Most of the inhabitants in Tanatuku village, Nggaha Ori Angu district are farmers. Cultivating fields is their daily life activity for years to produce foods, such as planting corn, rice, beans, sweet potatoes, and other crops. However, the effective time to cultivate the land is only during the rainy season, because the cultivation of the fields depends on the rainfall to irrigate their fields. Currently, the rainy season span from November to March. The stretch of hills and trees looks green and fresh again, the rice fields are filled with water again and stunningly green. Sumba is back with its new face.
The women weaving group in Tanatuku village felt the joy of the return to cultivate the fields and began to plant various kinds of crops. On Saturday, November 28, 2020, the group gathered again after gardening to evaluate the achievement of their weaving with Mama Yustina as the trainer. She said that the members had improved their skills in understanding each step. Once again, she emphasized the importance of being serious when tying the yarns in order to produce fine woven cloth motifs.
During the discussion, the women also talked about the preparation of the nursery fields for the colouring plants, meanwhile, the seeds are available and ready to be planted. The types of plants are Indigofera for blue colour and Noni (Kombu) which produces red. Generally, both are often planted by weavers, but other natural dyes can also be obtained by gathering them from the forest or buying them. The natural dyes can be got from various parts of plants, such as roots, wood, bark, leaves, fruit, seeds, and flowers.
After the drawn motif is tied, the next step is the colouring. The warp yarns (hemba) are dyed in natural dyes. Each dye is poured into a separate container, in past times, it used an earthen pot. The group members are so enthusiastic in colouring stage because they have never seen this. However, they will not enter this step if they have not completed the tying process. But their spirit of cooperativeness pushed their motivation to continue the process to complete the weaving step by step.
The
presence of the Multiplication program of Stube HEMAT in Sumba provides a new
atmosphere and hope for the residents of Tanatuku village, especially the
weaving group members who are in the process of weaving. Formerly they were
only busy on gardening, now they have an alternative on weaving. The program is
expected to raise their economy when their products are marketed and sold. ***
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