cm. MEB lie 15946.
Figure 1.9: Tower of textile offerings for a wedding. Nusa Penida.
Figure 1.10: Stone with polèng waist cloth. P. Kutri, Buruan.
Another element that appears to be of archaic origin is the short sleeveless jacket worn today by the main ritual protagonists in a particular temple festival near Denpasar (Fig. 1.13). Although these jackets look as if they were tailored exclusively from red, green or black material (sometimes trimmed with gold ornamentation), they resemble similar garments that are made from bark cloth in what are known as "Old Indonesian" cultures—as among the Toraja in South Sulawesi and also on the islands of Sumatra and Nias. But here again the material is of a special type. Concealed under the colored cloth is a layer of coir fiber which gives the clothing a special significance. According to informants, these jackets fall into the category of martial and battle garments, and were sometimes lined with leather instead of coir for protection. Those on the lookout for persistence in textile forms and materials will continually meet with such survivals from the past and evidence of local and regional cultural traditions.
TEXTILES AS SEMIOTIC SIGNS
In Bali, textiles are much more than just cloths from which garments are made. Beginning with the yarn itself (benang) and the woven textiles, they are a medium through which the divine nature of the universe and its material manifestations are recognized and expressed. The inner spirit of the world—both the natural world and that created by man—expresses reverence and adoration for its creation. It is a world view that does not place individual man at its hub, or subordinate its environment to him, but rather one in which the divine nature of the living world occupies the center. This view is expressed in the places and ways in which textiles are used. One often sees, for example, enormous broad-crowned trees around whose trunks a white or black-and-white checked cloth is bound; while below it there are flowers, both fresh and faded, and petals from sacrificial offerings. One may also see upended stones of a curious shape which have been draped with a cloth like a wraparound (Fig. 1.10).
Figure 1.11: Zoomorphic figures of gods are dressed for a temple festival. Sanur.
These everyday testimonies to an omnipresent divinity appear during ceremonies and annual temple festivals in an even more pronounced and immediate form. The members of a procession accompanying the divine figures and symbols to the strains of the gong orchestra are each adorned and arrayed in festive apparel; the procession itself is led by banner carriers whose flags and pennants—textiles secured to poles—announce from afar the extraordinary significance of such a procession. Over the floral symbols of gods and the carved anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures of deities clad in specific textiles (Fig. 1.11) is a textile firmament of ceremonial parasols (Figs. 1.15 and 7.5).
It is also quite common to witness processions, especially to and from a Brahman house compound, in which the women form a long line, each carrying a white cloth of the same length over her head. Cloths are also spread out on the ground to maintain the ritual purity of those stepping over it and to prevent them from direct contact with the soil, which represents the chthonic or earthly (as opposed to the uranian or heavenly) principle (Fig. 7.14).
Figure 1.12: A sanctuary is invested with an aura for an annual festival: shrines and halls are draped with textiles. Sanur.
Figure 1.13: At certain temple festivals the pemangku ritually dress in sacred fabrics, Their form and materials (coir fiber trimmed with red, black or green fabric) are handed down from the past. South Bali.
Figure 1.14: Holy water vessels wrapped round with colored yarn. Colors correspond to the cardinal directions. Pura Leluhur, Uluwatu.
The customary appearance of Balinese temple sanctuaries, with their offering stelae, shrines and open pavilions, is gray, forlorn and lonely. For the annual festival when the deities are invited to descend, however, these sites are transformed. The individual abodes of the gods, the shrines and the pavilions, are all made ready for the arrival of the gods and are dressed on the same principle as the human body (Fig. 1.12). Two wraparounds, one representing the upper hip cloth and one the cloth beneath, are draped around the pillar on which a small shrine stands; both are secured with a sash. Above the offering niche, the structure is adorned with a headband modeled after a man's headcloth. The niches themselves, at least in south Bali, are lined with plaited mats, with a lamak hanging down. The walls of the pavilions for offerings are draped with textile hangings,, and the places for the divine figures and for the brahman priest (pedanda) are adorned additionally with a white canopy (white being the symbol of ritual purity). Among the offerings presented to the gods are carefully folded cloths used solely for this purpose, usually placed on offering dishes next to the divine figures. In Nusa Penida such cloths are sometimes piled into high "offering towers" (Fig. 1.9). Sacrificial animals are also clad in cloth, and even the wooden cremation bull which serves as a sarcophagus for the those of high social status is fitted with an integument of fine white cloth which transforms it into a divine escort for the soul of the deceased (Fig. 1.15).
It is the textile itself, the woven object, that betokens divinity—but colors, material and pattern more precisely define its character. In this connection we might mention the rose of the winds and the gods and colors correlated with it in Balinese cosmology (cf. p. 60). One can tell from the color used for, say, the veiled abode of a god, what type of deity must be involved. Red cloths are used for an altar to Brahma (god of fire and blacksmiths; his cardinal direction is south), whereas black cloths betoken Wisnu, and so forth. The same is true of the cloths tied on the backs of sacrificial animals; their color indicates the gods to which they are dedicated. Offerings placed in small earthenware dishes are also arranged on the principle of the cardinal directions, with their particular gods and meanings, this being indicated by the dyed yarns with which the holy water vessels are wrapped (Fig. 1.14).
Today preference is shown for certain colors: white and yellow, which symbolize the divine generally (Fig. 1.4). The combination of various colors in the same cloth, and the way in which they are combined, may signify ambivalence, danger and, at the same time, protection and defense (see Chapters 7, 8 and 9)—for gods and their attendants are not only celestially pure and benevolent, but may also be dark, dangerous and minatory.
