The last few months, I’ve attended a spate of webinars on art and textiles. What thrills me is the access this new paradigm has opened up – from international museums to experts, everyone is now accessible online. One very interesting and enlightening webinar I had registered for and managed to attend was the one conducted by Jaina Mishra of http://www.wovensouls.com on The Tampan Ship Cloths. Prior to the webinar, I hadn’t heard of these textiles and Jaina ji made it an interesting session with her storytelling. Since then, I have had the opportunity to read a bit more about them and it’s quite an interesting piece of textile history.
The Ship Cloths of Sumatra are a classic example of how textiles are an intrinsic part of the social, religious and cultural systems of the communities they belong to. These textiles are named for the ship motifs that is dominant in most, and are woven in cotton, with extra weft motifs woven in cotton or silk. Unfortunately, they are no longer woven and it’s believed they haven’t been manufactured since the early part of the 1900s.
Initially the Western scholars described them as the Ships of the Dead (e.g. by Steinmann – the ‘junks’ are ships of the dead, carrying the souls of the deceased to the other world’); but lately, scholars have been reinterpreting the boat-symbolism within the context of a total society and the ancient Indonesian coastal culture. The Lampung ship-cloths are believed to be a set of highly symbolic artefacts with representations appearing at every stage of Lampung social life where rites de passage were involved (Pierre-Yves Manguin).
We see two main kinds of these beautiful textiles – Palepai: A long narrow rectangular fabric of 3m or more (see featured image on top). Tampan: A smaller square piece of woven fabric not more than 90cm on one side (see gallery below. Images courtesy: de Young Museum; Wovensouls.com). Two lesser kinds of ship cloths are the Tampan maju with elaborate beaded decorations of which only three are known today; and the Tatibin that resembles the Palepai in design and construct but are smaller in length, not more than 1.5m.
Pierre-Yves Manguin in his article, Shipshape Societies: Boat Symbolism and Political Systems in Insular Southeast Asia* suggests the use of the boat motif as a metaphor for an organised social unit. This particular statement is found behind the varied depictions of boats in every one of the rites de passage. These ship cloths are exchanged during rituals, or hung as backdrop during all major life stages, that signifies a transition, of the Paminggir people.
The Palepai for instance occupies the place of pride on the right wall of the room where any of these rites like a wedding, naming ceremony, circumcision, etc. takes place. The right to use the Palepai also is the prerogative of the penyimbang, the highest ranking member, usually the eldest son of the suku (clan). The manner of display of the Palepai during such a ceremony also marks the relative placement of the family within the peniyambang structure.
The Tampan on the other hand, is exchanged throughout the society and is more a token of affirmation of social relationships. For instance, during marriage negotiations, a party from the boy’s suku goes to the girl’s home carrying sweets wrapped in tampan. Once the marriage proposal is accepted, the bride price is paid and more platters of sweets wrapped in tampan are exchanged. Later, the tampans are returned by the bride’s family with sweets. Thereafter this exchange continues between the families when the child is born, during the naming ceremony, circumcision, burials and so on. The Tampan were also used in ritual ceremonies as a seat for the principal observing the phase of transition.
The common motifs in Palepai and the Tampan are of course the boat which by now has been established as the visual representation of a household / clan / society. Some of the other elements seen are human figures which again seem to occupy spaces like the captain, the first mate, the sailors that can be symbolic representation of the social structure of the Lampung. We also see the Tree of Life, the Hornbill, other birds and animals. The significance and the meaning of the design elements unfortunately has been forgotten and there isn’t any available document to refer to. How and why these beautiful pieces of social representation ceased to be woven is also not known but they do mark the evolution of the textile culture and art of Sumatra.
– Varsha Panicker
References:
The Ship Textiles of South Sumatra: Functions and Design System by Mattiebelle Gittinger
Shipshape Societies: Boat Symbolism and Political Systems in Insular Southeast Asia* by Pierre-Yves Manguin
Tampan Ship Cloths of Sumatra webinar by Jaina Mishra, wovenSouls.com
Wikipedia | deYoung Museum Resources
