East Timor Law Journal
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WEAVING THE COUNTRY TOGETHER: IDENTITIES AND TRADITIONS IN EAST TIMOR
Natali Pride BA (Hons) UNSW 2002
Chapter 1 Introduction
The rich cultural heritage of East Timor provides the historian with an ideal balance to prevailing historical approaches, which place conflict and violence at the forefront. Academic literature and the international media have focused on experiences of war in East Timor, and therefore engaged with just one aspect of the historic dialogue. This new nation in fact has much more to offer the historian than gendered political, colonial and military discourses. Throughout the region, war is associated with images of masculinity, coolness and hardness; essential to these regional worldviews is the existence of a complementary opposite – thus war is balanced by warmth, femininity, and textiles. This paper will place textiles, rather than conflict, at the forefront in an attempt to address the textual imbalances of current historical accounts.
The pre-eminent role of textiles in defining as well as reflecting East Timorese society makes them an ideal medium for exploring East Timor’s many ties to the region, thus providing the historian with the key to understanding the present debates regarding contested identities and traditions. These debates engage factors such as geography, culture, language, gender and ethnicity, factors which are revealed within the textiles themselves. War has provided East Timorese nationalists and independence supporters with a tool by which they can distinguish themselves from larger regional powers such as Indonesia. While this paper does not challenge East Timor’s right to independence, it does challenge the premises on which the East Timorese nationalists and independence supporters have built their claims to sovereignty. East Timor’s location inside and outside of Indonesian histories will be a central theme of this paper, in relation to East Timorese concepts of tradition and
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identity. Acknowledgement of East Timor’s location firmly within its region challenges prevailing historical discourses, which argue its regional isolation has been one of the most important factors in support of independence. Recognition that East Timor does have a role in Indonesian histories, as does Indonesia within East Timorese histories, has therefore placed pressure on nationalists to redefine what they mean by a distinct, traditional, East Timorese identity. The impact of these issues can be seen in the textiles now being created in East Timor, as weavers find themselves caught between tradition and innovation, between a desire to establish a distinctly East Timorese identity and the realisation of their many links with Indonesian traditions.
Information on East Timor is hardly lacking – anthropologists[1] , political activists[2] , journalists[3] , explorers[4] and exiles[5] have all been active in writing and recording. Yet in much of this literature, the historical positioning of material culture is peripheral. While Javanese batik and Sumatran weavings have received much attention from historians,[6] there remain many parts of the Indonesian archipelago, Timor included, where the study of textiles has received little attention. Where study does exist, it is limited to a sub-section in a history of the region,[7] or on the periphery
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1 Schulte Nordholt, H. G., The Political System of the Atoni of Timor, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971
2 Dunn, James, Timor: A People Betrayed, Milton: Jacaranda, 1983
3 Martinkus, John, A Dirty Little War, Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001, and Vondra, J.G., Timor Journey, Melbourne: Lansdowne, 1968
4 Wallace, Alfred Russell, The Malay Archipelago, New York: Dover Publications, 1962
5 Morlanes, Teresa Farreras, East Timorese Ethno-Nationalism: A Search for Identity: Cultural and Political Self-Determination, PhD Thesis, University of Queensland, 1991
6 See, for example, Elliott, Inger McCabe, Batik: Fabled Cloth of Java, New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1984, and Kartiwa, Suwati, Kain Songket Indonesia, Jakarta: Penerbit Djambatan, 1996. Also Summerfield, A. & J., Walk In Splendour: Ceremonial Dress and the Minangkabau, Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum Publications Department, 1999 and Niessen, S.A., Motifs of Life in Toba Batak Textiles, Dordrect: Foris Publications, 1985
7 Maxwell, Robyn, Textiles of Southeast Asia: Tradition, Trade and Transformation, Canberra: Oxford University Press, 1990
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of a field-study on headhunting or symmetrical marriage alliances. [8] There has been no systematic attempt to analyse textiles in a long-term, comparative, perspective by historians within an East Timorese context. Employing a methodology of setting textile development comprehensively within an historical context and placing the material heritage of East Timor within the foreground thus represents an opportunity for innovative and relevant research, in which the standard view of Timor as an island dominated by violence can be rethought and even challenged.
