tribaltextiles.info

Dear Pamela,
The thread on the rare palepai is a wealth of information.

Among the first textiles that I purchased was a tampan. It had been exhibited in London at The Textile Gallery in 1975 as "Kroe, Birds and Figures, Lampong coastal area of Sumatra, late 19th century 92 x 98 cm, cotton embroidery on a cotton foundation." I was struck by the vivid graphic composition of the whole with the central figure starkly silhouetted against a less dense background, surrounded by the dark embroidery detailing what appears to be a ship cabin or a house. The central figure differs from the one immediately below. Are these two figures different by sex or by social status? What about the other small figures who resemble the main silhouetted figure rather than the triangular-chested figure? I have attached a photo of the whole textile and a detail showing (blurrily) the cotton base cloth. I interpret this tampan as an ancestral history.

With a thread of such interest I am compelled to add my uniformed but enthusiastic bit.
Best to all,
Ann

Dear Pamela,
I was intrigued to read Larry's perceptive analysis of the thoughts in the weavers mind as she worked on the tampan you posted for me. Larry is correct, the left side of the photo cuts off the vertical border which is symmetrical to that on the right side. Since we don't know the iconography I feel confident in saying that for me the most interesting aspect of this tampan is the very sophisticated control of the background, permitting the central figure to emerge strongly and serve as the focus for the entire piece. I chuckled over Larry's eye view as he wrote his critique, beginning as the weaver began with the white foundation on which the entire design was built, anticipating the bumps along the way and solving the problems therefrom. His theory that this piece is an original model rather than a "corrected' copy is insightful. I am grateful to Larry for his comments and to the Forum for presenting this marvelous thread.
Ann

Dear Pamela,

I have reread the catalog of the 1975 Textile Gallery exhibition, written by Lance Entwistle. He suggests that tampan can be divided into three groups, and his groupings support Chris and Larry's observation that assymetricality suggests earlier dates. Here follows an excerpt from the catalog:

“In the tampan the supplementary weft threads lie horizontally in relation to the design while in the pelepay they lie vertically. The tampan was widely distributed throughout coastal South Lampong and in especially large quantities in Kroe. This production would seem to have ceased in about 1900, while their ritual use may have persisted until about 1920. This dating is supported by recent field-work indicating that none of the present-day inhabitants of South Lampon could remember seeing the tampan made although a few could remember seeing them used. The sudden demise of this weaving tradition was probably related to the collapse of the pepper-trade which had made the Lampongs enormously wealthy during the nineteenth century. There is as yet no satisfactory chronology for the centuries preceding 1900 but it is not unreasonable to consider the tradition of considerable antiquity. In particular, the occurrence of pieces of varying style and quality of manufacture in a single locality is suggestive of an artistic evolution still to be defined. Several cultural symbols evident in the textiles also suggest remote origns; the ship (though not necessarily its symbolism) is of probably Neolithic derivation. Almost invariably tampan functioned as wrapping for bridal gifts to the family of the groom (who generally in Lampong bore the expenses of the bridal feast. Interpretation of the dominant themes of tampan -- ships, humans, and animals depicted with varying degrees of abstraction -- remains problematical and there would seem to be little hope of explaining them by reference to their intended function in marital ceremony. Quite possibly they are significant only in terms of rites long since abandoned. Alternatively, the art may have become secularized at an early date, its decorative repertoire representing an amalgam of residual 'cultural memories' from pre-Islamic periods and influences from neighboring cultures….. Broadly speaking three main styles can be distinguished. Firstly, a highly ornamented and relatively unabstracted style showing strong Javanese influence in the treatment of the human figure [Cf. Metropolitan Museum of Art 1990.335.22, and dated to the 18th century, which served as the cover illustration of the 1975 The Textile Gallery show] which is typically shown frontally and in profile simultaneously. Kroe textiles are characterized by a horror vacui but distinguished by an unerring ability to balance the demands of closely observed detail with the overall composition. The asymmetry of these pieces is unique in Indonesian textile art and unusual throughout Asiatic textile art. In our opinion this group comprises the earliest extant examples of this technique in the area. The second group would seem to represent a style deriving from the first but unfortunately insufficient documented pieces exist to support any kind of stylistic analysis. These pieces exhibit a general stiffening of line, most clearly seen in the border decoration; they also tend to a total symmetircality or an illusion of symmetricality. Detailing is less individualized and is generally subservient to the whole while abstraction is extreme, often with fantastical effect. In the third group the abstraction of detail and formalization of the overall composition is even more rigorous. These pieces are all found in the Kroe district to the exclusion of other styles. This homogeneity suggests that the style may be the most recent of the three and was adopted from the people of Lampong Bay sometime during the nineteenth century. The fact that the Kroe people are somewhat outside the mainstream of Lampong culture, an isolation underscored by their geographical inaccessibility, tends to support this theory…… While the ship-motif, as is commonly asserted, may indeed be of Neolithic origin and associated with burial rites, it would seem to have evolved as a device for depicting a social structure. A central figure, or pair of figures, perhaps representing a noble and his spouse, commonly dominates the centre of the composition…..” (Lance Entwistle, Kroe-Ceremonial extiles from South Sumatra, The Textile Gallery, London, 1975).