Songke Manggarai: Tenun Tradisional Flores

Introduction: Cloth That Carries a Cosmos

In the market stalls of Ruteng and the village looms of West Flores, a textile is still made the way it has been for four centuries: a woman stretches cotton threads across a backstrap frame, then builds geometric constellations into the weave one supplementary thread at a time, over weeks or months, until the finished cloth holds inside it a spider, a star, a flower, and the eye of a rooster — each motif a covenant between the living, the ancestral, and the divine. This is Songke — the traditional woven cloth of the Manggarai people of western Flores, and one of the most symbolically dense textiles in eastern Indonesia.

Travelers arriving in Labuan Bajo often encounter Songke in souvenir shops: a length of black cloth with gold or colored geometric patterns, sold alongside batik and plastic trinkets. That encounter almost always misses the point. Songke is not decoration. It is worn at harvest thanksgivings, wrapped around the deceased, presented as bride price, and draped on the shoulders of warriors in the caci ritual dance. In May 2023, it was the textile chosen for the shirts of all eleven ASEAN heads of state at the 42nd ASEAN Summit, held in Labuan Bajo — the highest-profile diplomatic debut any Flores textile has ever received.

This article examines the verified history, technique, motifs, ceremonial functions, and market challenges of Songke Manggarai, with particular attention to correcting widespread terminological confusion between Songke, songket, and tenun ikat.

Quick Facts

Attribute	Detail
Local names	Songke, Towe Songke, Nae Songke, Lipa Songke
Textile technique	Supplementary-weft weaving (not warp ikat)
Primary fiber	Cotton (traditionally hand-spun forest cotton; commercially, spun cotton)
Base color	Black (traditionally indigo-over-morinda dye; commercially synthetic)
Motif thread colors	White, red, orange, yellow, gold metallic
Loom type	Backstrap loom (gedogan) with plank warp beam
Production time	1–3 months per sarong; 2–3 weeks per shawl (selendang)
Market price (authentic)	IDR 1,500,000–5,000,000 per sarong (~USD 90–300)
Heritage status	Registered in Indonesia's national intangible cultural heritage registry
Diplomatic recognition	Worn by all ASEAN heads of state, Labuan Bajo Summit, May 2023
Primary wearers	All Manggarai (men and women); traditionally woven by women
Production regions	Manggarai, Manggarai Barat, Manggarai Timur regencies, NTT

Naming: Songke vs Songket vs Tenun Ikat

Three terms circulate in travel writing and even in some government publications: songke, songket, and tenun ikat. They are related but not interchangeable, and conflating them produces real misunderstandings about what this textile is.

Songke

Songke is the Manggarai-language form of the word songket. The term entered the Manggarai vocabulary during the period of Gowa-Makassar dominance over western Flores (c. 1613–1640). The Makassar people called their supplementary-weft brocade cloth songket; Manggarai speakers adapted this to songke, dropping the final consonant in keeping with Manggarai phonology. Wikipedia's article on songket confirms this regional etymology directly. The cloth is also called towe songke (woven songke), nae songke, or simply lipa (the generic Manggarai word for sarong cloth).

Songket

Songket is a broader category of supplementary-weft brocade textiles found across Maritime Southeast Asia — in Sumatra (Palembang), the Malay Peninsula, Bali, Lombok, Sumbawa, and Flores. Classic songket traditionally uses gold or silver metallic supplementary threads on a silk or cotton base. Songke Manggarai shares the same fundamental weaving technique — supplementary weft — but uses cotton thread for the base and colored cotton or metallic thread for the motif, rather than silk. It is therefore accurate to describe Songke as a regional variant of the songket family.

Tenun Ikat

This is the most important distinction to make clearly: Songke is not tenun ikat. Ikat (from the Malay/Indonesian word meaning "to tie" or "to bind") is a technique in which thread bundles are bound and resist-dyed before weaving, so that the pattern emerges from pre-dyed threads when they are placed on the loom. Warp ikat is the dominant technique across most of Flores — among the Ngadha, Nage, Endenese, Lio, Sikkanese, and Lamaholot peoples — and in Sumba and Timor. Manggarai, by contrast, sits at the western end of Flores where supplementary-weft techniques predominate, introduced via the Gowa-Makassar cultural sphere. The academic literature is unambiguous on this point: a 2026 preview study on Flores loom weaving published in Flores of the Loom: Kembang Alat Tenun (Academia.edu) classifies northwestern Flores, including Manggarai, as a supplementary-weft zone distinct from the ikat-producing regions of central and eastern Flores.

