Take Motifs of Ancient Songket
Identical with ordinary Songket Palembang area. However, who would have thought
now Jambi also has Songket typical. As currently developed by Susilawati.
Today, her small gallery named Susi Songket has been filled with many unique
songket Jambi, with typical motifs. In batik-making villages across the river
from the Jambi capital, textiles also have an important part to play in all
stages of the life cycle. Ceremonial gift exchanges at marriage ceremonies in
Jambi always involve textiles. A week or so before the wedding itself, a
delegation from the groom's family goes in procession from his family's house
of the bride's family, carrying twelve Trays of gifts. Most important are the
trays of betel chew ingredient and money Carried at the front of the
procession, but these are followed by many more on which textiles, folded into
the shapes of fruits, flowers, a fan, a goose (sometimes with two heads) and a
boat. These last two items recall Orang Kayo Hitam's marriage to Princess Mayang
Mengurai, and his journey dowsteram to found the new kingdom in Tanah Pilih.
Unlike the situation in many others
parts of Indonesia, the bride's family does not make a precisely reciprocal
exchange: the groom has to buy his way into the bride's family. The twelve
large cakes returned to the groom's family are in the nature of a polite
formality; there is no pretence of equivalence in the exchange. At the wedding
ceremony itself, the groom sits in front of a wall hung with a carpet decorated
with flowers and gauze. A pile of folded batik sarongs arranged into the shape
of a sunflower is provided for him to sit on, with each individual sarong
forming one petal. Nowadays, there would be eight cloths making up the flower
shape, but in the past there would have been fifty-six, in seven layers. The
significance of this Sunflower shape and the shapes into which the gifts are
folded has been lost, but the practice continues and every groom, rich or poor,
goes through this ritual.
Some days or perhaps even weeks after the day of the
wedding the marriage feast takes place, when a great many guests, sometimes
numbering several hundred, are invinited to witness the couple sitting in state
on a heavily ornamented throne, surrounded by embroidered hangings and rich gold-couched
cushions. The night before the feast, a buffalo is brought to the house,
sometimes draped in a red cloth, and slaughtered to provide food for the
guests. On the day itself, the groom and his contingent arrive in procession at
the bride's house, preceded by pencak silat dancers dressed in black and
wearing folded batik head cloths. Immediately in front of the grooms are two
rows of men beating drums and chanting, and a yellow umbrella to shade him from
the sun. Once he has arrived at the bride's house, the groom must hand over a
ring before he is allowed to see the bride and her friends in a private
chamber. The two then emerge to sit on the ornate throne. For this occasion the
bridal couples are dressed in royal costume, red velvet jackets embroidered
with gold thread, and for the woman a sarong and selendang in Songket. From the
woman's belt hangs a silk selendang jumputan in tririk and pelangi, nowadays
Imported from Palembang, but in the past locally produced.
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