A comparative Timor-wide analysis of techniques, colours and motifs would be a worthwhile research venture, no doubt providing further contributions to the debate surrounding the geo-political division of the island. With its fractured history, a study of Timorese – rather than East Timorese or West Timorese – textiles could result in important contributions to the discipline of history, and perhaps even provide a definitive response to the ongoing political justification of its partitioning.
However, before an island-wide study is possible attention must necessarily be focused on the separate parts of the whole. Mirroring Timorese concepts of cosmology,[9] the two parts which make up the whole – in this case, East Timor and West Timor – are equally as important as the whole itself. Therefore, despite the relevance and necessity of an island-wide study, this paper’s attention will be concentrated on the eastern half of the island.
Sources which have placed a greater emphasis on material culture include exhibition curators on textiles from Timor,[10] co-ordinators and promoters of recently
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8 Hicks, David, Tetum Ghosts and Kin: Fieldwork in an Indonesian Community, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1976; Hicks, David, A Maternal Religion: The Role of Women in Tetum Myth and Ritual, Detroit, Michigan: Northern Illinois University Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, 1984;
Hicks, David, Kinship and Religion in Eastern Indonesia, Gothenburg, Sweden: ACTA Universitatis Gothoburgensis, 1990
9 These concepts will be explored in Chapter Two.
10 Bennett, James, “Textiles of Timor: Cloth That Binds Across Borders”, in ART AsiaPacific Australia, no. 18, 1998, pp. 42-47. Leibrick, Fiona, Binding Culture into Thread: Textile Arts of Biboki, West Timor, Darwin: Darwin Museums and Art Galleries of the Northern Territory, 1994.
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established weaving co-operatives, [11] entrepreneurial travellers importing textiles to Australia, postgraduate students, [12] and art history lecturers, [13] among others. These sources all share an important similarity: their contemporaneity. Locating contemporary and traditional textiles, which appeared to be very different in many ways, within the one historical context, would be problematic: by concentrating on contemporary developments, a very rich historical past would be ignored. But focusing only on the traditional and exotic would come at the expense of recognition of contemporary textile dynamism.
In attempting to reconcile these two factors, it became apparent that within the available literature the use of a new fibre, dye, symbol or use lead immediately to the categorisation of the textile as non-traditional. On the other hand, all textiles created prior to the twentieth-century were labelled as traditional, simply because of the timeframe in which they were produced. For example, Fritz Derksen classifies traditional as “the use of homespun yarn and natural dyestuff.” [14] But are such methods of classification overly simplistic? If a textile is produced using homespun yarn and natural dyestuff, only to be later cut and sewn to produce a computer bag or a mobile phone case, is the final product still a ‘traditional textile’? Or do the final, non-traditional properties of the product actually override the validity of the traditional textile? To take the argument one step further, as I will, suggests that the traditional properties of a textile which has been used for a non-traditional end, such as a mobile phone cover, remain intact precisely because of the innovative use of the
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11 Niner, Sarah, Weaving Women’s Stories: East Timorese Tais Textiles Exhibition Guide, September 2001, Gasworks, Melbourne International Arts Festival. Mandelson, Alix, “Tais from East Timor”, in Australian Handweaver and Spinner, Vol 54, 2001.
12 Davidson, K.G., The Portuguese Colonisation of Timor: The Final Stage, Sydney; University of New South Wales PhD Thesis, 1994. Morlanes, Teresa Farreras, op. cit., 1991
13 Maxwell, Robyn, op. cit., 1990. Gittinger, Mattiebelle, Splendid Symbols: Textiles and Traditions in Indonesia, Melbourne: Oxford University Press and Australian National Gallery, 1990
14 Exhibition of Textiles from Nusa Tenggara Timur from the Collection of Detlef Frietz Dirksen, Melbourne, The Gallery, 1985
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fabric – thus reflecting what has emerged as a distinctly East Timorese pattern, or tradition, of change, adaptation and development.
