Weaving Stories

Shoulder cloth (ija sawa), or waist cloth
Approx. 1850–1900
Indonesia; Aceh province, Sumatra island
Silk, metal-wrapped threads, and dyes
Gift of Joan and M. Glenn Vinson Jr., 2018.120

Imagine a bride, her back toward you, her torso wrapped in fine purple silk, with the shimmering tail of her shawl falling down her back. Only one end of this over four-meter-long cloth is on view, but both are ornamented in gold with tall triangular motifs that in Aceh are called puncak rebung or bambooshoot motifs. Bamboo is a source of food as it initially forms edible sprouts, and then transforms into an invaluable source of building material as it grows taller.

Chinese reports describe silk production in Aceh in northern Sumatra from as early as the tenth century. The introduction of gold-thread supplementary-weft weaving may have occurred in the sixteenth century, when the region formed diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire. The word for this technique in Aceh could derive from an Arabic term for embroidery and has a lovely translation, “rough as dew,” describing both the raised surface of the gold threads and their reflective surfaces.