Asian Textile Studies
Contents
Yubawai Lau Hiamba
Pau Lau Hiamba
Rindi Lau Hiamba
Mangili Lau Hiamba
Waijelu Lau Hiamba
Bibliography
The Lau Tube Skirt
Lau Hiamba
Kapunduk and Kanatang Lau Hiamba
Kambera Lau Hiamba
Yubawai Lau Hiamba
The isolated inland settlement of Yubawai (sometimes Jubuwai or Hibbuwai) is located on an upland grassland plateau above the Luku Weara River valley, about 33km southeast of Waingapu. It is named after an intermittent stream called the Luku Yubuwai.
The location of Yubawai
It was founded around three generations ago by a number of cattle breeding families who had migrated south from the Kambera region, especially from kampong Kalu. Many years later they were joined by more families who had been resettled in a nearby government-built transmigration settlement. In recent years, the local government have installed a fresh water reservoir with pumps powered by solar energy.
Over the decades since their arrival, local weavers have evolved their own style of ikat binding, producing distinct Yubawai designs.
The first two three-panel examples are identical and were clearly bound and dyed together at the same time, around 50-years-ago. Each of the three panels contains an irregular diagonal lattice of small diamonds containing four-armed motifs along with larger diamonds containing the mythical habak flower motif, formerly restricted to the nobility.
Above and below: Two identical lau hiamba made in Yubawai around 50-years-ago
Richardson Collection
The third three-panel lau hiamba was woven about 50-years-ago by Nanek Kaita, one of the original migrants from Kalu who first settled at Yubawai. It was acquired from her granddaughter, Kaita Lepin. Each panel is decorated with a diagonal lattice with each cell containing a habak motif, representing a mythical flower, or a variation of it.
The lau hiamba made by Nanek Kaita
Richardson Collection
The next three-panel lau hiamba was made by May Dema, who told us that she was born in 1929. She made the lau for herself when she was a young woman, an ana karea – a menstruating teenager – during the Japanese occupation of 1943-45. The skirt is therefore 80-years-old. It is decorated with four wide vertical bands, each bound with a different pattern, one of which is the hebak flower motif.
Above: The 80-year-old lau hiamba made by May Dema. Richardson Collection
Below: May Dema with her lau hiamba outside her traditional tin-clad high-roofed house facing the small village square at Yubawai
The following three-panel lau hiamba patola ratu was made in Yubawai about 50-years-ago, each of its panels containing a central rectangular lattice filled with squares containing eight-armed patola flower basket motifs. These are flanked by narrow light indigo bands bearing a white meander.
The lau hiamba patola ratu from Yubawai
Richardson Collection
A somewhat similar three-panel lau hiamba patola ratu was made around 20 years earlier. Here each row of patola motifs is flanked by narrow light indigo bands.
The second lau hiamba patola ratu from Yubawai
Richardson Collection
The final three-panel example from Yubawai was made by the late Ndauna Ana Hahar. It was acquired from her daughter who believed that it was made about 70 to 80-years-ago. Unfortunately her mother died when she was a small child. Each panel is decorated with three warp bands – a central band containing two very different shaped motifs, the angular karih motif with four scrolled hooks and a star-shaped motif that has four curved hooks, and a pair of identical outer bands containing a sequence of florets enclosed by hexagons.
The lau hiamba made by the late Ndauna Ana Hahar
Richardson Collection
Return to Top
Pau Lau Hiamba
The former domain of Pau is located around 50km southeast of Waingapu. The local town of Melolo is mainly occupied by families whose ancestors came from Savu.
The women of Pau specialise in the supplementary warp weaving technique and are generally not highly skilled in binding ikat. It is only the noble women from Pau who marry into the royal family of neighbouring Rindi and relocate to that domain who then become proficient in the warp ikat technique.
Consequently lau hiamba originating from Pau are extremely rare – we have yet to see one ourselves. However local weavers do produce many lau hiamba pahikung, decorated primarily with supplementary warp but combined with simple bands of warp ikat.
The example shown below was made some 40- to 50-years-ago in the hamlet of Lairuru, located just one kilometre west of kampong Pau. It was worn by the wife of the acting bupati of West Sumba to the funeral of Umbu Hunga Meha, the King of Karera, on 15 and 16 October 2015. It contains a simple narrow band of ikat decorated with crocodiles, diamonds and horse motifs.
A lau hiamba pahikung from kampong Lairuru
Richardson Collection
Return to Top
Rindi Lau Hiamba
The former domain of Rindi has long been a centre for producing high-quality warp ikat. However, the majority of the textiles made in this region are hinggi, men’s shoulder cloths and hip wrappers. Furthermore, in recent decades, many of the lau produced in the royal kampong of Parai Yawang have been lau hiamba pahikung, combining the techniques of warp ikat and supplementary warp.