As far as historical and aesthetic sources go, textiles are a relatively temporary [15] commodity, and tend not to last more than a few hundred years, at most. The distribution and trading of cloth for centuries, with scant documentation of their movement, makes historical study problematic. So too does the possibility of misinterpretation: “That the information carried by cloth can be read and reacted to by the members of the culture producing it is unequivocal, but can outsiders also benefit from the messages, and utilise the textiles to extend their understanding and knowledge of the people who make and wear them?”[16]
Textiles cannot stand alone as a source – oral and textual histories need also be incorporated. However, neither are textiles “[…] historical trivia, decorative elements that can be tacked onto the serious subjects of analysis when they do not obscure these altogether; they become vital clues, interwoven with and revealing the very issues considered the real stuff of history.”[17] Each source brings with it its own limitations and problems, as well as its own advantages. Where oral histories continue to thrive within the archipelago, not having yet been displaced by pen and paper, the competing and at times contradictory messages presented by these histories represent a particular challenge to the historian. Language barriers and cultural issues, such as lack of historical context on the part of the researcher, all hinder the collection and comprehension of information.
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15 Textiles are joined in their impermanence as historical sources by other media such as bark or lontar (palm leaf) manuscripts. Copper inscriptions and stone carvings are longer-lasting and provide an alternative perspective from that provided by textiles or written manuscripts. See Kumar, Ann and John McGlynn (eds.), Illuminations: The Writing Traditions of Indonesia, Jakarta: Lontar, 1996.
16 Croese, Megan R., Diamonds and Crocodiles: A Comparative Study of the Textiles of the Atoni and Tetum of West Timor, North Queensland: James Cook University, 1995, p. 1
17 Hobsbawm, Eric and Ranger, Terence (Eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. x
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Frequently, an oral history has, in effect, been verified through written representation. The written word, frequently the primary source on which historians rely, does not represent concrete evidence any more so than textiles. The vulnerability of the lontar palm to decay, perhaps to an even greater extent than cotton textiles, has led to either the loss of documents or the re-recording of the information which they contain – often complete with the recorders’ personal interpretations, additions and omissions. Despite the impermanence of the textile medium, they can last much longer than lontar, especially in Timor, where the storage of valued textiles in an uma lulik[18] only increases their longevity
The term 'traditional" is problematic, implying a static, supposedly 'authentic' practice. It denotes a category of practice justified by past precedent, which is essentially unchanging, in contrast to the possibilities and realities of innovation and developments. The very impermanence of textiles thus necessitates constant re-creating and invention of new designs. With respect to East Timor, it seemed to me the textile designers and weavers (often the same person) were constantly adapting their designs, fibres and dyes in response to both internal and external influences. And that therefore, recent changes in techniques, dyes and fibres were not a break away from tradition, but a natural progression in an ongoing tradition of change and innovation.
In identifying these developments in East Timor, and their lack of documentation within academic literature, I want to use this paper to open up an aspect of Timorese history through a study of material culture, by placing East Timor's historically dynamic textile traditions within the wider context of contemporary textile development. I intend to locate East Timor's contested identities
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18 An uma lulik is an East Timorese house where items of value, such as textiles, bibles, flags and coins, are stored.
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within their cultural and historical experiences; this study is thus guided by the following questions:
What role has historical precedent played in explaining the innovative nature of East Timorese textile traditions? How can these constantly revised design agendas be explained in terms of emerging East Timorese identities and the defining of tradition?
