Introduction

2A first, mostly technical, description of two handwoven ikat textiles, an embroidered scarf, and a batik shouldercloth was published 30 years ago (Visser 1989a). This article presents new data that provide more historical depth to the possible origin of the imported textiles from various parts of Sulawesi that paid tribute to the Sultans of Ternate. I provide new evidence to support my hypothesis about the meaning of the word Kulincucu or Kolincucu and the spread of weaving techniques in East Indonesia. The present article finally provides examples of the way local values are attached to imported textiles in the context of the annual harvest ceremony or the Great Eating, including the legu ritual (see below).

4The northern part of the island of Halmahera paid tribute to the Sultans of Ternate until the middle of the 19th century. However, paying tribute does not imply that the social groups on Halmahera converted to Islam. Protestant missionaries of the Utrecht Missionary Society (UZV) brought Christianity to the northeast of Halmahera (Galela, Tobelo) during the last decades of the 19th century. The north-western part of the island, including Sahu, gradually converted to Christianity only after the 1930-50s. Although some indigenous beliefs and practices were disapproved of and forbidden, conversion did not affect the performance of the annual ceremony of the Great Eating (see below).

5Halmahera is the largest island east of Sulawesi. The articles published in the special volume of this journal on “East Indonesia” (Rappoport and Guillaud, 2015) focus on the row of islands stretching eastward from Java as far as the Southeast Moluccas. Surprisingly little attention was paid to the Northern Moluccas, particularly the islands of Ternate, Tidore, and Halmahera. This is all the more remarkable since the vast sphere of control of the Sultans of Ternate stretched as far west as the islands of Timor, Buton, Selayar, and Banggai, and to the dependencies of Bungku and Gorontalo on the east coast of Sulawesi (Map 2; Clercq 1890). According to Barnes (1987: 219) “The Sultan of Ternate also claimed Solor as a dependency during at least part of the sixteenth century and later, and the various sengaji of Solor and Adonara repeatedly acknowledged this tie throughout the first century or more of European contact.” In addition to political-economic domination, also cultural interactions and linguistic relationships were established between these islands, coastal Sulawesi, and Ternate (Schapper 2015; Yampolsky 2015).

6Of all the dependencies of Ternate, Sahu was the most heavily populated. Sahu village clusters (co’ong) became “the granary of the sultanate” supplying a considerable amount of rice to the Sultan’s family. In addition, Sahu was also required to supply the Sultan each year with six gate-keepers and two guards for the court, and also one hundred manservants, according to the Dutch Resident of Ternate in 1859 (Bosscher [1859] 1980: 179-184). The representative of the Sultan in the Sahu district also had rights to several servants every few months (Olivier 1834: 268). On the island of Ternate, Sahu men and women seem to have been in great demand as domestic servants, reputed as hard-working and capable of performing heavy tasks. However, when they finished their term of service, they immediately wanted to return home on Halmahera island, even when offered higher wages to remain in service, according to the Dutch Governor on Ternate, F.S.A. de Clercq (Clercq 1890: 108).

8The only historical account about a Great Eating ceremony is a publication with photographs by the Dutch Protestant missionary Fortgens (Fortgens 1913: 508-520 + 12 pictures). A century later, one can still witness these annual ceremonies in the Sahu villages of the sub-districts of Sahu, East Sahu, and Jailolo (Jouwersma et al. 1985; Visser 1984, 1989b, 2019). The following paragraphs will elaborate on the different Sahu ceremonial cloths, especially the two ikat sarongs, but also other handwoven sarongs, embroidery, and batiks. I will substantiate my hypothesis that Sahu ceremonial cloths are a conscious blending of a variety of Sulawesi textiles traded to (and through) the sultanate of Ternate, together with Indian textiles and Javanese batiks. They were purposely selected to fit Sahu social values.

