Preserving Minangkabau’s Classic ‘Songket’

Kompas/Heru Sri Kumoro

Women weave cloth in East Lunto, Lembah Segar district, Sawahlunto, West Sumatera, Thursday (25/1). To expand the market, the embroidery makers, most of whom are women, sell their products through social media.

The diligence and patience of Minangkabau women are reflected the beautiful woven brocade of the traditional songket. The guardians of the songket cultural heritage, they continue to adapt to the changing times.

That afternoon, Susmita, 64, opened the windows to her family’s rumah gadang (traditional Minangkabau house) in Nagari Pandai Sikek, Sepuluh Koto district, Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, some 15 kilometers to the south of Bukittinggi. Sunlight immediately shone through the windows and washed over the well-worn living room.

Susmita sat on a bench behind the wooden panta, a traditional loom that measuring 1.5 meters by 2 meters. That day, she was weaving a textile one of her customers in Jakarta had ordered.

“I have been working on this for a month and it is not yet finished. I can only weave 7 centimeters a day, despite working for eight hours a day,” Susmita said on Wednesday (24/1).

The owner of the Puti Rumah Gadang textile cottage industry, who has been a weaver since she was 12, said that she could not work very fast. This is not because of her age. Instead, it is due to the complexity of the motifs she creates, which requires both craftsmanship and patience.

As she talked, Susmita kept on working. Her foot pressed the treadle, the part of a loom that adjusts the position of the thread. Using the pancukia, the tool that is used to make the brocade motifs, she raised the warp that forms the length of the cloth, one thread at a time. She then inserted a golden weft thread to create rhombus shapes. Afterwards, she tamped the suri, a reed, against the weft thread to secure it in place.

With long working hours and complex brocade motifs, the hand-woven songket textiles are unsurprisingly expensive. Susmita said that a sarong-and-shawl pair could cost Rp 5 million (US$370) or more.

“My sales are stable. Local tourists and foreigners, such as from Malaysia, often come here. Sometimes, I am overwhelmed with orders, despite having three other weavers helping me,” Susmita said.

Adyan Anwar, who owns the Pusako songket textile shop near Susmita’s house, also chose to trade in the traditional and classical songket. Pusako takes its inspiration from centuries-old heritage designs for its classical motifs.

“Sometimes, people from other regions come here with their heirloom textiles. Usually, the textile is severely damaged, and they ask us to create a textile with similar motifs,” Adyan said.

Adyan believed that the weaving tradition in the nagari (village) in the foothills of Mt. Talang is at least 200 years old, having existed since the 1800s. The weaving tradition, including the motifs’ designs, is passed down through generations of women in Pandai Sikek.

Unique tradition

Andalas University anthropology professor Nusyirwan Effendi said no literature or research existed on who brought the songket craft to West Sumatra. What is certain is that songket is a traditional Malay craft found not only in Sumatra, but also in Malaysia and Thailand.

“Songket is part of the Minangkabau women’s craft inherited from our ancestors. Generally, songket is created by women who live in rumah gadang in their spare time. These days, we can still find the weaving tradition in Pandai Sikek and Sawahlunto,” Nusyirwan said.

High-quality weaving can also be found in Sawahlunto, 81 kilometers east of Padang, in the Silungkang and Lembah Segar districts. There, expert weavers create high-quality textiles. The scale of the hand-woven textile industry there is larger than the one in Pandai Sikek.

In Silungkang, the songket craft is believed to have existed since the 12th century and is centered in Batu Manonggou. At the village, the entire process of creating songket can be observed, including manuriang (spinning thread), manghani (stretching thread), manyambuang (joining thread), mangarok (designing the shape, size and motifs) and the weaving itself.

Silungkang is the largest center of textiles and supplied thread for weavers in West Sumatra, including Pandai Sikek. Weaving began in Lembah Segar only in the 1980s.

The regeneration of songket weavers in Sawahlunto is going well. Apart from senior songket weavers and business players, the area also has many young songket weavers and business players. One of them is Anita Dona Asri, 31, in East Lunto. Dona has around 17 songket weavers, the youngest of whom is 19 years old. She markets her products in Padang, Jakarta and even Singapore.

As a young businesswoman, she markets her products through contemporary channels, including social media. “I transformed my house’s living room into an impromptu photo studio. Every time I have a new product or motif, I work with my friends. One is the model, one the stylist, one the photographer. Then I upload the photograph to my Instagram feed. The response has been positive so far,” said Dona.

Since 2014, Dona has developed natural dyes using the plants around her house, including mimosa pudica leaves, surian powder, mangosteen peel, dogfruit and garden balsam. Producing thread with natural dyes requires more than one week for boiling the thread, extracting the dye from plants or fruits, dipping the thread in the dye and fixing the dye.

“Weaving with naturally dyed thread is not for mass production. This technique is specifically for long-lost Silungkang motifs. I wish to use natural materials and revive these motifs,” Dona said.

The persistence of Pandai Sikek and Sawahlunto in preserving their culture has led to the continuance of Minangkabau songket traditions amid the changing times. The traditions are still practiced these days using traditional looms to create classical motifs and to revive long-lost motifs with natural dyes.

Despite its commercial ends, this is not just about making profit. This is about protecting the values and philosophy of the Minangkabau people, for whom the natural environment remains the best teacher and whose traditions are founded on sharia as drawn from the Al Quran.