Lefferts writes that most studies on textile traditions follow a standard formula, “[…] trac[ing] paths of historic and pre-historic contacts, the dynamics of diffusion and incorporation of elements of one culture into another, and evolving symbolic statements in specifics cultures.”[19] It is not my intention here to recount or assemble a linear, chronological history of Timor; nor do I even necessarily intend to formulate a history of ‘traditional textiles in Timor.’ There is no need to presume or invent pan-Indonesian or Timorese continuities as if there were a single narrative history to be written, because even within a single locality such as East Timor the histories are predictably diverse. Therefore, rather than presenting a chronological exploration of textile development in East Timor, I will here explore cultural and historical patterns which continue to inform the present-day discourse. This will provide a starting point from which contemporary developments can be understood. Levi-Strauss writes,“All that the historian or ethnographer can do, and all that we can expect of them, is to enlarge a specific experience to the dimensions of a more general one.”[20] Like all cultural forms which may be treated as texts, or all texts which may
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19 Lefferts, H. Leedom, “Review Article: Southeast Asian Textiles: New Research and Writing”, in Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, September 1992, p. 406
20 Levi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology, New York: Basic Books, 1963, p. 17
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be treated as cultural forms, ‘thick’ rather than ‘thin’ description is required.[21] For textiles as much as works of political theory, “to study the context […] is not merely to gain additional information […]; it is also to equip ourselves […] with a way of gaining a greater insight into […] its meaning than we can ever hope to achieve simply from reading the text [that is, the textile] itself.”[22] The very act of locating the text or the textile in its appropriate context is not merely to provide the historical background, but actually to begin the process of interpretation.[23]
I will occasionally refer back to the experiences of Dili’s Pasar Tais [24] in this paper, in order to extrapolate upon the broader themes and issues which such a study will raise. It is expected that the use of the experiences of the Pasar Tais in this way will ensure comprehensive exploration of the relevant issues, whilst retaining a sense of focus throughout the thesis. Justification for the Dili-centric nature of the research question is provided through the specific dedication in the national capital to a textile-specific marketplace. Textiles can be purchased throughout East Timor, but Dili’s tais market remains the largest market dedicated specifically to the economic exchange of textiles.
Investigating socio-cultural historical patterns, and what they mean for the East Timor of the present will incorporate aspects of, but by no means concentrate on, East Timor’s political and military experiences. Such histories tend to have a wealth of relevant documents – be they classified or not. Sources relating to military and political histories will be utilised when discussing these aspects of the East Timorese
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21 Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretations of Cultures, London: Hutchinson, 1975, pp. 7, 14, 449
22 Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Cambridge, N.Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. xii-xiv
23 Cannadine, David, “The context, performance and meaning of ritual: the British monarchy and the invention of tradition, c. 1820-1977” in Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, (Eds.), op. cit., 1983, p. 105
24 Literally: Tais Market. Tais is the word attributed by the East Timorese to traditional textiles. Traditional in this context refers to cotton textiles which have been naturally dyed and hand woven. This definition will be explored in depth in Chapter Three.
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experience. Socio-cultural patterns in East Timor have been explored throughout the literature, and these sources will also be used. For more contemporary information, this study will rely in large part on the use of oral history and memoirs, recorded in a series of interviews in February 2002, as well as photographs.
Figure 1.1 Pasar Tais, Dili. (Photo: Natali Pride, February 2002)
The lack of written sources on contemporary East Timorese textiles makes such research necessary, and while documentary research is helpful to a certain extent, fieldwork, photos and interviews are the most effective means by which contemporary information can be attained. A study of material culture in the forms of textiles, clothing and costume requires more than a simply utilitarian or materialistic approach, drawing on the methodology of several disciplines for an informed analysis. By combining process – history – with system – anthropology I hope to be able to better explain long-term patterns of socio-cultural change. And while textiles
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encountered in the Pasar Tais or in the privacy of people’s homes can certainly be used as a text through which wider social themes can be read, their impermanence necessitates reliance on other, non-documentary sources such as interviews. Such sources bring their own problems; language and cultural barriers, individual personalities and personal reshaping of the past frequently lead to conflicting accounts. However, rather than seeing these conflicting results as an obstacle to discovering the one ‘true’ history of the Pasar Tais – and thus a framework on which the broader themes of East Timor’s textile developments can be built, I instead consider such conflicts as strong evidence for the richness of the Pasar Tais’ histories, while providing avenues for further deliberation and research.
