GOLD WOVEN FABRIC FROM PANDAI SIKEK

That afternoon I was sweat as the air stung in Padang city when going out off the airport. The van driven by a journalist friend immediately took me to Bukittinggi, we felt the fresh cool air in the city situated 941 meters above sea level almost similar to the height in Selabintana touristic area on the slopes Pangrango in Sukabumi.

By : Nia S. Amira
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Bukittingi is the second largest city in West Sumatra Province of West Sumatra. The city was once as the capital of West Sumatra and Cen­tral Sumatra Province and well-known called as Parijs van Sumatra due to similarity contours of the land and the climate.

As promised, we headed to a woven house in Nagari Pandai Sikek or Pandai Sikek Village, at Sepuluh Koto, District of Tanah Datar, West Sumatra. there is a friendly ex­change words close to quatrain amongst the people, if the girl is not good at weaving, she is not included as the one of Pandai Sikek.

Rahmi (20) looked down as she noticed her work for the motifs of woven fabric she worked with traditional woven looms put by the owner on the second floor of the building as workshop and on the first floor used for showrooms and store displaying all various stuffs typical from the area. Her soft hands were agile to weave the thread between thou­sands of golden strands making the fab­ric. Rahmi can make her master piece both using silver and gold thread within a month. For her fine work, R a h m i will be paid IDR 1 m i l l i o n by the owner of the woven studio, and after that, her master piece will be crossed the islands even to neighboring country close to West Sumatra.

In other place, Asmar (48) the owner of Sanggar Songket Nela was busy touring around the village to check the final results of the crafts women’s work who do their work in their homes. Some time ago, mother of 3 children just got the order of tens woven and embroidered veil from a collector in Lom­bok. Of course, with the good value of goods, Asmar can be relax a bit for 2 to 3 months thinking that the market for songket woven in her area has been decreasing significantly since the soaring of US dollar against rupiah.

The crafters of songket woven in Pandai Sikek feel like eating simalakama (fruit), one side they should still buy the gold and silver threads from other country with the dollar rising everyday and if they do not purchase, the business of songket woven that has been doing for tens of year will go worst and the weavers could not survive, while the villager’s talent is to weave the threads back to the time of their ancestors.

Asmar usually sells her songket woven ranging from IDR 2 million to IDR 6 million per piece. A collector from W e s t Nusatenggara bought several pieces of her songket woven fabric and veil made of fine embroidery, all of which reached to US dol­lar 3000.

Pandai Sikek village becomes one of the leading tourist villages in West Sumatra. The distance is only about 13 kilometers from Bukittinggi, easy to reach by the travelers. They usually come in large groups, from doz­ens to tens of people using buses, both from Jakarta and other major cities in Suma­tra as well as tourists from the neigh­boring countries like from Malaysia and Brunei Darusalam. A variety of different motifs and sizes of woven fabric displayed in high glass cabinets so that buyers can freely choose the stuffs.

There are dozens of galleries and shops along the road into Pandai Sikek, and most of them provide a room, a place where visitors or buy­ers can see up close the process of weaving the fabric and invite the visi­tors to simply try to weave, usually guided by an expert weaver. “This is our way to explain the visitors and shoppers how songket Pandai Sikek is made and how long it will take to finish, so that people understand the meaning of a work made with fine hands and in the end the visitors can be able to understand that the price given it equivalent to results that are fine woven stuffs with dense fiber yarn, “said Asmar.

Sanggar Songket Nela is one of the places that is quite crowded with travelers; other than being on the street corner, the result­ing woven quality is also very fine and domi­nated by beautiful flower motifs. At least there are more than 50 motifs of the wo­ven that have been develop­ing this time; among oth­ers are cukie b a r ayam p u c u k rabung, cukie Bugis berantai, and cukie sirangkak. The third motifs are the most sold in the market.

Inheriting the weaving tra­ditions from the ancestors, the people in Pandai Sikek do not know exactly when they started to weave. According to historical book, in the middle of 14th cen­tury, women who live around Mount Singgalang and Mount Merapi were good at weaving. At that time, the Kingdom of Pagaruyung obliged the wom­en wearing woven fabric in every traditional ceremony, including wedding.

Weaving tradition has ever hampered during the colonial period and after it was developed further by the el­d e r s i n Nagari and songket wo­ven in Pandai Sikek has been d e ­veloping until today. N o t only shawl, scarf or sarong (fabric) are pro­duced, but the artisans a l s o make woven fabric made into o r ­der; as f o r wall hangings, bed­spreads, pil­lowcases, purses, bags and even bolero for clothes.

The name of Pandai Sikek name turned out to be born of weaving activity. Threads of gold or silver that were inserted into the holes of iron that looks like sikek (comb), then Pan­dai Sikek means adept combing or weaving.

Women from Minangkabau or West Su­matra are indeed taugh women, when they con­tinue their study out of the islands, they do not hesitate to bring t h e looms to meet their living c o s t s , school or college fees. Their weav­ing skills they have learned from their teens are the way to find the money themselves.

Many of the weav­ers in Pandai Sikek become successful and have great gallery in the village and in the capi­tal city. Initially they did the weaving dur­ing their teens age and increasingly ad­ept at weaving, and by making the weav­ing, they can send their children to pur­sue higher education even going for pilgrim to Mecca.