Well before Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam reached the Indonesian archipelago, Indigenous peoples found spirituality in the trees, rocks and animals around them. On the southern island of Bali, many went on to practice a composite religion blending native animism with Hinduism, ancestor worship and magic. In the Balinese tradition, textiles are sacred and very powerful.
This wrapping cloth from The Textile Museum Collection is known as a “kamden cepuk,” a style woven in Bali and the neighboring island of Nusa Penida since at least the 19th century. These sacred textiles were used to protect, purify and restore divine order in the face of death, disease, drought or poor harvest.
Men and women wore cepuk around their hips as undergarments during healing rituals, performances, temple festivals and royal investitures. Cepuk were also used as flat surfaces for offerings or ceremonies — such as the rite of tooth filing for adolescents — and were laid over the dead and burned to purify the remains. Threads of cepuk cloth were mixed with medicinal herbs to heal ills or help the lovesick.
The cepuk fabric’s supernatural power comes from the elaborate ikat process used to make it. Both the process and the patterns — lozenges, stars, crosses, flowers and twigs — were inspired by silk patola cloths imported from India into Indonesia. The cepuk cloth was also believed to manifest human attributes, including the head, eyebrows, lips and smile. The vertical border columns of white arrowheads represent the teeth of the cloth’s protective spirit.
Waterfall in Bali. © Mac99/iStock.com.