Foreign Origin of Sahu ceremonial textiles

9From the narratives of Dutch governors and military commanders who travelled through the hinterland of west Halmahera in the 19th century, and from the Dutch Protestant missionary who resided in the Jailolo village of Sidangoli during the early 1900s we know that foreign textiles were bought or bartered, and brought home from Ternate by the Sahu themselves. The foreign textiles appear to have been selected primarily for their colours and motifs, in order to fit the values expressed through the various ritual parts of the annual ceremonies of the Great Eating (see below). In this section I describe the different types of ceremonial textiles and discuss their potential origin. I differentiate between handwoven sarongs (ikat, songket, and monochromatic indigo), embroidered scarfs, and batik shoulder- and headcloths.

Handwoven ikat sarongs

11Kulincucu is the name of a domain to the north of the Wolio (or Bolio) realm of Buton island southeast of Sulawesi (Map 1), which became tributary to the Ternate Sultan in 1580 (Valentijn 1724: 207). Bolio was the place where Ternate soldiers would replenish their stocks on their raids to islands further to the southwest. The island was their “market” or butu in Ternate language. Thus the island became known as Buton (Valentijn 1724: 207). Butonese princesses already married Ternate kings in 1465 and 1652 (ibid.: 82-83). As the personal domain of the crown prince of Wolio, Kulincucu had considerable status in local politics and trade. By custom every crown prince spent his childhood and adolescence in Kulincucu before being crowned ruler, and it was said that the queen of Wolio should give birth to the prince in Kulincucu (Abdurrachman 1983: 24).

13The ‘ba’a boba is a two-panelled indigo-and-red ikat sarong with white warp ikat figures. The ikat motifs alternate with supplementary white lines. The cloth is made of coarse handspun cotton in warp-faced plain weave. In the blue body, white warp ikat is executed in diamond-shaped figures (fig. 1) or stripes (fig. 2). The head consists of a blue warp and a red weft, and shows the same ikat pattern as the body. The head is symmetrically divided into two groups of ten supplementary weft white lines of alternatingly different width (Visser 1989a: 84).

14The other textile which is glossed as “Kulincucu” in Sahu is a red-and-yellow handwoven cloth with continuous complementary weft patterns, called ‘ba’a suje. The red-and-yellow ‘ba’a suje (figs. 3, 4, 14) is a handwoven two-panelled sarong with continuous yellow supplementary wefts creating six-pointed stars, crosses or stripes, lending the cloth its yellow image. The textile is made of commercial cotton yarns. As in ‘ba’a boba, the head is divided into two groups of ten supplementary weft white lines that are alternatively smaller and broader. Both the indigo-and-red and the yellow-and-red sarongs are worn in pairs, and only by senior women.

15The Kulincucu women I visited in 1985 in Ternate still applied the supplementary weft technique using the word suje to refer to the technique “by which your hand takes the yarn up and down.” The older woman could still recall orders made from Sahu for suje textiles. Also, the adat head I asked in Sahu in 1982 remembered to have seen a woman weave the red-and-yellow ‘ba’a suje in Susupu, Sahu in the 1930s, but no ‘ba’a boba. The dark indigo-and-red ikat thus maybe older than the red-and-yellow ‘ba’a suje.

16From what is shown by the textile literature on the islands of the Central and South-eastern Moluccas and the Lesser Sundas (Barnes and Hunt-Kahlenberg 2010; Maxwell 2003; Völger and van Welck 1991), the patterns and colours of the Sahu ikats are different. I therefore started looking for comparison with historical descriptions and museum collections of Sulawesi textiles to deepen my understanding of the origin of the Kulincucu-Ternate textiles described in this article, that became so highly valued by the Sahu as ceremonial cloths since late the 19th century. In his book on the Ternate residency governor De Clercq shows a very detailed drawing of two cloths strikingly similar to the red-and-yellow ‘ba’a suje with complementary weft white diamonds. He writes, “Two sarongs originating from Soelabési and weft with European yarns.” (Clercq 1890: ix; Plate III Photo 2). Two decades later, Jasper & Pirngadie state that in northern Sulawesi only in Gorontalo, Limbotto, and the Minahasa ikat textiles are produced (Jasper & Pirngadie 1912: 180; 270). Nevertheless, the examples shown in their volume do not resemble the Kulincucu-Ternate textiles brought home by the Sahu around that same period.

