The Secrets of Alorese ‘Silk’ yarn: Kolon susu, triangle trade and underwater women in Eastern Indonesia\u3csup\u3e1\u3c/sup\u3e

Eastern Indonesia is known for a great variety of textiles. One part of the region that has been largely overlooked in the literature is textiles of the Alor archipelago. However, the literature does recognise and speculate about the unusual silky character of some Alorese cloths that have entered Western museum collections. Based on fieldwork among weavers in the village Uma Pura, situated on a small island in the Pantar strait, this paper reveals the secret behind the characteristic shiny finish of the ‘silk’ sarongs from Alor. Ruled by necessity rather than choice weavers used to mix cotton with fibres from kolon susu, a common plant along arid coasts of Eastern Indonesia. The same lack of raw materials for women depending on weaving for their livelihood also led to a triangle trade in the Solor-Alor archipelago where sarongs were traded for pots that were traded for cotton - which was brought back to Uma Pura to be mixed with kolon susu and spun into a kampung version of silk cloth. In the paper these economical and practical aspects of the production of hand-spun yarns is set against the backdrop of a mythological past where Eko Sari, a hari woman from a village in the sea, taught Alorese women about spinning and the tangible present where hand-spun yarn plays a central role to pregnancy and childbirth in Uma Pura

Tamalola : Transregional connectivities, Islam, and anti-colonialism on an Indonesian island

The present study focuses on a set of events in the Aru Islands, Maluku, in the late eighteenth century which are documented in some detail by Dutch records. A violent rebellion with Muslim and anti-European overtones baffled the Dutch colonialists (VOC) and led to a series of humiliations for the Company on Aru, before eventually being subdued. As one of the main catalysts of the conflict stands the chief Tamalola from the Muslim island Ujir. Interestingly, this persons also a central figure in local traditions from Ujir. Moreover, his story connects with wider cultural and economic networks in eastern Indonesia. Thus the article asks how the imprints of the Tamalola figure in textual and non-textual sources can add to our knowledge of how communities of Eastern Indonesia ordered their lives outside colonial control