Between the Folds: Stories of Cloth, Lives, and Travels from Sumba

Notes

Part One: Fabricscapes Chapter 1: Introduction 1. As many have noted, “art” is a slippery term of analysis when applied to nonWestern societies. For examples, see R. Anderson (1979); Clifford (1988); Coote (1992); Errington (1994b, 1998); Forge (1973); Graburn (1976); Hart (1995); Losche (1997); Maquet (1986); Marcus and Myers (1995); Sheldon (1992); Steiner (1994); and Thomas (1999). Not surprisingly, there is no word in eastern Sumbanese language that precisely means “art,” in the Euro-American sense—that is, implying a discrete area of production of nonutilitarian aesthetic works and the historical institutions and public consensus that support it. I impose the shorthand term “art” in the context of Sumbanese textiles, however, to denote an aesthetic form that involves culturally shared (and contested) concepts of beauty, artisanship, value, and talent and that is a format for expressiveness. Such art in eastern Sumba is underscored by intense competition and public commentary, in which something of beauty is deemed hamu, which can also denote qualities of goodness. 2. I am certainly not arguing that this is the first time they have ever envisioned themselves anew, as undoubtedly throughout the past people in Sumba reassessed their places in the world based on ever-changing circumstances and new influences in their environments . My purpose here is to show something of how people are doing so in recent times. 3. Toby Volkman (1990) examines how a “tourist gaze” reshapes Torajan cultural realities in Sulawesi, revealing aspects of this “timelessness” as taken up in local contexts. See also Kathleen Adams (1999). 4. I use the term “tradition” throughout this book in multiple senses. Tradition proceeds as persistent yet mutable symbolic forms and practices, carrying local precedence and social power. But I also consider it as a quite separate concept, of which people in East Sumba are aware: “tradition” as a prized category wielded by international collectors to authenticate non-Western arts. In response to this latter, imported category, many people in eastern Sumba manipulate or invent traditions, but also reassert traditional forms they perceive of as esteemed by foreigners. Eric Hobsbawm notes how “ ‘traditions’ which appear or claim to be old are often quite recent in origin and sometimes invented” (1983:1). Yet all tradition inevitably was “invented” (in the sense that it was constructed) at some point, whether gradually or rapidly. This does not necessarily mean that such invention was fictitious or false in relation to previous “real” models (see Jolly and Thomas 1992, Linnekin 1992). I concur with Nicholas Thomas’ assessment that “indigenous cultures are simultaneously ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’. They are ‘traditional’ in the sense that distinctive views of the world remain alive, but they are also ‘contemporary’ in the sense that they belong in the present (1999:17). The challenge is discerning something of how various notions and manifestations of tradition might play between the past and present, between the local and the foreign. 5. I consider “aesthetics” to mean generally a sense of beauty. In the context of the Sumbanese worlds I describe, the term almost foils a certain Western notion of aesthetics (as linked to art and going back to Kant) as characterized by an emotional disinterestedness, independent of moral spheres. Emotional interests pervade the conception, production, and reception of aesthetic objects in this account of eastern Sumba; all are entwined with moral positions and notions of the right ordering of things in the world. As Taylor and Aragon note, “Terms used in Indonesian languages to describe beauty usually include a moral component ” (1991:30), and this is true in eastern Sumba. 6. For valuable information and analysis regarding history, former social realities, Notes and earlier textiles of East Sumba, I am indebted to the work of Marie Jeanne Adams, who carried out extensive research in the region in the 1960s. People I refer to in this book as “indigenous” Sumbanese (and who refer to themselves as Tau Humba ‘Sumba People’) are those who claim descent from ancient lineages in Sumba and who for the most part continue to regard clan villages as their homes. Their forebears may have arrived via a number of other islands, such as Sulawesi, Sumbawa, and Timor, bringing Austronesian and Papuan influences at various points in history (see Bellwood 1997). 7. Shelly Errington (1989) has noted the persistent, transgenerational quality of regalia in Southeast Asia, as it anchors and legitimizes spheres of political power. I will consider such spheres as not only reflected by Sumbanese fabrics, but as created by connections and transformations that transpire as Sumba...