Balinese textiles
Beginning with the yarn and the woven cloth, they are a medium through which the divine nature of the universe and its material manifestations are recognized and expressed.
When the men of the village banjar gather for a working bee in the temple they wear a sarong and sash.
Most of the printed cloth comes from Java, but there are still weavers in Bali who produce hand woven polèng for special applications.
[4] The earliest extant endek date from the late 19th century and come from the North Balinese Kingdom of Buleleng and are predominantly of geometric design.
In earlier times most of the women of Nusa Penida wore keling underskirts described by Claire Holt in the 1930s.
She described multicolored striped cloth worn under the dark blue upper kain in such a way that only a small part showed.
The roots may be related to an older legend concerning the primal ancestors of the village Tenganan, the king Kaung and his wife Keling.
According to Gittinger in 1970, what is known about them comes entirely from records in the Museum für Volkskunde in Basel,[8] however bebali textiles can be bought today in the Kumba Sari market in Denpasar.
There is, for example, cloth with a white warp and weft broken by green, yellow and red stripes known as cenana kawi whose function is in the 3 month ritual and also are laid out in the central shrine of an ancestral temple.
Ida Ayu Ngurah Puniari (Ibu Dayu) writes that the Gedogan or Wangsul is not symmetrical, this represents purusa and predana, (male and female) where the left and right hand sides will not line up, when warping on the loom a few extra threads are added so one side is uneven.
These bebali cloths are now being made with natural dyes and manufactured cottons in the traditional manner with a quality that is comparable with the earlier collected pieces of the 1920s.
Geringsing are regarded as sacred cloths, "ascribed supernatural properties, especially to assist in forms of healing, including exorcism.
"[13] It is mentioned in the poem Rangga Lawe which tells of the first Majapahit king, Raden Wijaya giving his warriors gerinsing sashes to protect them in Battle.
Using a pick the weaver adjust the weft with each pass of the shuttle to make sure the alignment of the pattern is precise.
The design of lamak generally has a stylized 'cili' figure at the top, represented by a triangular skirt, followed by a long pattered fields, ending in a row of tumpal The cili is often associated with Dewi Sri, the deity of fertility and prosperity.
[19] In the western and northern parts of Bali, lamak are made of cloth and all textile techniques can be found from weaving, embroidery and appliqué.
Today mixed cloths are seen with cotton, gimp golden and silver threads, viscose and artificial silk.
