Between the Folds
Stories of Cloth, Lives and Travels from Sumba
Publication Year: 2000
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Cover
Title Page, Copyright Page
Contents
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pp. v-
Preface Entering the Field
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pp. vii-xii
My interest in eastern Sumba developed by chance encounters, as do most turns in life. On visits to the Indonesian island of Bali during the 1980s, I noticed panoramic “Sumba cloths” displayed in numerous shops lining...
Acknowledgments
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pp. xiii-
I am deeply grateful to many people in Sumba for the help they have given me over the years and for the persistent beauty of their fabrics, which initially drew me to their island. Most of the information in this book was gathered during a fifteen-month doctoral research period in 1993 and 1994, supported...
Part One: Fabricscapes
Chapter 1: Introduction
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pp. 3-14
This book is a wide-ranging ethnographic journey, contoured by people who create and trade a kind of cloth through which they interweave and convolute the traditional and the modern, blurring such definitions. I will...
Chapter 2: Locations, Histories, Identities
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pp. 15-27
In the southernmost region of Indonesia, Sumba sits askew from the sweeping arch of islands forming the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (the Lesser Sunda Islands). Much of the eastern coastal portion of the island (of this...
Chapter 3: Enfolding History and Flux
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pp. 28-48
As chronicle of history and communication medium among people in Sumba, cloth has been a visible indicator of comings and goings, asserting identities, conveying meanings, and tracing diverse social intersections throughout...
Part Two: Between the Folds
“Wandi,” “Hawewa,” and “Parai Mutu” maintain individual commercial connections to the main town of Waingapu, and historical alliances and grievances carry on among the villages through numerous family ties....
Chapter 4: Wandi
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pp. 53-84
In the dusty and chaotic square of the Waingapu bus terminal, the wait is never long for a bemo (a minibus that serves as public transport in much of Indonesia) to the village of Wandi. Although a number of bemos go to the village, I usually...
Chapter 5: Parai Mutu
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pp. 85-107
"Parai Mutu” is the source of some of the finest textiles in Sumba. The village is referred to by many Sumbanese as na paraing huri mahari (the village of strong custom) or yang paling tradisi (I.; the most traditional). The two...
Chapter 6: Hawewa
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pp. 108-126
fter an hour bus ride from Waingapu, I often traveled a narrow road running three kilometers inland from the sea, passing numerous households along...
Part Three: Shuttling between Worlds [Contains Image Plates]
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pp. 127-130
The previous chapters have described episodes in the lives of specific people of eastern Sumba as they are connected in some way with fabrics. The next two chapters enter environments where the lives and creations of some of these people converge with those from the outside world...
Chapter 7: Worlds Converge
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pp. 131-147
A convergence of worlds occurred every other week in eastern Sumba in the mid-1990s, in organized cultural displays (pameran, I.; exhibition) for foreign tour groups. Rife with intense competition between local people...
Chapter 8: Village Encounters
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pp. 148-160
Besides the tour groups attending pamerans, there were various foreign visitors to Sumbanese villages, many seeking to experience something exotic or pristine. These tourists (usually traveling in couples or alone) might...
Chapter 9: On Other Islands
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pp. 161-180
Besides the tour groups attending pamerans, there were various foreign visitors to Sumbanese villages, many seeking to experience something exotic or pristine. These tourists (usually traveling in couples or alone) might...
Chapter 10: Unfolding Passages
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pp. 181-192
In the last months of 1994, a relentless heat weighed upon East Sumba as people awaited the overdue monsoon. Late in the dry season (ndau wandu), this was a listless and sweltering time of the year when most activity ceased...
Chapter 11: Conclusion
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pp. 193-202
In 1996, almost two years after I left Sumba, I coiled an ikat headcloth around a Styrofoam form to be included in a glass case in an ethnographic exhibit I was curating at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of...
Notes
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pp. 203-230
Bibliography
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pp. 231-258
Index
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pp. 259-265
E-ISBN-13: 9780824861636
Print-ISBN-13: 9780824822880
Publication Year: 2000
