WHAT IS TAIS?
Until 1999, the world had never heard of the word "tais" or knew what it meant. "Tais" is a word from East Timor's lingua franca, tetum. Tetum is one of East Timor's 35 indigenous languages. "Tais" means cloth, or clothing in this language. It is more widely understood as the particular form of traditional textile that has been woven by the women of East Timor for centuries. It is woven on non-mechanised looms into which the weaver must strap herself and hand thread every single fibre of the cloth into the loom to create the woven product. An astounding array of both customary and contemporary colours feature in East Timorese tais along with stlyised images from customary folklore, animist religious belief, and both the Portuguese and Indonesian sources.
Tais are worn as daily garments (more so in the rural areas than in the urban centres) and are always present in formal ceremonies and events marking rites of passage. The Catholic Church has also incorporated tais into the churches in East Timor. They are revered as cultural icons in the National Parliament of East Timor whose chamber is adorned with a tais from each of the 13 Districts. Each District has a typical style and the trained eye can identify which District a tais originated in just by looking at it. For foreigners, to have a tais placed upon the shoulders is an honour.
Tais constitute one of the basic foundations of East Timorese culture and artistic expression. A major weaving may take many months to complete and involve countless long and dedicated hours in the loom. It is an exclusively women's skill being passed down through the generations along the matriline in an oral tradition that goes back to time immemorial. Patterns, motifs and colour blendings are reproduced from memory.
In modern times, tais production has been geared towards the market place and tais is now accessible to the outside world for the first time in recorded history. We can now see and touch these extraordinary textiles that have been hidden from the world behind the veil of tears and sorrows that enveloped the people of East Timor for so very long during an agonising voyage to freedom and liberty. During Indonesia's genocidal invasion of the nation that began in 1975 and ended only in 1999, East Timorese political and cultural expression was brutally suppressed. There was no contact with the outside world and so tais was lost in the complex matrix of Indonesian culture. Symbols of nationalism were prohibited in East Timor during the occupation and so the colour combinations such as red, yellow, black and white that now comprise the national flag and which are now found in tais woven since independence could never be used without risking life itself.
Since independence, East Timorese women have been able to organise into cooperative groups to bring their skills together to create production of tais and downstream handicraft products for export. One of these groups is the Timor Women's Self-Help Group. Most exports of tais are destined for Australia. Exports bring vital foreign income to this impoverished nation and the revenue that is generated from the marketing of tais constitutes, in many cases, the sole form of income for entire large extended East Timorese families. This income relied on to meet basic living needs to which so many Timorese have little or inadequate access being the poorest nation in Asia and one of the very poor nations of the world. Tais has become an even more important economic commodity.
Tais has many more historical, cultural, political and economic dimensions that are presently being researched mainly by Australian scholars. There are already some milestone academic theses on tais but they are very hard to locate. There is a rudimentary tais information directory at East Timor Woven Art that includes some good source document links.
For Westerners, tais have also become a symbol of East Timor. Indeed, tais is a cultural icon of this new and fascinating country. In stylistic terms, tais are a new form of ethnic customary artistic expression valued both for their aesthetic brilliance as well as their functionality as display items, or in clothing accessories such as scarves, shawls and bags. Other tais items that are available on the international market are bookmarks, place mats and napkins, purses, belts and other accessories.
Galleries of tais images are now available on the world wide net and some sites are attempting to compile tais information source directories. There are some very good images at the Tais Virtual Museum. There is also a gallery at East Timor Woven Art eMarket that also sells products made by the Timor Women's Self-Help Group. It is worth viewing these images of tais as it provides a rare insight into the enigmatic and exotic East Timor - the world's newest nation.
Warren L. Wright
Sydney 19 June 2006 |
