JOIN USA trip to Flores Island in the East Nusa Tenggara province of Indonesia provides a wonderful opportunity for adventure buffs to cruise the Flores Sea from Labuan Bajo, and reach the World Heritage Site of Komodo National Park to sight Komodo dragons.
But that’s not all. For art lovers, a journey to Komodo Island gives a glimpse of traditional weaves of Flores, popularly known as tenun ikat in Bahasa. In fact, those who are interested in knowing more about the sophisticated style of ikat weaving, can set out on an exotic weaving tour in Flores Island.
The ikat style of weaving is similar to the tie-and-dye process in India that makes use of resist dyeing on either the warp or weft, before the threads are woven to create specific designs. The conventional style of hand weaving has its origin in Cecer hamlet of Liang Ndara in West Manggarai Regency of Flores Island, and one can come across traditional hand-woven sarong (shawls) and selindang (scarves) all across Flores Island in towns like Ende, Ruteng, Bajawa, Maumere, Lembata and Flores Timor.
The art of weaving ikat is exclusively done by the women of Flores Island. Belonging to Manggarai tribes, these women are all Catholics. Usually, it takes around one month of painstaking work for a woman to weave a single piece of shawl. These are usually woven in black cotton fabric, with colourful motifs depicting flowers, horses, lizards, birds and other animals in long rows.
Apart from black, the shawls are also woven in other attractive colours, with rich motifs depicting geometric patterns and ancestral figures that are passed down from one generation to the other, creating a link between the past and present. The USP of ikat hand weaving lies in the use of a wide range of floral motifs and design formats that vary from one regency to the other.
The history of traditional hand weaving in Flores Island is traced back to a century before the arrival of Portuguese to the island. In Cecer hamlet, women usually sell the pieces from their homes. The ikat-weaving technique involves the use of natural dyes extracted from local flowers. The warp threads are dyed in prominent colours including indigo, red, yellow, orange and brown, and the threads are all hand-woven. The dyeing process takes a lot of time.
In today’s times, the traditional hand weaves of Flores have a huge global market, and mostly tourists from European countries, China and Japan heading to Flores take their pick. However, the Indian tourist footfall to Flores is quite low. At Cecer, the hand-woven stuffs are sold at a modest price. At the entrance of Komodo National Park in Komodo Island, the hand-woven shawls sold by locals are easy on the wallet and are priced at 5,00,000 IDR (Indonesian Rupiah) and scarves are tagged at 1,00,000 IDR. Tourists can settle for a lower price after a good bargain.