My Country Dream: Hook Us, Bind Us, Make Us Beautiful

Sukarara, August 14th 2010

Quoting from Insight Guide Bali Lombok #228:
"... the weaving village of Sukarara, where traditional 'ikat' fabric is made. Weavers work outside many of the shops, using antiquated back strap looms to painstakingly produce works of art. Some of the larger pieces can take several months to weave, and collectors from around the world visit this village to purchase the blankets, sarongs and cloth produced here."
Our guide in this village said it is called "tenun songket". It's interesting that according to Wikipedia in here, "tenun songket" actually originated from China and India, and then spreaded to Malay. Lombok, as a matter of fact, is far from Malay. Moreover, Wikipedia's also tells here that the difference between "tenun songket" and "tenun ikat" is that motives in "tenun ikat" comes out on both sides of the cloth and in "tenun songket" the motives comes out only on one side of the cloth. I remember very well that our guide showed me that the cloth has different sides, the front side and the back side.


It takes weeks to months, to finish a piece.

"Songket" means "to hook" and "ikat" means "to bind". Either it is "to hook" or "to bind", both are done in the process. Hook us and bind us together. Make us beautiful for we would be nothing if we thread alone.

The ethnic group in Lombok is called "Sasak". It's compulsory for every Sasak woman to learn weaving. They start weaving small pieces of cloth from an early age of 10.

Returning the bamboo stick under each thread.

It can be chaotic when just one stick of bamboo slips off. You have to push it under the thread, line by line, painstackingly. Hah... luckily I wasn't born a Sasak girl :))

The woman on the right was our guide. She took us around and showed us how the women worked. I wish there was a place like this also for the pottery work.