Hi John
Thanks for sharing this
ragidup. It looks like a Silindung valley
ulos ragidup of the Toba Batak.
You say 'weaving in five pieces'. Are the white sections of the central section sewn on or have they been incorporated by weaving? If the latter you should be able to see, on one face of the textile, a dark fringe of cut warps which were cut away after the two warps had been woven together and, on the other, almost visible slight loops of white warps. I think that this is quite possibly the case on your textile and the cut, dark warps are on the reverse of the textile as shown in the photos and therefore not visible to us. In a
pinunsaan woven by the Toba Batak in the Lake Toba region the white ends would be stitched onto the dark centre. In both cases the side panels are sewn onto the central core of the cloth. Stylistically your textile is a
ragidup rather than a
pinunsaan. For me the weaving of the
ragidup is a very special feature of Batak textiles. There is a similar but slightly different technique employed by the Simalungun Batak in their
bulang headcloths where the white ends of the centre are exchanged. See
page 2 of this thread where I move on from twining to the
bulang and
ragidup warp changes.
_________________
Pamela
http://www.tribaltextiles.infoon-line tribal textiles resource