Part. 1 Bamboo Stick Tattoo
Travelling between Lombok, the neighbouring island of Bali, Indonesia and the Gili Islands, Sonteng is a tattoo artist who practices the ancestral technique of handpoking with the Bamboo stick learned from his father and now transmitted to his sons.
The traditional Indonesian tattoo is an ethnic, ancestral and polymorphic tattoo. The technique used with the bamboo stick is said to be more than 3000 years old and was first located near the Cambodian border. It has spread widely since the Khmer period and takes many forms and origins in Southeast Asia. Today, in Indonesia, if the tattoo of Borneo, from the Dayak warrior tribes to the Ibans and Mentawai tries to survive the oblivion of traditions and their eradication by monotheistic religions, this tattoo with traditional technique is also re-appropriated in a modern and personalized way by its author. Between tradition and modernity. With its golden bamboo sticks and thirty years of experience, Sonteng is a unique witness.
From the Dayak tribes of Borneo to the Mentawai of West Sumatra, tattoos are a roadmap as well as a well-coded spiritual protection. Almost destroyed by Christian missionaries, it has been taken over by a new generation in recent years. The Neo-Mentawai or Neo-Batak (from an ethnic group further north of Sumatra) is once again inked, to encourage survival and recognition for these cultures and traditions but also to support a new economic attraction that tattoo tourism brings. Others use Javanese or Hindu motifs and iconography to develop a style inked to their image. Artists like Ade Itameda (@adeitameda), living between Java and Bali, develop a solid layout, using the prerogatives of traditional American art while dressing with mythological figures, geometric motifs, floral patterns, and other identifiable motifs from Balinese culture.
Developed on islands such as Java, Bali and Lombok, Indonesia, with an 80% Muslim population (and 12.7% of the world population), tattooing is not the practice intended to spread locally. And many salons offer traditional techniques that are meaningless and have no cultural reference because they are identical to Thailand's; tourism gives tattoos a phenomenal economic boost.
Keeping the tradition alive
In Gili Meno, the smallest island of the Gili trio, Sonteng, tattoo artist for more than thirty years, practices the Bamboo Stick. A traditional tattoo that has the advantage of being much less painful and faster to heal for tourists who are in need of daily swimming. This traditional technique does not create a crust on the skin and the return to (salty) water is possible quickly. A major advantage for Sonteng which tattoos tourists coming to enjoy the beaches of these heavenly islands. When asked why he tattoos with a bamboo stick, he asks for a rather simple answer. "You know, a long time ago... we didn't have a dermograph and the machine came to Indonesia by the Westerners in the 1980s. We started tattooing with very simple things, bamboo and needle, thorn or sometimes fish bones. Some of my tattoos were done with this one. I don't really like the machine, I sometimes use it when I have a lot of tattoos to do because it saves time. In Germany, where I was a guest from 1997 to 2010, I used it when I ran out of time." In Gili, you can only travel by boat or small horse-drawn carriage. Sonteng at 56 years old, continues to tattoo between Lombok, the Gili Meno Islands and Air where his son Baba opened a salon.
To find the Sonteng salon in Meno, follow the signs and walk through the sandy lanes for twenty minutes to the northwest of the island. His living room, contains many pieces of art and sculptures and woodcuts. On the first floor, two mattresses are arranged facing each other. On one of them, a client is lying on it. At his side, the tattoo artist; crossed legs are activated on a 60 cm long bamboo stick, all to the sound of the bell that is unexpectedly attached to it. In the middle of the room: a small hotel with Ganesh's effigy overlooks his Bamboo Stick, in several sizes. Incense spreads freely, like Sonteng's charisma, which invades the room from the very first minutes. Where the environment for many artists is a continuous source of inspiration, Sonteng is offended: the important thing to tattoo is how he feels inside and nothing else. So it doesn't matter where he is.
