CONTENTS 2 Editorial Sarawak Craft Council 3 ... - CraftHub

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MAT-MAKING AND BASKETRY Maridontreks CRAFTHUB PRESENTS... THE BEST OF SARAWAK CRAFTS Mat-making and basketry are skills known to every Borneo society. The rainforest abounds in suitable raw materials: reeds, leaves, barks or rinds. These everrenewable fibres were fashioned into mats and baskets for everyday use; until the early 20 th century few longhouse dwellers had furniture other than maybe a storage chest inside their family rooms. Sitting, eating, sleeping was done on the floor, on mats. One fast-growing plant found mostly in the brackish coastal swamps, Pandanus spp., is a very popular mat-making material which can be processed into a soft, pliable mat. Besides spreading them for sitting and sleeping on, pandan mats were generally used to wrap articles, to make temporary awnings or rain shelters, to quickly run up an interior wall in a house, to cover the slimy floorboards of a boat if important passengers were expected. Pandan mats were used as sails for small coastal craft too; cheaper than canvas, not nearly as durable. One of the most versatile rainforest products, the climbing palm known as Malacca Cane or rattan (rotan, Calamus spp.), is used to make baskets of every kind: strong carrying baskets, storage containers, and elegant small containers for a lady’s personal belongings. The latter type is made of the shiny rattan skin, cut into fine working strips. Rattan is also used to make mats. The Penan people, until recently a nomadic group roaming the hilly regions of Sarawak’s interior, made a mat that resembles the Iban product but is actually plaited of finely stripped rattan skin. To enhance the effect of the decorative patterns, part of the working material is stained black. Today other colours are used, but the classic Penan mat is intricately figured in black and white. Legend has it that some Penan mats are so densely worked that they can be used to carry water over short distances. The Orang Ulu make a very solid mat by threading lengths of whole or halved rattan canes side by side This type of mat, the tikar lampit, is quite rigid, not really suitable for sleeping on and certainly not for wrapping things; it can only be rolled up. The ends of this tikar lampit are bruised and teased to expose some free fibre, which is plaited to make a strong edge; modern variants of this mat have plastic braiding stitched all round. Sarawak’s mat-makers are women – almost all of them anyway. One type of sturdy floor mat, spread out to reinforce the sometimes fragile longhouse floor when large numbers of visitors are expected, is inevitably made by men. The Bidayuh fashion a heavy-duty mat which is worked at right angles, in principle like weaving, of split rattan canes as a warp, and inch-wide strips of bark cloth as a weft. These mats are meant to be useful, not beautiful, though a neatly worked and finished tikar kelasah is a handsome floor covering in the right place. Besides strengthening the floor in crowd situations, this mat is put to many everyday uses such as drying agricultural produce on the longhouse verandah. It is the sitting-mat of choice for outdoor ceremonies and picnics, when a finer mat might get spoiled by contact with the damp ground. Changing lifestyles make mats and baskets redundant for many Malaysians; the new status symbols are a piece of linoleum or carpet on the floor, a designer handbag, and plastic for everything. Part of the mat-maker’s craft survives thanks to the tourist market, even if full-sized sleeping mats are not suitable as souvenirs. A number of young Sarawakian designers are pioneering new uses of an old skill: dinner mats, table runners, whole table covers, wall hangings, even pillows with mat-woven insets are new applications of the mat fabric, in new, adapted shapes. A modern taste for rattan furniture and interior decorations made of reed or cane will help to take the skill of centuries into the third millennium. 12 Photo: Heidi Munan
CRAFTHUB PRESENTS... THE BEST OF SARAWAK CRAFTS BEADWORK Beadwork as a craft is done with seed beads, ranging from the size of a mustard seed to that of a pepper-corn, available in increasingly more and brighter colours. They are strung on a network of threads, not unlike macramé, a technique well suited to make a variety of shapes. Given sufficient beads and leisure, there is nothing Sarawak’s Orang Ulu ladies can’t decorate with beads. Jackets and skirts are lavishly embellished with beadwork, as are the ends of loin cloths. Armbands, necklaces, ear hangings and belts may be enriched with beads or entirely composed of them. Sun hats with beautifully worked bead tops are much sought after by local and foreign buyers alike. Bead headbands are still worn, especially for a semi-formal festive occasion, but they were originally designed to hold the wearer’s long hair in place. Traditionally, Orang Ulu refrained from using symbols above a person’s social stratum. Inappropriate ornaments and symbols bring disaster: illness, bad harvests, unseasonable weather and resulting famine. A baby carrier embellished with a human figure sheltered a tiny sprig of the aristocracy. Larger beads, hawks’ bells and animal teeth were attached to the upper rim of the carrier, partly to soothe the baby with their tinkling, partly to document his or her status – the use of leopard teeth was restricted too. In most Orang Ulu societies the full-figure human motif was reserved for the aristocracy. The human figure on beadwork may be standing or squatting, arms and legs forming part of a zig-zag pattern to which others are linked. The human motif’s eyes are always open, the mouth occasionally shows teeth. The ear-lobes are long, often incorporated into the pattern formed by other decorative elements; arms may stretch through them. A frieze of squatting females on a bead jacket reinforced its wearer’s status – they were his or her ‘slaves’. A middle-class baby peeped at the world from a basket decorated with a human face, stylized animals and beautifully involuted scroll designs. The family might be wealthy enough to cover the whole object edge-to-edge in beadwork, but they still couldn’t use the ‘reserved’ designs. Down the social scale came the baby carrier of fine basketry with just a panel of bead embroidery down the centre, or simply a softly lined basket of split rattan or bark. Baby carriers are considered very precious. Part of the child’s still tender soul adheres to it. After a child no longer needs to be carried, the basket is carefully stored away for the next baby in the family. The bulk of very pretty beaded baby carriers now available in the bazaars of Sarawak are brand new, made for the tourist market. No infant nestled in them, and the ’leopard teeth’ dangling from the rim are carved of deer horn or – since the 1980s – pressed from fibreglass. Photo: Kent Walters Collection Today, many beadworkers produce souvenir items for the tourist trade. Besides the traditional bracelets and necklaces, headbands, loin cloth tails, baby carriers and baskets, there are purses, handbags, fashion accessories and a number of truly startling innovations: pencil covers, cigarette lighter holders, neckties, handphone pouches… The old problem of status-linked motifs is no longer an issue. To quote an expert beadworker: “We don’t really mind about these taboo things any more. We produce the designs local or foreign people like to buy. They themselves know whether they are strong enough to wear them.” If the spirits take umbrage, their wrath won’t hit the producer, but the buyer and wearer. Caveat emptor! 13 Photo: Simon Chee
Page 1 and 2: CONTENTS 2 Editorial Sarawak Craft
Page 3 and 4: The Rainforest World Music Festival
Page 5 and 6: JEN RICHARDSON, INDONESIA In Bahasa
Page 7 and 8: Khalis Abdullah, or Kinel, owns Kha
Page 9 and 10: Kraftangan also sells a number of d
Page 11: CRAFTHUB PRESENTS... THE BEST OF SA
Page 16 and 17: Sarawak Craft Council, Sarawak Hand

CONTENTS 2 Editorial Sarawak Craft Council 3 ... - CraftHub

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