17We are likewise faced with a problem comparing the Kulincucu weaving technique and tools used in Ternate with the names for the Butonese textiles and parts of the loom documented in the literature. According to Jasper and Pirngadie (1912: 160) the Butonese loom has no reed. The Ternate Kulincucu loom I saw in 1985, on the other hand, does have a reed. Its warp, although actually discontinuous, appears to be circular and continuous. Rita Bolland has recognised the Kulincucu loom to be of the heddle and stick type (Visser 1989a: 90, note 4). Other characteristics (Visser 1989a: 84) make this loom resemble the Type C loom described by Bolland in Gittinger (1979: 230-231). This type of loom occurs in a relatively limited area – West Flores, parts of Celebes, Sangir, and the southern Philippines. It should be noted that many of these regions were within the political and economic sphere of influence of the Ternate sultanate.

Monochromatic handwoven cloths

21Sahu ceremonial textiles include several monochromatic handwoven cloths, with bright pink or rose hues, or dark indigo. Like the two previously described cloths, these cloths belong to the male family heirloom. The songket like sarong is called ‘ba’a grem (fig. 5). Likewise, any cloth that has a silk-like hue, may be called ‘ba’a grem (see also centre of fig. 14).

Embroidered scarfs

24In his study on textile ornamentation, Loebér states that embroidery was first applied on barkcloth, then on mat plaiting. However, only when using woven textiles could embroidery fully develop (Loebér 1914: 10). In his view, the eastern Indonesian islands did not offer remarkable examples of this technique (ibid.: 11). Possibly, barkcloths and plaited mats from Halmahera, including embellished Sahu female jackets and sarongs were not known to him.

Batik

28Unlike the woven patterns and embroidery that vary considerably, the pattern of this batik shouldercloth is similar for all male and female users. According to the villagers, this batik used to be commanded through Javanese traders around the turn of the 20th century, with an explicit Sahu demand for the pattern shown here. Together with the imported ikat textiles the batik shouldercloth belongs to the male heirlooms of Sahu family groups (rera), until today.

Sahu textiles as indicators of social position during the Great Eating

30Originating from a communal commemoration of the dead (Fortgens 1913) today’s annual ceremony is still called the Great Eating (ngorom lamo’o) or the Great Cooking (sa’ai lamo’o). It is held each year in the ceremonial house or sasa’du in the centre of each Sahu village around September, after all the swidden rice fields have been harvested (Visser 1989b; 2019). The ceremonial house is called a boat, but a boat at rest (kagunga tego-tego) with its bow turned toward the land, and its stern turned toward the sea. The women are located in the front or junior half, separated from the rear or senior half where the men are located by four large drums.

31Adat and Christian faith go hand in hand in a “thanksgiving” to the ancestors and God who provided the village community with a good harvest and prosperity. During the 20th century, the focus of the Great Eating has gradually shifted from a death ritual (Fortgens 1913) to a harvest festival (Jouwersma et al. 1985). While the meaning of certain oral texts and actions has largely been lost among today’s participants, as ritual knowledge has been shared unevenly, the Great Eating including the legu ritual (see below) still clearly include representations of both marriage and mortuary rituals of a landholding community, involving the inhabitants of several Sahu villages at each occasion.

