[ad_1]
Image of bemban, planted in a Kuching backyard. Good quality natural fibres like bemban are getting harder and harder to find.
THE hardworking Sarawak Craft Council (SCC) has been put on a proper footing after a Bill was passed in the State Legislative Assembly last month.
This is good news indeed. Our local crafts and skills are a treasure, which needs to be protected and fostered with more than the occasional pat on the back.
I am looking forward to a brilliant future for our crafts, and craftworkers.
The SCC has actually existed since 1997. Kraftangan, the national handicrafts agency, has been active in Sarawak since 1978; the Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) ran a craft development project even before that, but none of these agencies had the ‘bite’, or the funding, to really get a local craft industry started in a big way.
Let’s hope that this recent development will make all the difference!
Like any other industry, the craft business needs three things: skilled workers, materials, and a market.
WE HAVE the skilled workers, with some reservations. Many good craftspeople are elderly, their children and grandchildren have other interests.
‘Making mats is something grandmothers do…’
WE HAVE a market. Handicrafts, locally produced or imported, sell steadily along the ‘tourist trail’. The best of our craft products, under stringent quality control and targeted promotion, are reaching the international art market too.
WE HAVE the materials – or do we? Good quality natural fibres like rattan, bemban, pandan and bamboo are getting harder and harder to find.
Gone are the days when a man could go off into the jungle and cut down a few long, thorny rattan creepers for his wife to make a couple of baskets.
One of the supporters of the new SCC Bill, obviously aware of the situation, has advocated the planting of craft materials, and he has my full support too.
The problem with planting natural fibres is that rattan (the most valuable), for instance, grows very slowly. From planting to first harvest, it can take 14 years, or more, depending on soil and climatic conditions.
Commercial entrepreneurs are reluctant to invest in a crop that takes such a long time before it yields a profit. Everything has to be like electronic connections, instant! We can’t wait…
We all agree that our traditional crafts are a treasure. But never forget that the materials to make them are a treasure too. And if we can’t just go and collect them in the constantly receding jungle, we have to plant them.
I advocated this many long years ago, in 1988 to be exact.
There was a conference to celebrate Malaysia’s 25th anniversary, and in the cultural section of this event, I presented a paper on ‘Sarawak Handicrafts – The Economic Aspect’. The text has been immortalised in the Sarawak Museum Journal 61, 1989 – look it up!
My paper, besides detailing how much each popular craft item cost to produce (in 1988), also recommended craft-making as a career option. This was received with some rather supercilious amusement by the conference participants.
That the good aunties in the longhouses should make a few mats or baskets in their spare time was accepted, but making handicrafts to earn a living?
Impossible! What a ridiculous idea!
The other ridiculous idea was that natural fibres, which are a vital ingredient for our local handicrafts, should be planted to maintain the supply.
Even then, 35 years ago, good quality canes could no longer be harvested in the jungle anywhere near Kuching.
‘Oh never mind, just go into the ‘ulu’ (upriver), where natural materials of all sorts are abundant…’
The sad truth was that even then natural materials weren’t abundant, and they’re a lot scarcer now.
So, plant!
The easiest craft material to plant is probably bamboo, which grows like grass – well, no surprise there, bamboo is a giant grass.
Don’t just plant any bamboo, though – it has to be the right kind for making light baskets and the like.
Two other fairly fast-growing handicraft materials, bemban and pandan, grow well in any damp soil. Kuching lies in an alluvial plain, there is no shortage of froggy boggy reedy weedy nooks where a few clumps of these useful canes will thrive if anyone takes the trouble to plant them.
Both grow easily from shoots.
There’s no need to start with planting acres and acres of the stuff – just a few plants in every backyard would keep a few hundred basket-makers supplied!
Damp corners in a school compound can be planted up.
District Offices should be obliged to keep a good stands of bemban and pandan in their backyards, for local craftswomen to get cuttings for planting around their villages.
The Forest Department should dish out free planting materials to anybody who wants them.
Plant, plant, plant!
Rattan is a bit trickier, as it needs a ‘stand’ to climb up on. An old rubber garden, no longer productive, is one ideal rattan-growing site.
A grove of old-fashioned high-stemmed coconuts should do as well.
The main point is that somebody going out there and planting the creepers – NOW.
And if any botanist reads this, yes, I know that rattan is in fact not a creeper but a ‘climbing palm’. Not that the name matters to the craftworker – just plant it anyway.
To get back to my timid effort in 1988. If anybody had been inspired by my talk to go out and plant rattan, he could have started harvesting in 2002.
Better still, if he’d gone out and planted a few shoots of bemban, he could have started harvesting in 1991, ditto with pandan and bamboo.
These three, once the clumps were well established, would have continued to yield a good harvest of useful craft materials over and over again.
So sorry that we all missed out on that golden harvest, but it’s not too late to commence planting now. You can start harvesting bemban, bamboo and pandan in 2026, and rattan in 2037.
Just plant!
[ad_2]