Wisdom then emanates from his eyes surrounded by khol. Even if it seems difficult for Lombok's tattoo artist to be destabilized, he admits it: despite the round trips and hours of travel by boat or taxi and fatigue. Tonight again, he will not sleep in his house in Meno. He resided there during last year's Lombok earthquake, where more than 500 people lost their lives. A local figure, he holds his know-how from his father, a tattoo artist whom he now loves to pass on to his two sons. Borrowed from a duty of memory, his tattoos are made in respect of the Hindu religion and the one we will attend will therefore be followed by a prayer between tattoo artist and tattooed. From the window of the living room on the first floor, one can also see the Hindu temple of Sonteng, which is maintained by daily offerings. This almost mystical relationship to the tattoo, it is felt very quickly as soon as one lays eyes on the tattoo artist in action. His movements are precise and imperturbable and his aura pierces souls. And he explains it: the tattoo in the village is done at the request of the priest. Regularly, a priest may come to Sonteng and ask him to draw a design for a person. In return, the tattooist receives food or offerings. He does it... for the locals. The "Raja Han" motifs are motifs that carry meaning and magic for Hindus, but each one must be accompanied by his own offering and ritual. In Lombok, the majority of the population being Muslim, he tattooed few premises for these reasons.
The process
His career began at the age of 15, when he left for Bali. He made his mark in the cities of Amed, Candidasa or Lovina, Kuta and Ubud where he forged a good reputation before leaving for Germany, invited by a friend to tattoo in Europe. He then works more than 10 hours a day and returns every six months for several years. Sonteng, after more than thirty years of experience, to develop technique and dexterity in Free hand, by appropriating the body shapes, Sonteng, no longer needs stencils and tattoos directly on the skin of its customers from a general idea. However, he reserves the right to refuse an undecided customer. According to him, nothing could be simpler: they are not ready to be inked for life. Certainly the first tattoo artist to have ever set foot in the Gili when Gili Trawagan was only composed of bungalows and white sandy beaches, Sonteng then opened his salon in Bangsal Harbour in 1989. At the time there were no roads or electricity, rice fields dominated the landscape. A milky way and a few dotworked planets form the tattoo of the "universe", which the young woman reveals on a reddened wrist. By late afternoon, the tattoo is almost finished. We still can't hear the little bell of the Bamboo Stick stirring to the rhythm. The latter, festooned with stones and jewellery, is one of five different sticks depending on the tattoo done. His tattoo sticks, the artist inherited them from his father and grandfather; all have these details of jewellery and engravings on the wooden handle in connection with a certain spirituality. "It's important to keep a connection with religion, it's part of the process of constantly reminding yourself why you're there doing what you're doing and why you're meeting that person at that particular time." On a practical aspect, they are of different lengths and also allow the tattoo artist to relieve his positions. Because tattoo hours become a physical ordeal for a tattooist. Specifically during a handpoke tattoo, which often represents several hours of work. The trick: adopt longer rods to control your posture: "It's not easy, it's a bit like playing drums!
From the tube filled with black ink, he transfers the ink to the skin with his bamboo stick, while his nephew, who manages the reception and appointments via his whatsapp account, gives him the necessary equipment. The cigarette in the beak, a perforated glove, the tattoo will not be less easy to heal even if it is long to produce. For a medium piece on the wrist: Sonteng will take a good hour and a half. But the finesse of the point and the way the design follows the body are unique to the artist: "When you hear the bell ringing, you know how deep you ink the skin. It is also a way to report here that a tattoo is in progress. During celebrations or rituals (Binta), people who hear this bell know that a tattoo is in progress and do not come to disturb its activity. It warns them." At 56 years old, the tattoo artist uses this sound to replace what he lacks: his vision. It is important for him to overcome his weaknesses and maintain a certain independence. "All my friends are using glasses now, and it's because of all these years of work. I worked from 9am to 9pm every day so the most reliable thing I have left is my feelings. This is how I can work with distance: I use my senses and experience above all."
