The Atjeh weefgetouw — the Atjeh loom — was the hand-loom of Atjeh, recorded as plate 62 of Prof. T. J. Bezemer’s *Indonesische Kunstnijverheid* (1933) under the four-language caption “Weefgetouw. Atjeh, Sumatra” / “Weaving-loom. Acheh, Sumatra” / “Métier à tisser. Atcheh, Sumatra” / “Webstuhl. Atjeh, Sumatra”. The plate documents the existence of a distinctive Atjeh loom type alongside the looms of other Sumatran weaving centres — including Bengkulen (plate 63) and Kota Gédang on Sumatra’s Westkust (plate 67, a Weefgetouw met voetbeweging / loom with pedal driving) — and is the principal Dutch photographic documentation of an Atjeh loom in the late colonial period.
The plate and its four-language caption
Plate 62 of the Bezemer atlas (p. 48) is captioned, in the four-language convention of the atlas, as follows:
- Dutch: Weefgetouw. Atjeh, Sumatra. — “Weaving-loom. Atjeh, Sumatra.”
- English: Weaving-loom. Acheh, Sumatra.
- French: Métier à tisser. Atcheh. Sumatra.
- German: Webstuhl. Atjeh. Sumatra.
The four-language caption is a feature of the entire Bezemer atlas: each plate is captioned in Dutch, English, French, and German, in that order, with the place of origin given in the Dutch colonial spelling (Atjeh) in the Dutch and German captions and in the international spelling (Acheh / Atcheh) in the English and French captions. The four-language caption was a commercial feature of the atlas — addressed to a European rather than a purely Dutch market — and the use of Atjeh / Acheh / Atcheh / Atjeh across the four languages is, in miniature, a survey of the European spellings of the sultanate’s name in the late colonial period.
Atjeh place in the weaving chapter (§ B)
Plate 62 appears in the weaving chapter (§ B. Weven) of the Bezemer atlas’s Inleiding (pp. 5–7) and in the plates of weaving-objects (plates 14–72, pp. 24–49). The chapter describes the three principal types of weaving-loom in the archipelago, distinguishing the eastern-Archipelago type (with two round wooden rollers, one tied to a house-post and the other to the weaver’s back), the western-Archipelago type (with one roller replaced by a plank wound with the unwoven warp, allowing longer pieces to be woven), and the pedal-driven type (with pedals lifting the even and odd warp-threads, used on Sumatra’s Westkust at Kota Gédang, on South-Celebes for narrow weavings, on Soerabaja, in the eastern corner of Java, and in the Vorstenlanden of Middle-Java). The Atjeh loom of plate 62 is, in Bezemer’s account, an example of one of the first two types — the hand-operated types — rather than the pedal-driven type; the pedal-driven type is reserved, on the same page-spread, for plate 67 (the Kota Gédang loom of Sumatra’s Westkust).
The juxtaposition of plate 62 (the Atjeh loom) with plate 67 (the Kota Gédang pedal-loom) on the same page-spread of the atlas is, in this sense, a comparative juxtaposition: the Atjeh loom represents the older, hand-operated type, while the Kota Gédang loom represents the more advanced, pedal-driven type. The juxtaposition places Atjeh, in 1933, on the conservative side of the Sumatran weaving-technology spectrum — a placement consistent with the broader late-colonial Dutch characterisation of Atjeh as a region where older craft techniques persisted.
Provenance: the Koloniaal Instituut
The Verzameling / Collection / Sammlung appendix to the Bezemer atlas (pp. 169–170) records the lenders and photographers of the plates. The Atjeh loom of plate 62 is listed among the plates whose photographs were supplied by the Koloniaal Instituut’s Afd. Volkenkunde in Amsterdam — the same institute that supplied plates 63–68 (the other Sumatran weaving-objects in the same chapter) and a large proportion of the atlas’s Atjeh-region holdings. The loom itself was therefore part of the Koloniaal Instituut’s Atjeh collection in 1933 — a collection built up, like the rest of the institute’s Atjeh holdings, through half a century of Dutch colonial collecting in Atjeh, beginning with the Atjeh War period of 1873–1904 and continuing through the pacification and civil administration of the residency.
Atjeh weaving in context
The catalogue groups the Atjeh loom with a series of Sumatran weaving traditions: alongside the Atjeh loom (plate 62) are listed an antique cotton tissue from Bengkulen (plate 63), a ragidoep (a Toba Batak cotton ikat, plate 64), and the Atjeh silk ikat tissues (plates 65–66, see Atjeh silk ikat weaving). Plate 67 is a loom with pedal driving from Kota Gédang on Sumatra’s Westkust. The implication is that Atjeh was one node in a wider Sumatran weaving landscape — but one with its own distinctive loom type. The Atjeh silk ikats of plates 65 and 66 were, presumably, woven on the Atjeh hand-loom of plate 62, and the plate is, in this sense, the technological frame for the two silk-ikat plates that follow it.
Significance
For Atjeh’s history, the Atjeh weefgetouw is the material instrument of the sultanate’s textile craft — the loom on which the silk ikat cloth of catalogue items 65–66 would have been woven. The catalogue’s separate listing of the Atjeh loom is itself a fact of craft-history: it indicates that, at the moment of European colonial cataloguing in 1933, the Atjeh loom was recognisably distinct from the looms of neighbouring Sumatran weaving centres. The juxtaposition with the Kota Gédang pedal-loom of plate 67 places Atjeh, in 1933, on the conservative side of the Sumatran weaving-technology spectrum. The brevity of the entry is itself a measure of how little detailed ethnographic description the catalogue provides for this item — but the inclusion is enough to document the existence of the type.
See Also
- Acheh
- Indonesische Kunstnijverheid (Bezemer 1933)
- T. J. Bezemer
- Koninklijke Vereeniging “Koloniaal Instituut”
- Atjeh silk ikat weaving
- Atjeh goldsmithing (soeasa technique)
- Atjeh sirih-schotel
- Kota Gédang
- Sumatra’s Westkust
- Sumatra
- Bengkulen
- Toba-Bataklanden
- Aceh War
- 1873
- 1904
- 1933
Sources
Indonesische Kunstnijverheid. Platen-Atlas met Inleiding van Prof. T. J. Bezemer (‘s-Gravenhage: N.V. tot Exploitatie van het Maandblad “Nederl-Indië, Oud en Nieuw”; ten Hagen’s Drukkerij en Uitgeversmaatschappij N.V., 15 October 1933), plate 62 (p. 48) and Verzameling appendix (p. 169), with neighbouring plates 63–67 on pp. 48–49 for context. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, LS 5411.