In 2019 the King and Queen of Rindi, the late Umbu Kanabu Ndaung and his wife Tamu Rambu Hamu Eti, told us that lau hiamba were primarily made to be used as a gift for marriage in the wedding basket. Some years ago, the royal family of Rindi made an agreement that the noble women would only wear black commercial cotton sarongs, because they were lighter and easy to wear. Consequently when women from the royal family of Rindi go to funeral or other formal ceremony, they wear black sarongs. Lau hiamba were sometimes worn for certain ceremonies but not that often.
The royal princesses of Rindi wearing black and grey lau pakambuli
The following two-panel lau hiamba was made some 45 to 50-years-ago by the royal princess, the late Tamu Rambu Ana Motur from Uma Andung Patunggulung in Parai Yawang. Rambu Ana Motur died in mid-December 2016 at the age of 92 following a short illness. She was buried on 27 October 2018.
The upper panel of the lau is decorated with simple warp stripes while the lower panel has two bands of naively patterned warp ikat. The upper ikat band has a pair of feeding cockatoos on one side and a pair of chickens on the other. The lower ikat band has a large naga or dragon on one side, along with chickens and snakes, and a large peacock, along with a red dragon and chickens, on the other.
The two sides of the lau hiamba made by Tamu Rambu Ana Motur
Richardson Collection
The second ceremonial two-panel lau hiamba was made in Parai Yawang about 25-years-ago by the Queen of Rindi, Tamu Rambu Hamu Eti, for her daughter, Tamu Rambu Ita Ining, who is now married one of the sons of Tamu Umbu Ndjaka, the Raja of upper Prailiu. Rambu Hamu Eti did the binding but the weaving was done by a man, Umbu Hau Rimu. Because the ikat has only been dyed with morinda it is known as a lau hiamba rara. It is a copy of a sarong from the collection of Queen Yuliana. The lau has been decorated with simple warp stripes and bands of warp ikat with rows of turtle motifs, the symbol of wisdom. The triangular bead pattern is called hawiti, and symbolises the tri-union of God, nature and man. The star-shaped clusters have been made with new beads.
Above: The lau hiamba rara made by Tamu Rambu Hamu Eti. Richardson Collection
Below: The late Umbu Kanabu Ndaung with his daughter, Tamu Rambu Ita Ining, wearing the lau hiamba rara made by her mother.
In the past, some Rindi lau hiamba, like the example shown below, were made from hand-spun cotton.
A hand-spun lau hiamba from Rindi
Private Collection
As already mentioned, the majority of Rindi skirts decorated with warp ikat also contain bands of supplementary warp. The following example, made by Tamu Rambu Maramba Bokul from Uma Kudu in Parai Yawang, is primarily decorated with bands of warp ikat depicting turtles but also has some narrow bands of supplementary warp.
The lau hiamba pahikung woven by Tamu Rambu Maramba Bokul
A fine example of an older lau hiamba pahikung was made in the 1990s by the aformentioned Tamu Rambu Ana Motur as a counter prestation for a royal marriage alliance with one of her daughters. The lower panel is decorated with three bands of warp ikat, dyed with indigo, morinda and yellow kayu kuning, three narrow plain bands of light blue indigo and undyed cotton yarn, one band of pahikung and a light blue zigzag fringe. The wide central ikat band has a thirty-sided stepped and hooked polygon on each side enclosing a large central hebak motif. It has been embellished with 25 round Nederlandische-Indië one-cent copper coins with a central hole dating from 1915 to 1945.
The lau hiamba pahikung nggeri made by Tamu Rambu Ana Motur
Richardson Collection
Return to Top
Mangili Lau Hiamba
The small domain of Mangili is located on the southeast coast of Sumba, about 100km south of Waingapu. It was previously a very isolated region and it is only in the last few decades that it has become more easily accessible.
Weavers in this region are known for their men’s warp ikat blankets, known locally as inggi. Women’s lau tend to be simple, decorated with naïve motifs such as horses, men on horseback and chickens. The morinda dye produced in Mangili is much redder than that produced in other parts of East Sumba, a phenomenon that seems to arise because of the local soils.
The first lau hiamba shown below has two panels decorated with monkeys, chickens, cockatoos and riders on horseback. The second has three panels, two decorated with chickens, cockerels and riders on horseback. The middle panel is plain black.
Above: A two-panel lau hiamba from Kaliuda owned by a local family
Below: A three-panel lau hiamba from Mangili
A similar example photographed in Kaliuda has its outer panels decorated with cockerels, cockatoos, lions, deer, butterflies and riders on horseback.
