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PAID CONTENT FOR SARAWAK TOURI SM


“Tradition is so important, it marks


Thin gold- or silver-plated ribbons are hand embroidered onto rubia gauze fabric to make elaborately adorned headscarves


where we are from,” explains Nabilah. “Our ancestors were very clever and we mustn’t lose that wisdom. If I don’t do this and show others how to do it, the art will be lost forever. It’s my mission to preserve these skills for future generations.”


“It was used to cook rice — the


rounded bottom allowed the fire to heat it evenly,” she explains. “I travelled three hours into the rainforest to learn how to make these pots from an old man in a longhouse.” She shows me how it’s done, pushing a smooth, spherical stone down into a cylinder of clay, then beating its outside with a wooden paddle called a pemaluk until it takes on the round shape of the stone. She’s doing this just as her ancestors would’ve done thousands of years ago, following the same process and using the same tools. The only difference is that the pot will be finished in a kiln rather than an open fire, because fire smoke is far too polluting.


THE SONGKET WEAVE R RAMTINIWATI RAMLEE Ramtiniwati Ramlee is one of Sarawak’s top songket weavers. Her company, Seri Gedong Songket, operates from a pair of wood-slatted buildings in her hometown of Gedong, 90 minutes south east of Kuching. She employs 10 women, all of them playing a key role in preserving this traditional craft. Songket is a fabric woven from cotton and


incorporates patterns using gold or silver threads — the name derives from the Malay word meaning ‘to hook’, a reference to the way a weaver hooks a section of the base threads and weaves the gold or silver thread through the gap. It’s a luxurious material that features in important festivals and events, typically in the form of a sarong — or sampin — worn by men. Ramtiniwati’s workshop is a hive of


activity. There are 10 stages involved in making songket — from dyeing the yarn


to picking out the chosen patterns. I watch a woman sitting on the floor at a wooden frame containing rows of spinning bobbins. Another works at a rickety-looking loom the size of a bed, weaving bright yellow floral patterns onto a paler yellow fabric. A third is hunched over a table, connecting pieces of offset thread so they can be reused. Ramtiniwati learnt how to make songket


in Kuching before returning home to set up her business. “When orders became overwhelming, I got the community to help — and that became this,” she tells me, proudly. None of the workers had any weaving skills before, so Ramtiniwati had to train each of them from scratch. The team includes several members of her own family. “That’s one of my sisters at the loom and my sister-in-law is connecting the threads,” Ramtiniwati explains. I browse some of the finished products,


hanging on racks around the edge of the workshop. There’s a black sampin with silver thread and a white one with gold. Another contains traditional floral motifs of the Iban tribe, based on ferns and branches. It can take up to five months to create the most intricate of pieces. Ramtiniwati uses her brother as a rather embarrassed-looking model to show me how the sampin is worn, wrapped


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