In colloquial Indonesian usage, tenun simply means "woven cloth" and tenun ikat is sometimes used loosely to mean any hand-woven Indonesian textile. This imprecision has led some travel guides and even some government brochures to label Songke as "tenun ikat." Strictly, this is incorrect. Songke is tenun songke — supplementary-weft woven cloth — and should be distinguished accordingly.

Historical Origins: The Gowa-Makassar Inheritance

The origins of Songke weaving in Manggarai are tied directly to a period of political domination that left lasting cultural imprints. Between approximately 1613 and 1640, the Gowa-Makassar Kingdom of South Sulawesi extended its influence over most of the Manggarai region of western Flores. The Gowa sultanate was, at that time, one of the most powerful maritime polities in eastern Indonesia, and its cultural reach accompanied its commercial and military presence.

Among the cultural elements transmitted during this period was the tradition of supplementary-weft brocade weaving — what the Makassar people called songket. This was not a simple import of a foreign craft; it was an acculturation, in which the existing Manggarai weaving tradition (which likely used simpler plain-weave techniques) was transformed by exposure to the more technically complex supplementary-weft method and by the introduction of new design vocabularies. Over the following two to three centuries, Manggarai weavers indigenized the craft, developing a distinctive set of motifs drawn from their own cosmology, landscape, and clan identity rather than from Makassar prototypes.

This historical pathway explains both the terminological connection to songket and the very different aesthetic character of Songke Manggarai compared to, for example, Palembang songket or Bugis-Makassar brocades. By the time colonial documentation began in the early twentieth century, Songke had been thoroughly Manggararized: its motifs referenced the spider-web rice fields (lingko), the clan drum-house (mbaru gendang), spider and star constellations visible from highland Ruteng, and the rooster — a bird of ritual significance in Manggarai adat.

Production Process: From Forest Cotton to Finished Cloth

The traditional production of Songke is a multi-stage process entirely performed by women, who learn the craft from childhood and for whom weaving competence has historically been a marker of marriageability and social standing. The following stages describe the full traditional method, though today many producers substitute commercially spun cotton thread for the earlier hand-spun stages.

1. Fiber Preparation

Traditionally, weavers harvested kapas hutan (forest cotton, Gossypium spp.) from cultivated or semi-wild plants. The cotton bolls were picked, seeds and husks separated by hand, and the lint dried thoroughly. The cleaned fiber was then teased into long, even drafts for spinning.

2. Spinning

Thread was spun on a hand spindle called gasong — a small wooden drop spindle — worked by one hand while the other fed fiber. Because each spindle produces only a limited length of single-ply thread, weavers joined multiple segments continuously to produce workable lengths. The quality of the spun thread — its evenness and twist — directly determines the smoothness of the finished cloth surface.

3. Thread Winding and Base Dyeing

After spinning, the thread was wound into skeins using a frame called woer and then dyed. The base color — black — is the defining visual signature of Songke. Traditionally this black was achieved through a two-stage process: first dyeing with tarum (indigo, Indigofera spicata or related species) to produce deep blue, then overdyeing with mengkudu (noni root, Morinda citrifolia) to push the tone toward deep black. Research on dye plants used by weavers in the Pisok Protected Forest area of Rura Village, West Reok District, confirms that mengkudu root and tarum/indigo are among the three principal natural dye plants used by Manggarai weavers. Candlenut (kemiri, Aleurites moluccana) also appears as a mordant and supplementary dye source. The combined indigo-and-morinda method is consistent with dye techniques documented across eastern Indonesia. Contemporary commercial producers often substitute synthetic black dyes, which substantially reduce production time but sacrifice the material depth and tonal variation of natural dyeing.

4. Loom Preparation: The Wenggi Frame

Two weavers work together at a frame called wenggi to set up the base warp structure of the cloth through a process called maneng. This collaborative setup stage establishes the interlocking order of warp threads and the insertion points for the supplementary weft — the stage that will carry the motifs. The setup can take a full day for a complex pattern.

5. Weaving on the Backstrap Loom

The prepared warp is transferred to a backstrap loom (gedogan), in which one end of the warp beam is secured to a fixed post or wall and the other is attached via a strap around the weaver's lower back. By leaning back, the weaver maintains tension on the warp; by leaning forward, she releases it to allow the insertion of the weft shuttle. This body-tension system gives the weaver sensitive, continuous control over warp tension — a key advantage when inserting the supplementary weft threads that create the geometric motifs.

