7 minute read
Dhopiya Yunupiŋu: Cosmic Journey. Blood Journey.
from Sullivan+Strumpf Contemporary Art Gallery Sydney & Melbourne, Australia & Singapore – Jan-Mar 2024
Words by Abdi Karya Portrait courtesy Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre
“Leppeq patola lapiq kajému kutiwireng ko, Puang Matoa.
Manajang sebbu leppeq patola, sékua to cinaga gading.
Manajang ratuq sawédi kati kutiwireng ko.”
“The folds of your footwear I brought it for you, Puang Matoa. Thousands of pieces of cloth, so is the ivory chest.
Hundreds of fields of gold I brought for you."
– La Galigo, episode: The Birth of The Golden Twins
The fragment above is a quote from the pre-Islamic manuscript, La Galigo: the genesis of the people of South Sulawesi. It presents a diversity of deep relationships between humans and the spiritual world. For Bugis people, La Galigo not only traces the history of their ancestors, but is a guide or way of looking at the world in the past, present and future. In the text, Sawerigading – the incarnation of a god who has extraordinary powers – loves adventure and travel. Among his entourage was a group of people who always accompanied him wherever he sailed. They were people from the Underworld, dark-skinned, who had the skill of reading waves, understanding animal language and the ability the stars. When I shared this story with my adopted family from the Gumatj clan in Yirrkala, they widened their eyes and said; “They are like Yolŋu people!”.
The Yolŋu word Maŋgatharra, is taken from the word Mangkasara, meaning people from Makassar. During the early periods of trading, all sailors, regardless of ethnicity, that departed from Port Makassar – the central market of the Kingdom of Gowa – were considered as Macassans. The Gowa Kingdom was centered in the southern region of the island of Sulawesi, becoming a trade centre in Southeast Asia from 1500’s to the beginning of 1800’s. Commodities circulating in the archipelago, such as spices, metals, and weapons mainly from areas of eastern Indonesia known as Banda and Maluku, stopped in this region before being moved to other ports in Asia. Among these commodities were trepang (sea cucumber) and cloth.
Cloth has a strong position in tradition in the archipelago. It is recorded in temples spread across various corners of the island of Java as well as ancient manuscripts in Indonesia. In the traditions of the Melanesian people in Flores or the Malay people in Sumatra, they use cloth not only as clothing to mark social status, but also as dowry or a medium of exchange considered as valuable as precious metals and money. In the past, scraps of cloth were used as currency for people in Papua and West Java.
In Bugis and Makassar languages, unconnected pieces of cloth are called caré caré. When both ends of the cloth are sewn together, it is called a lipa or sarung (tubular shape). Sarung or sarong in South Sulawesi tradition are like a second skin. When a baby is born, they are immediately given a special sarung woven by their grandmother, mother or aunt. Babies are swung in a sarung while being lulled to sleep. There are so many children's games that use sarongs. When you grow up and know love, the phrase “Living together in one sarung ” was the most popular love metaphor for a man to propose to his girlfriend. At a wedding, sarungs collectively become an expressive language worn by everyone at the party. When traveling, sarungs become a means of packing, as if a bag. It can be used as a tool for climbing trees, a shade umbrella, or a tool for tying. Even when people died, the body was wrapped in a long sarung. I myself am familiar with sarungs because I grew up in a weaver's family. My grandmother, who died at the age of 94, fed our large family through hand-woven sarungs. My own mother has been weaving since a young age and stopped when she gave birth to me.
In Sulawesi, beside sarongs that are made from hand-woven cotton or natural silk, cloth is also made from fibers of pandan leaves, pineapple leaves, or banyan bark, which is flattened by beating. Another fibre, widely known as karoroq, made by palm leaf, is one of the main elements in maritime life, as it is used in boat sails. In several reliefs depicting boats at the Borobudur temple in Central Java, which was built in 750 AD, the boats use sails made from gebang trees (corypha gebanga or coryphe utan [cabbage palm]). In the seafaring tradition in Sulawesi, traders from the Bugis, Makassar and Mandar ethnicities used boats ( perahu), such as padewakang, to load various commodities in large quantities and sail to all directions, including long distance voyages such as Australia. This boat has a typical rectangular sail called tanjaq. To make the sail, the leaves are soaked and boiled, similar to how Yolŋu prepared gunga (pandanus), and then woven like weaving a sarong.
The sail, as well as the bandhirra or flag, is like a jewellery for the boat. People treat these objects well. Like the sarong, it is important because it carries power and soul, they represent the spirit of the owner. Red represents blood and brave, blue for calm, green for nobility and yellow for leadeship. For pricier ones, sometimes they inserted copper or gold threads to give a bulaeng (golden) look, for prosperity.
Staring at images of Dhopiya's works made me re-open again the sarung collections from my family that I have kept since I was a student. The fine lines of her brush made from strands of hair reminded me of the silk fibers woven by my grandmother and mother and the threads of the palms. The vertical and horizontal lines in sarungs that are inserted with shapes of diamonds, zig zag, and sizes of square patterns represent the memories of the maker between their life, body, nature and spiritual realms. The colours of the sarung tell the story of the human soul, the weather, the sky and the stars. These knowledges have been systematically passed through generations, intertwining creative thoughts, values and actions. In Dhopiya's works, the colours appear like the sail and the old-style natural-dyed sarungs. The texture itself shows untwined and intertwined threads of the palm-fibres where we can see delicate and durable sitting together side-by-side. I was not surprised to hear that the meanings were similar to what they inherited from her parents, her clans and people in Arhem Land. I am not surprised, because they are like me. In their blood, there is my blood. ■
Abdi Karya is a multi-disciplinary artist and curator from Makassar-South Sulawesi, Indonesia. He has been a key figure in developing QAGOMA's Yolngu/Macassan Project, liasing with with Indonesian artisans, and artists of the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Arts Centre in Yirrkala, providing unique insights into their contemporary experience of this historic connection.
