Sumba Regeneration

Flying into east Sumba is always thrilling for me, both with the updrafts that feel like they threaten to throw us into the hillside, and in the knowledge we will be seeing old friends again. This time I had some trepidation over some quality control issues we have been having with the textiles being produced. Our work in communities is a roller coaster of ups and downs due to so many factors. Deaths in a family, climate factors that bring on droughts or insect infestations, ceremonies, and interference by other business organizations can all be factors.

There is always the concern of who will replace older weavers? Often the weaver’s income has been used to send her daughters onto further education but then one wonders if the daughters will ever want to return to continue in their mother’s work. However, it was heartwarming to meet so many younger women who have come back to Sumba after education off-island and are finding work on the island specifically so they can also weave.

Pau is famous for its supplementary warp weave called pahikung which can be done in several different ways. Tamu Rambu’s daughter was sent to Bali for further education, and was offered a number of different positions after she graduated, but is back on Sumba to weave and learn from her mother as she says, “My grandmother also wove and I am of a lineage of weavers so I want to also be as good of a weaver as my mother so I can teach my children.”

Weather can affect the outcome in weaving as it has this year, given that the rains that usually start in November or December did not arrive until early February. The rains did produce a healthy corn crop and we could see many communities with their harvest drying and ready to be stored as the year’s primary food source. But during the harvest everyone drops other activities, such as weaving. Weaving is a dry weather activity as humidity make the threads stretch and will result in unclear patterns.

By visiting the traditional markets, we can easily see what kinds of crops survived or flourished with the weather changes. Traditional markets are akin to checking the pulse of the community’s well-being and are a great way to see what local people are eating and using in their daily lives.

Dried slices of the Areca catechu nut from the betelnut quid are packed for sale in pouches woven from lontar palm leaves. Betelnut is so important in Sumba and other traditional communities throughout these eastern islands. It is used as ritual offering and as a gift both when receiving guests and visiting family and friends. We always buy the makings of the betelnut quid — the nuts along with Piper betle florets and slaked lime — and present these to our hosts as we visit.

From the markets we made our way south to the village of our long-term friends in Prai Yawanggu, Rindi, where we talked about textiles, harvests, children, and babies late into the night.

Umbu Aman in Prai Yawanggu worked with Threads of Life in Bali in the early 2000s but like others he felt the need to return to his traditional compound to help his mother with her weaving. Aman is a tier and dyer of textiles and he is also a stone carver. Most of his carving is commissioned for use as grave markers called penji. The images on these carvings are the same we find in traditional textiles. It is wonderful to see this art maintained along with weaving.

Dry weather is the perfect time to prepare the red threads as the process is so time consuming using oils and alum for mordanting and applying the red colour from the bark of the root of the Morinda trees that grow so well on this limestone landscape of Sumba.

Departing Sumba early morning after visiting so many different weaver groups, we were delighted to be carrying back lots of textiles along with warm memories of the people and their culture. We feel so blessed to have had this long relationship of more than 28 years.