The supplementary weft — the colored threads that form the visible motifs on the cloth surface — are inserted in addition to the plain weft that holds the base weave together. The weaver picks up specific warp threads with a pointed stick or finger, inserts the colored thread beneath them, and repeats this across each row. The result is a raised, slightly embossed pattern on the cloth face — unlike the flush surface of warp ikat, in which the pattern is formed entirely by the pre-dyed warp threads. The supplementary threads create "floats" across the cloth surface, which give Songke its characteristic textural richness.

Production time varies substantially with motif complexity. A sarong-length cloth (lipa songke) with elaborate interlocking motifs typically requires one to three months of daily work. A simpler shawl (selendang) can be completed in two to three weeks. At the Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli cooperative near Labuan Bajo, documented output is approximately twelve sarong lengths per weaver per year.

Color Conventions: The Language of Black and Ochre

Songke has a remarkably consistent color grammar across all its regional variants. The base is always black, or very deep blue-black. The supplementary motif threads are typically drawn from a palette of white, red, orange, yellow, and gold metallic. Some regional variants from north-central Manggarai use a blue-black base with polychrome motifs, and contemporary weavers sometimes experiment with navy, dark maroon, or dark green bases for commercial markets — but the canonical, ceremonially valid cloth retains the black ground.

The symbolism of the black ground is explicitly stated in Manggarai oral tradition and confirmed by multiple academic studies. Black (loko) represents the greatness and dignity of the Manggarai people and encodes a philosophical surrender: the awareness that all humans ultimately return to Mori Kraeng (the Creator, a term now used for the Catholic God but rooted in pre-Christian cosmology). Black also evokes the volcanic soil of the Manggarai highlands — dark, fertile, and life-giving. In this reading, wearing Songke is literally wearing the earth beneath one's feet.

The bright motif colors serve as contrast and emphasis. Red and orange, derived from mengkudu dye when used in natural form, connote vitality and sacrifice. Yellow and gold connote divine radiance and prestige. White, left undyed in traditional production, connotes purity and the ancestral world. These associations are consistent with broader NTT textile color vocabularies, though the specific symbolic loading is Manggarai-particular.

Motifs and Symbolism: Encoding the Cosmos

The motif vocabulary of Songke is both cosmological and ecological — a system that simultaneously maps the sky, the landscape, the social order, and the divine. Motifs are strictly geometric; there are no realistic figurative images. Every form is abstract, yet each abstraction carries a specific name, story, and moral instruction. The six primary motifs found across all Manggarai regencies are as follows.

Ranggong (Spider / Spider Web)

The ranggong motif depicts a stylized spider or spider web pattern. The spider is a focal symbol in Manggarai cosmology: it represents diligence, honesty, and careful, steady work. The rationale is explicit in oral tradition — the spider builds its web through patient, uninterrupted effort, never deceiving or taking shortcuts. A variant called Ranggong Lepas (the free spider, or spider leaving its web) encodes the complementary value of openness to growth and the willingness to venture beyond familiar territory.

The ranggong motif carries an additional layer of meaning through its visual resemblance to the lingko land-tenure system — the spider-web-patterned rice fields of Cancar, near Ruteng, in which family plots radiate outward from a central pole like wheel spokes. When wearers are dressed in Ranggong-patterned Songke, they carry the lingko — their community's fundamental land-sharing covenant — against their skin.

Mata Manuk (Rooster Eye / Chicken Eye)

The mata manuk motif takes a trapezoidal or oval form representing the eye of a chicken. It is the most philosophically loaded motif in the Songke canon. The rooster's eye is credited in Manggarai belief with sharper perception than the human eye — it sees in the dark, detects threats before humans can, and announces dawn. The motif therefore symbolizes divine omniscience: no human act escapes God's observation. It also symbolizes the sharpness of thought required to navigate life and serves as a reminder that time passes — the rooster announces morning.

Mata manuk is also closely associated with ceremonial offering to ancestors: the chicken is the most common sacrificial animal in Manggarai adat, and the eye motif invokes the bird's role as intermediary between the living and the dead. It was the Mata Manuk motif that was selected for the ASEAN Summit shirts in 2023, specifically because of its combination of divine reference and Manggarai distinctiveness.

