carryall or a shawl, iket kepala, worn only by men, is a square headcloth, tied elegantly to form a turban, kemben is a 'breast cloth,' which is a narrow batik wrapped around the upper part of the body used to secure a kain or sarong.Batik is not only beautiful but it is also meaningful. Time changes and so do the functions of batik. Some of the former functions have been replaced, mainly in the drive towards efficiency. In modern life, for instance, we very seldom see the traditional kain and kebaya in public places like streets, stations or public transportations except in traditional market places. Even in the country where countrywomen used to wear kain and kebaya in a more casual way than the townswomen, this way of dressing has become rare. On the other hand, new usages of batik have been invented in a development process that appears to be unlimited.Many factors have stimulated the ongoing popularity of batik: the change in batik material; the more colourful appearance; and the big role of designers in modifying the wearing of batik as a cloth. The Indonesian habit of wearing uniforms for events and ceremonies certainly adds a lot to the popularity of batik. Although batik has been generally accepted and admired, it is more than simply a visually pleasing garment or accessory.Indeed, batik can be seen as an industry, but economics is not the whole story. Batik is a cooperative art. No single artist—no Leonardo da Vinci, no Manet, no Picasso—has evolved from batik because the production of a piece of cloth involves everyone from designer to entrepreneur, from waxer to dyer to tulis craftsman. In such an enterprise, few individuals receive much recognition. Their reasons for making batik are as varied as mankind itself: beauty, devotion, habit, need—even greed. The latter has recently begun to dominate Indonesian batik. Pengpeng—a term for a ruler doubles as an entrepreneur, coined by the late Rizal Ramli, a senior economist, politician, former minister and activist figure in the Indonesian student movement, and we condole with his passing—are actually are nothing more than brokers, because they are unable to enchange additional qualities on a product, and they take advantage of the left and the right. In the past, the Dutch used 'divide et impera' to control the spice trade, and now, the Pengpeng, are also using the same strategy, 'divide and conquer' to control 'batik', causing Indonesian's development to be slow and slowing, like those who are making batik. Whaat? Seriously? Yeap!By the way, our time for this session is up, we'll move on to the next episode. Bi 'idhnillah."Then, the sunflower sang a song,Jangan ganggu pacarku[Don't disturb my girlfriend]Jangan rayu pacarku[Don't flirt with my girlfriend]Bila kau memang sahabatku[If you were indeed my friend]Jangan ganggu pacarku[Don't disturb my girlfriend]Jangan sentuh pacarku[Don't touch my girlfriend]Nanti aku jadi cemburu *)[I'll be jealous]
Citations & References:
- Inger McCabe Elliott, Batik: Fabled Cloth of Java, 2004, Periplus
- Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles F.R.S., The History of Java, Volume I, 1817, John Murray
- Michael Hitchcock & Wiendu Nuryanti, Building on Batik: The globalization of a Craft Community, 2016, Routledge
*) "Jangan Ganggu Pacarku" written by Tjahjadi & Ishak