Figure 1.2 Pasar Tais, Dili: Natali Pride interviewing Luciano Gomes (Photo: Sancho Goncalves, February 2002)
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In attempting to interpret the innovative nature of Timorese textile traditions in terms of emerging and contested identities, it is important to first specify the cultural context in which I will be working. In the following chapter, “All You Have Is Your Past: The Location of Cloth Within East Timorese Cosmological Socio-Cultural Structures”, I will try to think first in terms of what was previously available, neither limiting the discussion to, nor neglecting the primary role of, raw materials, basic knowledge and technologies. Questions of ethnic, gender and national identities are certainly prominent in the development of a national identity of which textiles are a part, and yet there is a danger of turning an extremely complex set of histories into a mere cliché. However, engagement with the aesthetic possibilities of yarns, colours and textures, as part of a context that also includes what we know of developing and emerging identities, can provide us with the very details that enable us to move beyond the cliché. Aesthetic details such as the age and beauty of the cloth, or how it is worn, need be established, but only as a stepping stone towards determining “…issues of deeper portent, involving the articulation of questions of production in the definition of women’s roles, the ramifications of exchange for establishing and codifying power and social organization and the uses of textiles and ancillary materials for signifying the meaning of transitions.” [25] If cultural forms, of which textiles form a vital part, are to be treated as texts, as imaginative works built out of social materials, then it is to an investigation of those social materials and of the people who – consciously or not – construct them, that our attention needs to be
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25 Lefferts, H. Leedom, op. cit., 1992, p. 407
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directed, rather than to an intricate yet decontextualised analysis of the texts themselves.[26]
While the particulars of indigenous cloth, such as the introduction of cotton, and the use of natural dyes, are important, this discussion will be more illuminated by looking at the social system from which they emerged. The single piece of cloth or particular article of clothing does not exist in a vacuum, instead reflecting the social and cultural context from which it originated, and in fact constituting an essential part of this socio-cultural structure. The experiences of both East Timor and the surrounding region, and the roles played by textiles within these worlds, will be established, thus providing a framework by which similarities and differences can be determined. It is within this cultural context that the relevance of concepts of complementary opposites will emerge. As will be discussed, the concept of complementary opposites within East Timorese socio-cultural structures, such as man and woman, war and cloth, goes a long way in demonstrating the pertinence, indeed necessity, of both locating and understanding textiles in their regional context in any study of East Timor. Exploration of the existing social structure on the island of Timor prior to its partitioning by the Dutch and Portuguese will be in relation to circumstances and traditions on the surrounding islands, demonstrating that the integral and value-laden role played by textiles in other cultures and societies is not a phenomenon specific to East Timor, but rather, one with regional implications.
Formerly, the roles played by East Timorese textiles excluded their participation in forms of monetary exchange. As will be explained in more detail, the use of the tais as an item of, for example, clothing or ritual exchange, meant its appearance in the market place was rarely, if ever, in the form of an item for sale.
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26 Cannadine, David, op. cit. in Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, (Eds.), op. cit., 1983, p.162
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The present existence of the Pasar Tais in Dili, as well as countless other selling points throughout East Timor, is indicative of the constant changes over time to the role played by textiles in East Timor, as outside communities increasingly acknowledge, and demand access to, the beauty of these items.
In Chapter Three, “Timor Lorosae: Inside or Outside Indonesian Histories? Concepts of Tradition and Identity”, I will explore the relationship between East Timor and its immediate neighbour, Indonesia, and how East Timor’s ambiguous location within the Indonesian world has manifested itself into a modern-day debate over identity. Despite the focus on East Timor within this thesis, the inclusion of western Timorese and other regional influences will not be avoided. It is necessary to incorporate ideas and concepts relevant to the surrounding region to prevent looking at East Timorese textiles within a vacuum. This is helpful in developing an awareness of the means by which a society’s worldview may be encapsulated in the design and construction of its textiles.
However, East Timor’s spatial location on the fringe of Muslim Indonesia, as well as the combined Austronesian and Melanesian influences on the island, makes Timor distinct within the archipelago. This cultural and geographic location on Indonesia’s non-Muslim fringe is a point the East Timorese are now keen to emphasise, in order to assert and define their separate identity.