Wela Kaweng (Kaweng Flower / Ngkaweng Flower)

The wela kaweng (also written wela ngkaweng) motif depicts a stylized flower of the kaweng plant — a medicinal herb used in traditional Manggarai veterinary practice to treat livestock. The kaweng plant's notable characteristic is its capacity to grow and thrive across very different ecological conditions — in dry highlands, in damp lowlands, in shade or full sun. The motif therefore symbolizes adaptability and resilience: satu di dalam keberagaman (unity within diversity). A person who embodies wela kaweng values can flourish in any environment while remaining rooted in their identity — an aspirational quality for Manggarai people who leave their highland villages for urban centers or overseas work.

Ntala (Star)

The ntala motif is a geometric star form, referencing the celestial bodies visible from the highland plateau around Ruteng, one of the highest-altitude towns in NTT (approximately 1,200 m above sea level) and consequently one with some of Indonesia's clearest night skies. The Manggarai proverb associated with this motif is porong langkas haeng ntala — "let life be filled with hope as high as the stars." The motif encodes aspirations for health, longevity, and the aspiration to live in a way that benefits the wider community. The star also appears in some analyses as the Suzy or su'i star variant, representing the beauty of highland flowers seen from above.

Wela Runu (Small Flower)

The wela runu motif depicts a small, delicate flower form. Its symbolic teaching is the recognition that small or seemingly unremarkable things carry inherent beauty and worth. The motif conveys the ethical instruction not to dismiss the humble or the minor — in ecological terms, even the smallest plant contributes to the forest's wholeness. In social terms, no person should be considered insignificant within the community.

Su'i (Dividing Lines)

The su'i motif consists of fine lines that separate the other motifs from each other on the cloth surface. Rather than a decorative filler, su'i carries its own symbolic weight: it represents the boundaries established by adat (customary law) that govern social life. Every person, every clan, every ritual act has its proper limits — the su'i reminds wearers that life's order depends on respecting those demarcations. The motif encodes the idea that everything in existence has a limit, and that recognizing limits is itself a form of wisdom.

Jok (Clan House Form)

The jok motif depicts a stylized form of the Manggarai traditional drum house (mbaru gendang) with its distinctive conical roof, and by extension the lodok langang — the communal garden plot at the center of the lingko system. The jok motif's symbolic content is communal: it represents the unity of Manggarai society — unity toward God, unity among people, and unity with nature. The drum house is the physical center of Manggarai clan life, the place where genealogies are maintained, rituals conducted, and disputes resolved. To wear the jok motif is to carry that center with you.

Ceremonial Use: From Penti to Mortuary Wrapping

Songke is not everyday casual wear. In the Manggarai understanding, it is a ritual garment whose donning marks a transition — from ordinary time to ritual time, from private person to social actor. The cloth is required at a specific and documented set of life-cycle and calendrical events.

Penti: Harvest Thanksgiving

The penti festival is Manggarai's most important annual communal ritual — a multi-day ceremony of thanksgiving to the ancestors and to God for the harvest, typically held in September or November after the main rice harvest. The entire village community wears Songke throughout the ceremony, which includes animal sacrifice, communal feasting, offerings at the compang (clan altar), and performances of the caci whip-fighting dance. Songke worn at penti marks the wearer as a full member of the community, participating in the renewal of its covenant with the spirit world and the land.

Caci Ritual Dance

The fighters in the caci whip dance — one armed with a buffalo-hide whip, the other with a rattan shield — wear Songke as part of their ritual costume. The cloth's presence is not ornamental; it marks the dancer as a ritual actor rather than a mere performer. Tourist adaptations of caci in Labuan Bajo venues retain the Songke costume even when other ritual elements have been stripped away, which speaks to the costume's perceived inseparability from the dance's identity.

Marriage: Belis (Bride Price) and Lipa Tabing

Songke is central to Manggarai marriage customs in two ways. First, the cloth itself is presented as part of the belis — the bride price paid by the groom's family to the bride's family. Research on belis customs (Society journal, 2024) confirms that Songke cloths are among the standard belis items, alongside buffalo, horses, and cash. Second, during the marriage proposal process, a length of Songke called lipa tabing is given by the man's family to the woman's family as a formal declaration of intention. Both families, plus all extended kin on both sides, are required to wear Songke throughout wedding ceremonies.

Randang: Opening New Fields

When a family or community opens a new agricultural plot (randang), Songke is worn to mark the ritual significance of the act. Agriculture in Manggarai is not a purely secular activity — the land is understood as belonging ultimately to the ancestors, who must be acknowledged and appeased when their territory is disturbed for cultivation.

