At least 1,500 kain songket craftswomen weave in Sukarara village, Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday (26/7). These handmade products are souvenirs for tourists visiting Lombok.
Siti Ramlah, 23, adeptly worked the loom, which is called ranggon in the indigenous Sasak tongue of Lombok. Her right hand skillfully picked the weft threads between the small gaps of the warp threads stretched across the loom.
Siti then battened the weft thread with a 50-centimeter-long reed, so that the weft and the warp threads tightened to producea segment of woven songket. The sound of the battening that made the loom tremble seemed a musical accompaniment to the weaver’s activity.
Ramlah, a resident of Burhana hamlet in Sukarara village, Central Lombok regency, West Nusa Tenggara, had joined 1,500 other weavers from various hamlets in a promotional weaving event called the “Begawe Jelo Nyesek” (Weaving Day) Festival, held near the rice fields on Wednesday (26/7/2017).
For the women of Sukarara village and Lombok in general, weaving is a skill that has been passed down through the generations. A songket sarong is a requirement for a wedding. Local women are taught to weave from a young age. Ramlah learned the craft from her mother and has been a skillful weaver since she was 12.
Upon graduating from a local senior high school in 2012, Ramlah used her skill to earn money for the family. “My child is about to enter preschool. I need the money,” Ramlah said.
Ramlah is adept at weaving songket motifs, including the subahnale motif (honeycomb decorated with flowers), the keker (two peacocks facing each other under a tree) and the sabukanteng (baby-carrying belt with striped design and tasseled ends).
Earnings
Ramlah and other local weavers need about one week to complete a single length of songket. The subahnale motif can take up to a month, however, because of the intricate design. There is also the rang-rang motif, which looks like broken lines zigzagging across the cloth in bright colors.
Weaving materials, including the marsis, silk and katin threads, can be obtained from the local trader that collects their finished products. In the past month, Ramlah wove daily and finished three subahnale songket.
The trader paid Ramlah Rp 1,300,000 (US$97.56) for the three cloths. However, Ramlah made only Rp 800,000 of this amount, as she had to pay him back for the thread.
The money means a lot to Ramlah, as her husband Wirantana, who has worked a migrant worker in Malaysia for the past two years, sends money home every three to four months. Each time, Ramlah receives between Rp 1 million and Rp 2 million from her husband. The amount is enough for herself and her daughter Nindia Erisca, who is two-and-a-half, to get by. Both of them still live with Ramlah’s parents, who are grocery sellers.
Lemar, 45, and Yanti, 35, from Sukarara village’s Duah hamlet have similar stories. Lemar usually weaves songket measuring 4 meters by 30 centimeters with the sabukanteng motif. If she concentrates, she can finish one length of cloth in a week.
The finished products are then sold to a collector at her village. Lemar sells them at Rp 500,000 per length, although she makes only Rp 400,000, as she reimburses the collector theRp 100,000 balance for the thread.
Apart from the songket cloths, other souvenirs are available at the village’s art shop located near Lombok International Airport, or around 30 kilometers from Mandalika Kute beach in Central Lombok. In the shop, you can find scarves, bags, hats and headbands at prices ranging from Rp 25,000 to Rp 100,000 per item.
Poverty
Sukarara village head Timan said that improvements in the songket market contributed to better socioeconomic conditions for the villagers. In the village of 1,193 people (of 206 families), 809 villagers live below the poverty line. Even so, the average monthly income in the village has increased from just Rp 400,000 in 2000 to Rp 1 million today.
Songket collector Wawan, who sells the products in Denpasar, Bali, said that sales of Lombok songket fluctuated. The resident of Dasan Baru hamlet in Sukarara village said that he could sell between 10 and 20 songket of varying motifs per week in Bali in 2001-2002. Lately, however, as he faced stiff competition in Bali, he decided to focus on distributing his products at art shops in Mataram or selling them at his own art shop.
Wawan has a reason for focusing on the local market in Lombok. “I believe that consumers understand that this is the center for authentic songket products,” he said.
His confidence was not for nothing. Wawan currently sells between 50 and 100 songket products in a month. The selling price is determined by the raw materials and can be between Rp 350,000 and Rp 400,000 for a 200x60 centimeter songket. Travelers make up the bulk of his customers.
Tradition-bound weavers are able to produce exotic and popular motifs, despite earning only a meager amount. Still, cottage industry centers have contributed to workforce absorption and the economy, especially in Sukarara village.
