Jembrana, Bull Racing Center

Clothes for Ceremony

The art of Balinese textile decoration is best expressed in men’s skirt, chest and head cloth and women’s chest and skirt cloths. There are three types of Balinese cloth. Perada cloth is decorated with gold leaf. The outlines of the design are first drawn on the cloth and coated with the glue; the gold leaf is then applied, stylized blossoms, plants and birds are the most common motifs.
The other kind of such a cloth is songket brocades. When these cloths are the loom, additional decorative gold and silver colored wefts are added. The range of patterns extends from simple crosses and stars to elaborate compositions with trees, creepers, flower and snakes.
The third kind of Balinese textile is wefts ikat or endek. The wefts threads of these textiles are dyed prior to weaving. Areas that should not be colored are reserved by binding the threads tightly together. Different color combinations may be achieved by repeating the binding and dyeing process several times.
The people of Jembrana in west Bali, also create a traditional cloth with specific motif, figure, foliage and geometric composition. The thread or yarn that are used as basic material are cotton, silk and rayon. In the past, woman created weaving for her own family; not for sale. In fact, we meet the loom collected in their house in many villages such as Baluk, Banyubiru, Baler Bale Agung, and so on.
In 1980, the former governor of Bali, Ida Bagus Mantra, encouraged the locals to be weavers. In the village of Dauhwaru for instance, many weavers produce the endek. This cloth is sold in the shops in its capital town, Negara and also outside the town such as in Denpasar, Nusa Dua and Kuta.
The endek is also used as uniform for both private and public officials. During the Dutch occupation in the 19th century, it was used in the kingdom of Jembrana based at the village of Dauhwaru, in the eastern part of the town. For the first time, the songket cloth was used for the traditional costumes for the king and his family. That is the reason why woman in the village of Dauhwaru and its neighbours such as Batuagung, Dangintukadaya, Mendoyo Dauhtukad, and Sangkaragung, also Yeh Kuning are the weavers.
Since three decades, the public have been wearing the songket cloth as traditional dress in relation with the ceremony for wedding, tooth-filing or cremation. On the other hand, the songket is used at fashion shows or art parades. Since the rapid growth of mass tourism in the island since 1974, Jembrana also appeared in the guide book written by foreign travel writers namely: Tony Wheeler, Bill Dalton, Kate Beddall, Peter Rump, Joseph Fisher and URS Ramseyers.
In particular, when they wrote about the specific art of Jembrana, this traditional textile is included. The visitor and textile connoisseur often think that Jembrana is a paradise. They visit these villages for watching hand-weaving demonstrations in a Balinese house compound, also to buy a piece of such a cloth as souvenir. Japanese tourists who are coming to watch the jegog dance in the village of Sangkaragung, always watch the hand weavers before enjoying the dance.
The impact of tourism with the trend of wedding dress ceremony in the wedding package in some hotels in Jembrana, made that the couple was clad in traditional cloth by the locals. There are dozens of foreigners who were married in Balinese ceremony while wearing the local songket. (BTN/Lanus Sumatra)