Nempung and Tombo Adak: Community Deliberation

Formal community meetings — nempung (general deliberation) and tombo adak (customary affairs discussion) — require Songke of all participants. The cloth marks the seriousness of the proceedings and the accountability of the speakers to adat standards of truth-telling and communal responsibility.

Mortuary Ritual: Lipa Rapu

The deceased are wrapped in Songke cloth — a practice called lipa rapu — before burial. This is among the most sacred uses of the textile. The cloth accompanies the dead into the ground, ensuring that they enter the ancestral world dressed appropriately as Manggarai people. Given the production time and cost of a high-quality Songke, providing a good cloth for lipa rapu is a significant gesture of respect and family investment.

Welcome Ceremonies and Official Occasions

Songke is draped as a selempang tuba meka (welcome shawl) across the shoulders of honored guests. Government employees in the administrative centers of Ruteng, Borong, and Labuan Bajo are formally required to wear Songke garments — jackets or shirts incorporating the textile — on designated days and at official functions, a policy adopted as a heritage-preservation measure.

Global Recognition: Songke at the 42nd ASEAN Summit

The most consequential single moment in Songke's modern history occurred on May 11, 2023, in Labuan Bajo. Indonesia, as ASEAN chair, was hosting the 42nd ASEAN Summit, and the organizing committee selected Songke Manggarai — specifically the Mata Manuk motif — as the official textile for the shirts worn by all eleven ASEAN heads of state and the ASEAN Secretary-General at the summit's formal session.

The shirts were prepared by the NTT Provincial Handicraft Council (Dekranasda Provinsi NTT), with the Mata Manuk-patterned fabric woven by women from the Lembor area of West Manggarai Regency. The woven shirts were sent to the State Palace in Jakarta, where President Joko Widodo personally selected the shirt color for each head of state — the shirts varied in color (blue, olive, maroon, and others) while all sharing the identical Mata Manuk motif. Spouses of the heads of state received Songke scarves for the Spouse Programme, with colors chosen by First Lady Iriana Jokowi.

The event was widely covered in Indonesian and international press and is credited with substantially raising consumer awareness of Songke among domestic tourists. Labuan Bajo tourism operators subsequently reported increased requests from visitors to visit weaving communities and purchase authentic cloth. The Mata Manuk motif was registered with the Ministry of Law and Human Rights as protected intellectual property of West Manggarai Regency in September 2020, ahead of the summit.

Production Centers: Ruteng, Lembor, and the Weaving Villages

Songke is produced across all three Manggarai regencies — Manggarai Barat (West Manggarai, capital Labuan Bajo), Manggarai (capital Ruteng), and Manggarai Timur (capital Borong) — but production is most concentrated in communities accessible from Ruteng and in the Lembor district of West Manggarai.

Ruteng and Surrounding Villages

Ruteng, at approximately 1,200 m elevation in the Manggarai highlands, is the commercial and administrative hub of Songke production. The Pasar Inpres market in Ruteng has long been a primary retail point for authentic Songke, with weavers from surrounding villages bringing cloth to sell. The village of Pong Lengor in North Rahong District, Manggarai Regency, has been documented in academic research (Widyadari journal, 2023) as a production community with a distinct local interpretation of Songke motifs including wela runu, ranggong, wela kaweng, ntala, su'i, and seat variants.

Lembor District, West Manggarai

The Lembor area of West Manggarai Regency is the source of the Mata Manuk cloth woven for the ASEAN Summit shirts. Lembor's weavers are recognized within West Manggarai as specialists in the Mata Manuk motif, which was developed and codified by Maria Elisabeth C. Prada — wife of the first Regent of West Manggarai — during her tenure as Chair of West Manggarai Dekranasda (2005–2010).

Wae Rebo and Highland Tourist Villages

The highland village of Wae Rebo, at 1,100 m, receives thousands of foreign visitors annually following its 2012 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation. Songke weaving is among the handicraft activities promoted in Wae Rebo's community tourism programme. Cloth woven here is available for purchase directly from village families, providing income within a community that has few other cash-economy opportunities.

Cancar's Symbolic Connection

The Cancar sub-district near Ruteng is the most famous location of the lingko spider-web rice fields. While Cancar is not primarily a weaving village, its landscape is iconographically central to Songke: the ranggong (spider web) motif directly references the lingko pattern visible from the Cancar overlook. Visitors to Cancar who then purchase a ranggong-motif Songke in Ruteng are carrying, in textile form, the landscape they just saw.