Yet while Timor has many unique characteristics, it also shares many of its cultural patterns with other parts of Indonesia. West Papua, Minahasa and Ambon are also located at the end of the sea-faring routes; they too represent fringe-located, non-Muslim worlds. With an under-developed sea-faring tradition, the Timorese have
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historically relied on others for importing and exporting goods and ideas.[27] The exchange of textile traditions is demonstrated in the prevalence of certain colours - popular Timorese textile colours of red, white and yellow are quickly associated with the red and white flag of the Indonesian nation. Therefore, the establishment of East Timor’s location inside or outside Indonesian histories is important, and complicated, before exploring the contemporary development of East Timorese textiles themselves
Colonised by first the Portuguese and then the Indonesians, East Timor has experienced two very different colonial approaches. Further clouding the distinction between insiders and outsiders, the Portuguese policy of assimilation had a very different effect on East Timorese textiles than did the Dutch-style integrationist approach of the Indonesians. As well as adding to the ambiguity surrounding East Timor’s location inside or outside Indonesian and regional histories, these varying colonial styles directly influenced the production and use of East Timorese textiles.
While the assimilationist versus integrationist theme contributes to the argument surrounding East Timor’s historical position, it is also relevant to the following chapter, “Innovation by Necessity: The Future for East Timorese Textiles.” Contemporary developments and future possibilities will be discussed here in terms of historical precedent, in an attempt to provide a long-term outlook for the direction of the East Timorese textile industry. Within the last few decades, East Timor has experienced a fall in production of textiles, as a result of several factors. More recently international enchantment with all that is traditional, sacred, exotic or
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27 This point will be expanded on in the following chapter
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ancient, at the expense of the appreciation of contemporary dynamism,[28] has certainly placed pressure on contemporary weavers and sellers.
But most important is the social upheaval evident since the establishment of Indonesian rule in the mid 1970s. [29] Dislocation of communities and families, lack of opportunity for women to pass on their knowledge to their daughters, destruction of crops and tools, and outright theft of valued – and valuable – textiles and heirlooms have all proved major disincentives to the development of the textile industry. These events have inevitably affected the development and preservation of contemporary and traditional textiles. Yet innovative responses to changed circumstances are now flourishing, in which weavers can again develop traditions of practice by means of the possibilities offered by new materials, images, technologies, circumstances and demands.
Change and response to various influences are key components in East Timorese textile traditions. This tradition of evolution and change has distinctly Timorese attributes, occurring as a direct result of ethnic, linguistic and cultural circumstances specific to Timor. I therefore see the continuation of the tradition of change as contributing to increasingly contested concepts of regional and national identity, and will bring together my argument in this chapter that material culture is now being used in the same way as language has and is; to assert pride in a national identity. As East Timor experiences international recognition of its independence, observers are witness to the increasing use of textiles at a national level. The hanging of textiles from each of East Timor’s thirteen regions within Dili’s new Constituent Assembly Building suggests their political use will be more than just temporary. The
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28 Fischer, Joseph, (ed.), Modern Indonesian Art, Festival of Indonesia: Jakarta and New York: 1990, quoted in Bennett, James, “Tiki Ikat: Indonesian and Australian Aboriginal Textile Art”, in ART AsiaPacific Vol 1 No 3 1994 p. 94
29 While Indonesian forces entered East Timor in December 1975, East Timor was not officially proclaimed as Indonesia’s 27th province until July 1976
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effect of independence will in all probability also be seen in East Timor’s new uniforms and national costume, a development to come in the near future, and one which will unfortunately escape the scope of this thesis. The politicisation of these textiles raises issues of gender, power and history; East Timor’s response to these issues remains to be seen.
The increased visibility of East Timorese textiles at all levels – village weaving co-operatives once again flourishing, international textile exhibitions, their use on the political stage – does not simply ensure the continuance of weaving techniques. Their prominence ensures a source of income in a country where there is large-scale unemployment, and a means by which weavers can develop creatively and artistically. In doing so, the producers will not simply be presenting their textiles in terms of a static tradition, even though this may be what is demanded by consumers hungry for evidence of a fixed tradition. By asserting traditions of innovation and development through the medium of textiles, the East Timorese now have the opportunity to not so much present a single identity to their international audience as to emphasise the role this medium has played, and will continue to play, in expressing ideas relevant to the development of emerging and contested identities.
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