Humans, both individual and group, cannot be separated from their identities as cultural beings. The culture itself consist of a set of attitudes, beliefs and behaviors communicated from generation to generation as means adopted by each society. The art of weaving is an old culture that humans are engaged in to produce clothing and heritage of civilization that almost be found all around the world. From the various woven fabrics of East Indonesia, in East Nusa Tenggara, Sumba is one of the islands producing woven fabrics which is very famous for its beauty and various motifs. Therefore, it is important to have inheritance and regeneration to young people as the next generation in order to maintain the cultural preservation.

On Sunday, August 9, 2020, Stube-HEMAT Multiplication Program in Sumba held a discussion at GKS Karunggu with a theme ‘Revealing the History about Tied Weaving of Sumba’, attended by dozens of women who have longing in weaving with Marta Harakay, a weaving craftswoman from Kalu, Kambera district, Waingapu. She said that people began to work on weaving since the 4th century to produce cloths. At that time the woven fabric was not made of yarn but spunned directly from cotton to make a piece of woven cloth. Each step, from tying the yarns, dyeing it until to the weaving process should be done carefully even sometimes it takes 6 months to 3 years because in addition to weaving and making motifs, the cloth should be aerated for a month before being dipped in candlenut oil. Another stage in making Sumba cloths also tests patience, such as storing them in a closed basket to ripen the color and the nature will involve in the process so that the cloth becomes more unique. Marts also explained the meaning of the motifs on the woven fabric.

The participants seemed so enthusiastic when listening the speakers’ explanations. Among them, there were 3 women who engaged in weaving but not all of them knew all process. They knew only the partly process, such as some others knew only about the yarns, coloring, or weaving, but no one knows each step, even the others did not understand at all. Astry Banju shared her story, she was known as a weaving craftswoman but actually she could not weave, only in dyeing and yarn-grouping, then her mother-in-law did the weaving, because when she tried to weave, the results were not good.

The different story from Mama Ferdi, she could do steps to weave, but she lacked experience in coloring, and the products were not good in colour, while Adriana Tanggu Hana wanted to weave but no one trained her, finally she did not do anything. She hoped this program gave her chance to learn weaving. The participants’ experiences above discovered new understanding that weaving need a long and persistent process. This discussion opened opportunity for them to collaborate each other, to learn from one to another and to share experiences.

Marta Harakay, the expert in weaving, reminded the participants that learning to weave is uneasy, but it needs strong commitment dan motivation to make it. She also gave some tips how to weave well to produce good stuffs, covering the sitting position, proper posture, tight back ties, plus the leg kicking to the loom must be strong enough. Likewise with the coloring, it is important to pay attention to the mixed ingredients and the color combination in order to get beautiful colors.

At the end of the discussion, they formed a weaving group called ‘Kawara Panamung’ with meaning of ‘embracing each other’. After that, they wrote on some pieces of paper their messages and hopes for the community they had formed. Hopefully, the group will help women to be creative and to produce good woven fabrics with Makamenggit's weaving typical, supporting the economic of women here. Next, the group will visit a weaving village to observe and to learn new things about weaving. ***