Conservation and Market: Fair-Trade Cooperatives and Commercial Pressures

The Manggarai Songke textile market faces pressures common to handcraft traditions across Indonesia: machine-printed imitations that undercut handwoven cloth on price, declining youth participation in weaving as formal employment alternatives expand, and difficulty pricing authentic textiles at levels that fairly compensate weavers while remaining accessible to buyers, particularly in a tourist market conditioned to bargain.

The Songke market faces pressures familiar to handcraft traditions across Indonesia: the competition of machine-printed imitations, declining youth participation in production, and the difficulty of pricing authentic handwoven cloth at a level that compensates weavers fairly while remaining accessible to buyers.

Machine-Printed Imitations

Songke motifs have been digitally copied and screen-printed or digitally printed onto synthetic fabric, which is sold in tourist markets at prices as low as IDR 50,000–200,000 per length. These printed fabrics superficially resemble Songke but are produced with no weaving labor, no natural dyes, and no cultural participation. They undercut authentic handwoven prices and, when purchased by uninformed buyers as "real Songke," channel money away from weaving communities entirely. Authentic handwoven Songke costs IDR 1,500,000–5,000,000 per sarong; any cloth sold significantly below this price range is almost certainly printed, not woven.

Youth Disengagement

Academic research published in the Journal of Entrepreneurship, Bukit Pengharapan (2023), documents that young Manggarai people — particularly in urbanizing areas near Labuan Bajo — are increasingly disengaged from the weaving craft. Contributing factors include the time intensity of production (months per piece for a wage of roughly IDR 1,250,000/month), the patriarchal framing of weaving as women's domestic labor (which means it is poorly compensated and socially undervalued), and the pull of formal employment in Labuan Bajo's tourism and service economy. Without the transmission of weaving skills to the next generation, the production base for authentic Songke will contract over the coming decades.

Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli

The most documented fair-practice weaving initiative in the region is the Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli, established by the NGO Sunspirit for Justice and Peace at Watu Langkas, approximately 10 km from Labuan Bajo. The gallery functions simultaneously as a production site, a retail space, and an educational destination. Two weavers work on-site daily, creating cloth that visitors can observe in progress. The gallery also sources and sells cloth from weaving communities in Maumere, Ende, and Sumba, giving producers in those regions market access they would otherwise lack. Weavers receive approximately IDR 1,250,000 per month through the gallery's sales system — modest by urban standards but meaningful in rural West Manggarai. Visitors can observe the weaving process, study a regional textile map of NTT, and purchase cloth with confidence that sales revenue reaches the producers.

Dekranasda and Government Promotion

The NTT Provincial Handicraft Council (Dekranasda) plays an active role in Songke promotion and quality certification. Its role in organizing the ASEAN Summit textile commission demonstrated its capacity to coordinate large-scale authentic production. The Manggarai Regency and West Manggarai Regency governments have also mandated Songke wear for civil servants, creating a reliable institutional demand that provides some economic stability for weavers in the Ruteng and Labuan Bajo hinterlands.

How Travelers Can Support Authentic Production

Travelers wishing to support authentic Songke production can take concrete steps: purchasing from documented weaving cooperatives such as Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli near Labuan Bajo or directly from weaving villages around Ruteng, verifying that cloth is hand-woven rather than machine-printed, and paying prices that reflect the 2–4 weeks of skilled labour required to produce a single traditional piece.

Travelers in Labuan Bajo, Ruteng, or anywhere in the Manggarai region can make concrete choices that support authentic Songke production and direct income to weaving communities.