Sue displaying a three-panel lau hiamba in Kaliuda
The next example is a lau hiamba rara that has just two panels that have only been dyed with morinda. The simple ikatting is confined to the outer half of the lower panel. The final image shows a wanggi pamening warping frame standing on the veranda of a house in Kaliuda being used to stretch the dyed ikatted warps of another simple lau hiamba rara.
Above: A lau hiamba rara from Manggili
Below: Stretched ikatted warps for a lau hiamba rara in Kaliuda
Return to Top
Waijelu Lau Hiamba
Waijelu is the most southerly domain of East Sumba and is relatively uninhabited. According to the East Sumba Department of Statistics, its population in 2024 was just 7,636 and the number of people involved in producing ikat as a business was a mere 36. Consequently lau hiamba from this region are quite rare, making it difficult to draw any conclusions about local styles or designs. Those few that we have seen are quite varied.
The first example has three panels decorated with alternating bands of dashed stripes and white and morinda diamonds.
A simple lau hiamba from Waijelu
Private Collection
The second three-panel example is chemically dyed and is decorated with bands of poorly-bound dragon motifs.
A rare lau hiamba from Waijelu
Private Collection
The final example has just two panels, each bearing multiple narrow stripes and a wide morinda-dyed band of ikat decorated with poorly-bound crowned lions and karihu motifs that some interpret as butterflies while others interpret them as shellfish.
A two-panel lau hiamba from Waijelu
Private Collection
Return to Top
Bibliography
Adams, Marie Jeanne, 1969. System and Meaning in East Sumba Textile Design: A Study in Traditional Indonesian Art, Cultural Report Series 16, Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Adams, M. J., 1970. Myths and Self-image among the Kapunduk People of Sumba, Indonesia, no. 10, pp. 80-106, Cornell University Press.
Adams, Marie Jeanne; Forshee, Jill; Djajasoebrata, Alit; and Hansen, Linda, 1999. Decorative Arts of Sumba, The Pepin Press, Amsterdam.
Couvreur, A. J. L., and Goslings, B. M., 1935. De Timorgroep en de Zuid-Wester-Eilanden: Weven en Ikatten, Koloniaal Instituut, Amsterdam..
Dammerman, Karel Willem, 1926. Een tocht naar Soemba, Natuurkundig Tijdshrift voor NederlandschIndisch, LXXXVI, reprinted by Indisch Comite uoor Wetenschappelijke Onderzoekingen, Batavia.
Emery, Irene, 2009. The Primary Structures of Fabrics: An Illustrated Classification, Thames and Hudson, London.
Forshee, Jill Kathryn, 1996. Powerful Connections: Cloth, Identity and Global Links in East Sumba, Indonesia, Doctoral Thesis, University of California, Berkeley.
Forshee, Jill, 2001. Between the Folds: stories of cloth, lives, and travels from Sumba, University of Hawai‘i Press, Hawai’i.
Forth, Gregory L., 1981. Rindi: an Ethnographic Study of a Traditional Domain in Eastern Sumba, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.
Gronovius, D. J. van Dungen, 1855. Beschrijving van het eiland Soemba of Sandelhout, Tijdschrift voor Nederlands Indië, 17th year, vol. 1, pp. 277-312.
Kate, F. C. ten, 1894. Soemba, Verslag eener reis in de Timorgroep en Polynesië, part III, Tijdschrift Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, 2nd series, vol. XI, pp. 541-638, E. J. Brill, Leiden.
Nieuwenkamp, W. O. J., 1923. Iets over Soemba en de Soembaweefsels, Nederlandsch Indië Oud & Nieuw, vol. 7, issue 10, pp. 295-313.
Nieuwenkamp, W. O. J., 1927. Eenige Voorbeelden van het Ornament op de Weefsels van Soemba, Nederlandsch Indië Oud & Nieuw, vol. 11, issue 9, pp. 259-288.
Nooteboom, C., 1958. De Kleurenpracht van Soemba Weefsels: Gids van de tentoonstelling gehouden in het Textiel-Museum Tilburg van 25 Mai t/m 5 Juli 1958, Textiel Museum, Tilburg.
Roo van Alderwerelt, J. K. H. de, 1890. Eenige Mededeelingen over Soemba, Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, vol. XXXIII, pp. 565-595.
Wielenga, D. K., 1910. Schets van een Soembaneesche Spraakkunst (naar ‘t dialect van Kambera), Landsdrukkerij, Batavia.
Wielenga, D.K., 1949. De Zending op Soemba. (2nd edn., revised & updated by T. van Dijk & P.J. Luijendijk). Hoenderloo, 1949.
Witcamp, H., 1913. Een verkenningstocht over het eiland Soemba, II, IV, Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap, second series, 29, pp. 8-27, 619-637.
Return to Top
Publication
This webpage was published on 20th November 2024.