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I was thrilled to find a copy of Genevieve Duggan’s latest catalogue entitled Woven Stories Traditional Textiles from the Regency Savu Raijua in the mail today. She wrote it to accompany her very well received exhibition in the Museum Tekstil in Jakarta in November last year. Exhibitions of Savu textiles are a rarity in Indonesia and Genevieve also brought in weavers to demonstrate the craft for the occasion and dancers to show the textiles being worn.

The catalogue is 104 pages in length. The first half explains the role and meaning of the textiles in Savu society. It is embellished with 60 colour photographs. The second half documenting textile types incorporates 80 colour photographs. The catalogue is one of the most scholarly and thorough of the Museum Tekstil publications and offers an intimate glimpse into the Savu textile tradition. Genevieve Duggan is the leading specialist on this tradition. The catalogue is bilingual: English and Indonesian.

Some people will be familiar with some of the information on kinship from Dr. Duggan’s Ikats of Savu: Women weaving History in Eastern Indonesia, Studies in the Material Culture of Southeast Asia No. 1 that she published with White Lotus Press in 2001. Motifs are closely associated with kinship structures and the history of the ethnic group. By recounting myths and stories Duggan allows the patterning to come to life. Much of it is sacred knowledge. The historical information that she weaves together with the indigenous knowledge makes this volume a rich contribution to the sparse literature on Savu weaving.

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Sandra Niessen

www.bataktextiles.com
http://bataktextiles.blogspot.com/

Hello Sandra, May I ask where you ordered your copy? Couldn't find it at Amazon, White Lotus or the Textile Museum in Jakarta. Also, does anyone know how to contact Genevieve Duggan? I have two strange textiles from Ndao, Raijua or perhaps Savu or Rote that I can't find in any book or on the net as they seem to be quite unique. Would like to send her photos of them to see if she could place their origin. Has anyone ever seen ancestor figure motifs in a textile from Ndao, Savu, Raijua or Rote?

Best regards, MAC