35The position of the genealogically “older” women follows the ranking of seats of their husbands. During the two or three nights of the ceremony they take place at the high benches along the two tables in the front or landward half of the ceremonial house, wearing the indigo-and-red warp ikat (‘ba’a boba) or the embellished monochromatic indigo cloths (‘ba’a ‘ute; - tobuko). During the afternoon of the second day they wear the indigo-and-red ikat or the red-and-yellow supplementary weft ‘ba’a suje or songket (‘ba’a grem). These cloths should be used in pairs, one as a sarong and the other, folded diagonally, as a shoulder cloth loosely hanging over the left shoulder. During the second night of the Great Eating, in addition to the handwoven indigo textiles, the “older” women have two red-and-yellow embroidered scarfs (tuala suje) knotted together in one corner over their breasts, with one scarf over each shoulder. Wearing the scarfs in this manner is called kalaotala, meaning drawn down together, as shown by the two women in fig. 14. They also have two red woollen tassels at each side of the comb at the back of her head. Genealogically “younger” men sit or stand at the lower sides of the two tables, opposite their fathers and uncles. They are distinguished by the red embroidered scarf as a headdress and the batik shouldercloth (figs. 12 and 18). The embroidered red-and-yellow scarf plays an important role in male as well as female ceremonial attire. Worn in three different ways, depending on how and where it is worn, the scarf differentiates gender and genealogical seniority (figs. 9, 12, 13, 18).

36The highlight of the annual ceremony is the ciawa or circular dance, also called sepa in Sahu after the upward movement of their right leg. The ciawa dance is performed by an uneven number of men, not by women. It takes place during the afternoon of the second day. The names légo or legu occur in late 19th century sources about Ternate, Makian, and Halmahera and invariably refer to a row of several men who walk in circles, singing (Campen 1884: 513; Clercq 1890: 90). According to the De Clercq, on the island of Makian légo is also named cawa, which is similar to the name ciawa used in Sahu for the elegant circle dance of the men; a dance that can still be witnessed a century after Fortgens’ observations (Forgens 1913: 515-517; Visser 1989b: 145-168; Jouwersma et al. 1985). The name lego or legu also spread to other islands and regions that were subordinate to the Sultanate of Ternate.

37The dancers wear splendid silk-like coloured or black velvet kaftans (juba) over a short felt jacket (sandaría) with a tumpal motif (fig. 9). The red embroidered scarf – or any red folded cloth – serves as a loincloth worn on top of a pair of plain trousers. On their heads, the dancers wear a metal crown (paluala) adorned with a bird of paradise at each side, their feathers projected towards the back (figs. 9 and 17).

38The Sahu legu dancers dance around the Moa ma Jum figure. They are acting out the intended marriage of a young woman representing the “princess” Moa ma Jum to the mythical ruler of Sahu, Raja Baikole. A myth tells how a small frog was found in the forest on top of a moa shrub (Donax canniformis), hence her name, and taken home by Raja Baikole. He keeps her in his tobacco pouch, but within one night she has grown out of it. He then puts her in his clothes chest, and when she has grown out of that too, he keeps her under a mosquito net. The next day, Raja Baikole finds the little frog has turned into a beautiful young woman.

39While the men dance around her, the young women representing Moa ma Jum do not laugh or sing, and either sit still or walk around in the opposite direction to that of the dancers (Visser 1989b: 161-168). They wear a silver-coloured metal crown (léri) on top of the comb at the back of their heads, in the shape of a “tree” of three layers of tendrils, ornamented with metal flowers, strings of small diamonds, and birds or fish (figs. 19 and 20). The tendril motif is rather common in eastern Indonesia. One finds it on plaited marriage mats and barkcloth female jackets from northeast Halmahera (Snelleman 1907, Kooiman 1963) and on ancestor statues, altars, and boats from Tanimbar (Geurtjens 1941). The Moa ma Jum figure wears three layers of folded sarongs on top of each other, in shades of red, yellow, or green (fig. 19). In each hand she holds a red embroidered tuala suje (or any other red cotton scarf).

Cultural continuity and material change

• 29 Facsimile edition of a series of drawings and descriptions made by C.W.M. van de Velde during his v (...)

