Balinese textiles

What is Balinese textiles?

In Bali, cloth does more than clothe the body. It is a medium for recognising the divine order of the universe, and it sits at the centre of nearly every Hindu rite on the island. Village weavers work on back strap and other unmechanized looms, making checkered poleng, weft ikat endek, striped keling, gauzy sacred bebali, gold-thread songket and the double ikat geringsing. Cloth is worn wrapped at the waist as a kain or sarong, finished with a sash, by men and women alike, at temples, weddings and working days. Old cloth is not prized for its age; in the damp tropics it decays quickly, and replacing it is itself a good deed.

Where does Balinese textiles come from?

Bali's cloth traditions reach back to court ties with Java from before the 10th century. When the Majapahit kingdom fell, much of the Javanese aristocracy moved to Bali and carried the traditions on, so the island preserves arts of pre-Islamic Java as well as its own. The old poem Rangga Lawe tells of Raden Wijaya, the first Majapahit king, arming his warriors with geringsing sashes against harm in battle; old Javanese sources place prada gilding in Majapahit's aristocratic circles. Written record comes late: the oldest surviving endek, from the north Balinese kingdom of Buleleng, date to the late 19th century. W.O.J. Nieuwenkamp, the first European writer on geringsing, worked out where the cloth came from and journeyed to Tenganan.

How is Balinese textiles made?

Most of these cloths are woven by hand. Endek and cepuk are weft ikat: weft threads are tied and dyed so the pattern surfaces as weaving proceeds. Geringsing goes further; warp and weft are both dyed to carry the pattern together, the dyeing itself complex and ritualized, and the weaver adjusts each pass of the weft with a pick so the design lines up exactly. Songket adds a supplementary weft, once all silk with real gold thread, today often cotton with gimp golden and silver yarns. Keling uses hand spun cotton coloured with dyes from sunti roots and kunti fruit. Prada cloth is glued with fish bone or buffalo hide paste, then covered in gold dust or leaf, though printed gold paint and plastic foil have largely replaced the real thing.

Colours, motifs and borders

Patterns speak plainly here. Poleng is the black and white checkerboard wrapped around trees, rocks and shrines. Geringsing keeps to red, neutral and black, in about twenty known patterns, from cloths 20 cm wide to lengths beyond two metres. Early endek from Buleleng were red and geometric with songket-woven ends; yellow and green arrived later. Keling is striped in red, yellow, deep blue and black. Each sacred bebali cloth has a name of its own: cenana kawi, striped green, yellow and red on white; bias membah, grey and white; enkakan taluh, bold red-and-white checks. Lamak banners carry a cili figure, linked to the fertility goddess Dewi Sri, above a row of tumpal.

How Balinese textiles is worn

Clothing is built from wrapped lengths, not cut garments. A woman making the daily household offerings wears at least a sash at her waist. Village men of the banjar, the communal work group, tie sarong and sash when they gather at the temple. In Nusa Penida in the 1930s, Claire Holt saw women in striped keling underskirts beneath a dark blue kain, a wrapped hip cloth, with only a small part showing. For life's biggest moments, bride and groom dress in a matched pair of songket wraps, and the metatah teeth filing calls for songket too. The grander the occasion, the more layered the dress.

When Balinese textiles is worn

Every rite calls for cloth. Keling wraps appear at the otonin ceremony when a child reaches six months, and cenana kawi cloth is laid out at the three month ritual and set in the central shrine of ancestral temples. At weddings, bride and groom dress in matching songket; the metatah teeth filing calls for it as well. Lamak banners hang from penjor at Galungan and before temples at other major festivals. Cepuk, once ceremonial dress, now more often decorates temples. Prada turns up at almost every ceremonial function, on umbrellas, penjor and dancers' costumes, and geringsing is sought for healing, exorcism included.

Styles of Balinese textiles

The tradition is alive, so it shifts, district by district. Endek was once the preserve of high caste families, woven piece by piece on back strap looms; today workshops around Gianyar, Denpasar and Tabanan run unmechanized ATBM looms and turn it out by the yard. Poleng names the checkered pattern, not the material: most is printed and comes from Java, though some Balinese weavers still hand weave it for special uses. Songket, once confined to the very top of society, now belongs to anyone who can afford it. Real gold prada is rarely seen, replaced by gold paint and plastic foil, while new bebali, made with natural dyes and machine-made cotton, matches pieces collected in the 1920s.

Care and buying

Cloth in the tropics decays quickly, and Balinese practice accepts this. Apart from the especially sacred pieces, old cloth is not treasured for its age; replacing worn cloth is itself a virtuous act. When judging quality, note that bebali weavers today aim for a finish close to textiles collected in the 1920s.

What Balinese textiles means

In Bali a cloth is a symbol before it is a garment. From the yarn onward, textile expresses how people read the divine order of the universe, and it stands at the centre of the island's Hindu spiritual life. Some cloths carry stories: keling may take its name from the Balinese word for an Indian merchant, or from the legend of Keling, wife of the primal king Kaung of Tenganan. The seamless gedogan and wangsul cloths are woven deliberately lopsided, one side longer, to stand for purusa and predana, male and female. Because Javanese nobles settled here after Majapahit fell, Bali keeps arts of pre-Islamic Java as well as its own.

Questions people ask about Balinese textiles

Good reading and sources

• Balinese textiles on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data