Buy at documented venues. Purchase Songke at Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli (Watu Langkas, ~10 km from Labuan Bajo), at the Pasar Inpres in Ruteng, or directly from weaving villages. Avoid generic souvenir stalls in Labuan Bajo's tourist strip, which predominantly stock printed imitations.
Ask how the cloth was made. A seller of authentic handwoven Songke should be able to tell you which village produced it, roughly how long it took to weave, and what the motifs represent. Inability to answer any of these questions is a strong indicator of a printed replica.
Pay realistic prices. Authentic handwoven Songke cannot be produced and sold profitably below approximately IDR 1,500,000 per sarong. If a seller quotes a price substantially below this, the cloth is almost certainly not handwoven. Paying the proper price is the most direct form of cultural support available to a traveler.
Visit weaving communities. Several villages around Ruteng and in the Lembor district welcome visitors to observe weaving in progress. Arrange visits through the local tourism office or through verified guides, not through informal touts. Watching a weaver work — and understanding the months of labor compressed into a single cloth — changes how you think about handcraft pricing everywhere.
Support Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli. The Sunspirit for Justice and Peace initiative at Watu Langkas accepts visitors by reservation. A visit supports the organization's economic empowerment programme for women weavers and provides an ethically grounded retail context.
Avoid machine-printed "Songke." If you are unsure, run your fingers across the cloth surface. Genuine supplementary-weft Songke has a slightly raised, textured motif surface — the weft floats are physically perceptible. A printed fabric has a flat, smooth, ink-on-cloth surface. This tactile test is reliable even for non-specialists.
Commission directly if possible. Some weavers will accept direct commissions for specific motifs or color combinations. This creates a guaranteed income for the weaver before the cloth is finished, reducing their commercial risk and often producing a more personally meaningful cloth for the buyer.

Myths vs Facts

Myth	Fact
Songke Manggarai is a form of tenun ikat (warp-resist dyeing).	Songke is a supplementary-weft textile. The pattern is created by inserting additional colored threads during weaving, not by resist-dyeing the warp before it goes on the loom. These are technically distinct processes. The confusion arises from the casual Indonesian use of "tenun ikat" to mean any handwoven cloth.
"Songke" and "songket" are different textiles from different traditions.	Songke is the Manggarai phonological adaptation of "songket," both denoting supplementary-weft brocade. Songke entered Manggarai culture through contact with the Gowa-Makassar Kingdom in the 17th century. They share a technique; Manggarai weavers indigenized the motifs over the following centuries.
Only women of high social standing are permitted to wear or weave Songke.	Songke is worn by all Manggarai across social strata at required ceremonial occasions, regardless of status. Academic research (Sinestesia journal, 2023) explicitly notes that its use "without regard to social status" is one of its defining features as a communal cultural symbol.
The black base color represents mourning.	Black in Manggarai textile symbolism represents greatness, dignity, and philosophical surrender to the Creator — not grief. While Songke is used in mortuary ritual (lipa rapu, wrapping the deceased), the color is not a mourning color per se but a cosmological ground color appropriate for all sacred occasions.
Cheap Songke-patterned cloth sold in tourist markets is "authentic but lower quality."	Cloth priced below approximately IDR 500,000 bearing Songke-style motifs is almost always machine-printed synthetic fabric, not handwoven. There is no "lower-quality" handwoven Songke at that price — the labor cost alone prevents it. Buying printed cloth does not support weaving communities.
Songke is only used by Manggarai women.	Both men and women wear Songke. Men wear it as a sarong tied at the waist, as a shoulder cloth, and as part of caci dance costume. Women wear it as a sarong and shawl. The cloth is traditionally woven by women, but worn by all.

Practical Takeaways

Songke Manggarai is a supplementary-weft textile, not warp ikat — this distinction matters for accurate understanding of what you are buying and why it costs what it costs.
The canonical cloth has a black base; bright geometric motifs in white, red, orange, yellow, or gold; and takes one to three months to weave by hand.
Authentic handwoven sarong-length Songke is priced at IDR 1,500,000–5,000,000. Anything far below this is printed, not woven.
You can tactilely distinguish handwoven from printed Songke: run your finger across the motif — handwoven cloth has raised weft floats; printed cloth is flat.
The Mata Manuk motif is the most internationally recognized, chosen for the ASEAN Summit shirts in May 2023. The Ranggong (spider) motif is the most cosmologically loaded, connecting the cloth to the lingko land-tenure system.
Purchase at Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli (Watu Langkas, 10 km from Labuan Bajo) or at Pasar Inpres in Ruteng for the most direct community benefit.
Songke is required at penti harvest festivals, caci dance ceremonies, weddings (as belis and lipa tabing), field-opening rituals, deliberative meetings, and for wrapping the deceased. It is a ritual garment, not merely a fashion textile.
Visit Cancar's spider-web lingko rice fields and then purchase a ranggong-motif Songke in Ruteng: the cloth literally maps the landscape you saw.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Songke Manggarai the same as tenun ikat?

No. Songke is a supplementary-weft textile, not warp ikat. In ikat, threads are resist-dyed before weaving; in Songke, the weaver inserts supplementary colored threads during the weaving process itself, creating raised geometric motifs on a pre-dyed black base cloth. The term "tenun ikat" is sometimes used loosely to mean any hand-woven Indonesian textile, which causes the confusion.