“We better liked a kind of ballet of twelve male dancers, jumping around… with a three-cornered hat, at the back of which two birds of paradise were attached, an old-Spanish skirt with wide-cuffed sleeves, big buttons and bells at the elbows, and a wooden dagger…”.29 He also observed, “Twelve female dancers, beautifully dressed in red cloths which showed a faint resemblance to old-Spanish costume, and with gilded crowns, heavy earrings, necklaces, a large silver breast plate and richly adorned waistband, … started to dance while they alternatingly sang a rather ill-sounding indigenous song” (Velde 1979: 46).

43There appears to be only a single historical description of the legu or ciawa circle dance performance in Sahu. Fortgens describes the dance he witnessed in the village of Idamdehe (Fortgens 1913: 508-520). He notes how during the ciawa ritual “the princesses” walk around solemnly. His sixth photograph shows a young woman in a dark skirt and a single sarong, with some kind of cloth on her head. However, that image does not bear much resemblance to either the richly adorned Ternate “princesses” or today’s Moa ma Jum figure. About the ciawa or legu dance itself, Fortgens continues, “Some five men, dressed in multi-coloured long shirt-like dresses with a stick in their hands, around the knob of which a white or coloured cloth is held… proceed to… the flagpole...” (Fortgens 1913: 515). On one of the pictures attached to his article, included here as fig. 16, one can observe a man wearing a crown, but it is difficult to see if there are birds of paradise attached to it, and the author does not mention them. The other men wear the kind of headdress which closely resembles the tuala jawa nowadays only worn by the genealogically “older” men sitting at the tables during the Great Eating.

44Today, the ciawa or legu ritual continues to be performed during the annual Great Eating or ngorom lamo’o in the villages of Sahu and East Sahu districts (Visser 1989b: 145-168; Visser 2019: 235-281; Jouwersma et al. 1985). The young women representing the mythical princess Moa ma Jum wear layers of red and yellow sarongs (fig. 19). Nobody could tell me the origin of this particular way of layering 2-3 sarongs on top of each other, but it seems to make sense that Moa ma Jum’s dress finds its historical origin in what reminded Van de Velde of an Iberian costume. However, the links between Ternate court dances and Sahu ritual performances, like the birds of paradise, the layered women’s skirts, and the tuala scarf are rather reminiscent of Iberian influences. Together with the many handwoven cloths Sahu servants brought back home, these valuables continue to refer to Sahu’s past subordination to the Ternate Sultans.

45The Sahu borrowing of foreign elements is not remarkable in itself. What is amazing is their purposeful selection and composition of weaving techniques, motifs, and colours from Buton, Selayar, and mainland Sulawesi. While form or outward appearance may have been borrowed, the social value of the textiles worn during the Great Eating and the legu ritual tell a local, autonomous story strongly rooted in Sahu social organisation based on genealogical precedency and land ownership, as testified by the Raja Baikole mythology and the legu performance of his mythological marriage with Moa ma Jum.

46Yet, there is a possibly more striking evidence of historical continuity between Sahu and other Halmahera societies, on the one hand, and to Sulawesi and Buton, on the other hand. Sahu ceremonial textiles blend the non-geometric motifs from northeast Halmahera and the geometric patterns and techniques from Sulawesi. For example, the embroidery on the imported indigo sarongs from Sulawesi are reminiscent of the non-geometric figures painted on the plaited mats and barkcloths from Tobaru, Galela, and Tobelo (North Halmahera), see figs. 10 and 11. Also, festive female barkcloth jackets from Galela “embellished with mica, embroidery, and coloured arabesks” (Campen 1884: 173), are remarkably similar to the embroidery and mica on the handwoven sarongs of the Sahu women (fig. 6, 7, 14). Similar motifs appear in the locally embroidered motifs on the tuala suje scarf (figs. 8, 9, 12), and in the metal tendrils of the crown of Moa ma Jum (fig. 20). In other words, we need to acknowledge that motifs and colours rather than techniques and textile materials are key to our understanding of the uses and values of Sahu ceremonial cloths.

48While this analysis and regional comparison may testify to tributary relationships of parts of both Sulawesi and Halmahera to the Sultanate of Ternate, Sahu people themselves are not aware of these wider political-historical connections. They stress local change, especially since the 1980s. Our film project in 1982 made them aware for the first time of their own Sahu identity vis à vis an outside world and another time, hence the demand of the adat leader to show a ‘pure’ image of the Great Eating to future generations. During the preparations and the filming of the ceremony itself, Indonesian words were replaced by Sahu words, and the Indonesian cap was replaced by the folded headdress.

49More drastic changes to the use of ceremonial textiles are considered to result from a rapidly developing cash economy and improved mobility since 1985 of the people of Sahu, Halmahera. The younger generation started to opt out of food production and into cash crop cultivation. The need for a regular income to pay for the education of their children affected their valuation of family heirloom, particularly chinaware and ceremonial cloths. Families started selling these valuable objects to outsiders. Selling handwoven textiles to national or foreign traders and tourists is common in many Indonesian societies. In most cases, the local women have their own weaving culture so that, although over time techniques and colours may change, the weaving culture itself does not necessarily dwindle. In the case of Sahu who have no weaving culture, there is no way to reproduce these unique products of history.

50Between 1999 and 2002 religious clashes in eastern Indonesia (Duncan 2013) severely disrupted everyday social and economic life, also in Halmahera. In the Sahu villages no ceremonies were held for several years, and ceremonial textiles withered away or were lost. Interestingly, after peace returned, Sahu self-identification with “the seven village clusters” revived the annual ceremonies of the Great Eating since 2005. Those who do not own heirloom cloths any more can now borrow a yellow-and-red cotton skirt and velvet jacket, produced and commanded in Java by the village head. In 2017 I also witnessed that all kinds of indigo and industrial blue sarongs were being worn during the ceremony, and new metal crowns had been made for a new generation of legu dancers. The headcloths of the older men were now being starched and folded around a mould, to be permanently stored until next year’s performance.

Conclusion

51Halmahera societies are known for mat plaiting and barkcloth decoration, but not for weaving. Sahu is the only place where foreign textiles, colours, and motifs have been consciously selected as ceremonial dress to fit the values of the receiving culture. This is an ongoing historical process of cultural change and continuity. Imported from or through Ternate, Sahu ceremonial textiles and ornaments belong to the heirlooms owned by male inheritance groups (rera). But their mothers and wives are the women who show the more interesting indigo-and-red ikat (‘ba’a boba) and the yellow-and-red ‘ba’a suje with its white supplementary weft pattern. Although a good historical description of these two interesting cloths from Sahu is absent, data I gathered in 1985 with Kulincucu women in Ternate support the fact that both could be woven in Ternate until the early 20th century. Comparison of the embroidered monochromatic indigo cloths from Sahu with handwoven indigo cloths stored in Dutch museums suggests that Sahu ceremonial textiles were woven in Sulawesi and were traded to Ternate, where the Sahu acquired them to take home and embellish them by embroidery.

52The textiles, colours and motifs described in this article depict an eastern Indonesian society on Halmahera with a social organisation that differentiates not between classes but between genealogically “older” and “younger” male and female participants at the annual Great Eating ceremony. Birds of paradise, kaftans, and Moa ma Jum’s “Spanish” dress are historical evidence of Sahu’s tributary status to the Sultan of Ternate. But, at the same time they represent a pan-Halmahera cultural inheritance through the close resemblance of the motifs embroidered on the red-and-yellow scarfs and indigo cloths worn by the senior representatives of male inheritance groups during the Great Eating ceremony, and similar painted motifs on the male loincloths and barkcloth female jackets from northeast Halmahera (Galela, Tobelu, Tobaru). 19th century Ternate court dances and headhunting images from northeast Halmahera have been reshaped to fit local representations of Sahu social organisation and claims to forested land. Claims that are legitimised by the annual acting out of the Raja Baikole mythology during the annual ceremonies of the Great Eating.