What does the black color of Songke symbolize?

The black base of Songke cloth represents the greatness and dignity of the Manggarai people, as well as a philosophical surrender — the awareness that all humans ultimately return to Mori Kraeng (the Creator). It also evokes the volcanic soil's fertility that sustains Manggarai agriculture.

What are the main motifs on Songke cloth and what do they mean?

The primary motifs are: Ranggong (spider — diligence and honesty), Mata Manuk (chicken eye — divine omniscience), Wela Kaweng (kaweng flower — unity amid diversity and human connection to nature), Ntala (star — aspirations for health and longevity), Wela Runu (small flower — beauty in transience), Su'i (dividing lines — boundaries of adat law), and Jok (clan house form — unity with God, community, and nature).

How long does it take to weave one Songke cloth?

A skilled weaver typically requires one to three months to complete a single sarong-length Songke, depending on the complexity of the motif and the availability of thread and natural dye materials. Simpler shawl lengths (selendang) can be finished in two to three weeks.

Where can travelers buy authentic Songke in West Flores?

Authentic Songke can be purchased at the Rumah Tenun Baku Peduli gallery at Watu Langkas (~10 km from Labuan Bajo), at the Pasar Inpres craft market in Ruteng, and directly from weaving communities in villages such as Pong Lengor in North Rahong District, Manggarai. For verified pricing, expect IDR 1,500,000–5,000,000 per sarong depending on motif complexity. Avoid tourist-stall copies priced below IDR 500,000, which are typically machine-printed replicas.

Was Songke Manggarai worn at an international event?

Yes. At the 42nd ASEAN Summit in Labuan Bajo on May 11, 2023, all eleven ASEAN heads of state and the ASEAN Secretary-General wore shirts bearing the Mata Manuk motif Songke, prepared by the NTT Provincial Handicraft Council (Dekranasda). This was the most prominent international recognition of Songke as a diplomatic textile.

Is Songke Manggarai registered as intangible cultural heritage in Indonesia?

Songke Manggarai (listed as Towe Songke) is registered in Indonesia's national Warisan Budaya Takbenda (Intangible Cultural Heritage) registry administered by the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud). The Mata Manuk motif was additionally registered with the Ministry of Law and Human Rights in September 2020 as a protected intellectual property of West Manggarai Regency.

Sources & Further Reading

Budaya-Indonesia.org. Towe Songke. National cultural documentation database. budaya-indonesia.org
Detik Bali. (2023). “Mengenal Berbagai Motif Kain Tenun Songke Manggarai NTT dan Maknanya.” detik.com
Sinestesia Jurnal. (2023). “Makna Simbolik Kain Tenun Songke Desa Batu Cermin Manggarai Barat Flores.” Jurnal Sinestesia. sinestesia.pustaka.my.id
ASEAN Indonesia 2023. “Mengenal Asal dan Makna Kain Tenun Mata Manuk untuk Kepala Negara ASEAN.” Official ASEAN Summit 2023 website. asean2023.id
Liputan6. (2023). “11 Kepala Negara Bakal Pakai Tenun Motif Mata Manuk di KTT ASEAN Labuan Bajo.” liputan6.com
Sunspirit for Justice and Peace. (2016). “Tiga Nilai Penting Rumah Tenun-Baku Peduli.” sunspiritforjusticeandpeace.org
Warisanbudaya.kemdikbud.go.id. Towe Songke. National Intangible Cultural Heritage Registry, detail record 1484. Ministry of Education and Culture, Republic of Indonesia.
Ojs.mahadewa.ac.id / Widyadari. (2023). “Makna Filosofi Motif Kain Tenun Songke di Desa Ponng Lengor Kecamatan Rahong Utara Kabupaten Manggarai NTT.” widyadari journal
Academia.edu. (2026, preview). “Supplementary Weft on an ‘Ikat’ Isle: The Weaving Communities of Northwestern Flores.” In Flores of the Loom: Kembang Alat Tenun — The Loin Looms of Flores & Surrounding Islands. academia.edu
Wikipedia. “Songket.” Etymology section. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songket
Society — Fisip UBB Journal. (2024). “The Honor of Women and Belis in Manggarai Traditional Marriage Customs.” societyfisipubb.id
Good News from Indonesia. (2024). “Tenun Songke Kearifan Lokal Khas Manggarai, Flores, Nusa Tenggara Timur.” goodnewsfromindonesia.id