Evolutionary Clustering in Indonesian Ethnic Textile Motifs

Figure 3

The distribution of dominant averaged colors of Indonesian textiles.

An instant observation to the colorization of Javanese batik and some of broader Indonesian textile
sample datasets shows interesting features as shown in figure 3. The colorization of batik is
somewhat obvious in the linear band of the mid-histogram of the three fundamental colors (red-
green-blue) with some tendency to the red one. This is probably rooted in the nature of materials
used in batik dying processes incorporating the natural colors emerging the brownish colors of most
batik decorations. However, the colors of some of our Indonesian textiles ornamentation are wider,
but interestingly some samples are in the extreme dominant red color. Most of our data does not
exhibit the relatively the dominance of blue and green colorizations. Roughly speaking, the red
colors have more affinity with Indonesian traditional ornamentation despite the materials used in
the crafting processes.

3. The Phylomemetic Tree of Nusantara Textiles

For the sake of more apparent visualizations, we construct two phylomemetic trees: the batik
phylomemetic and the one incorporating general samples of Indonesian textiles. Interestingly, there
are some clustering related to the ethnic groups emerging the particular artifact. Figure 4 shows the
constructed phylomemetic tree. In the figure, the tapis Banjar craft does not clustered with other
artifacts, while others are grouped within two clusters. One clusters are dominated by Balinese
textiles along with some similar ones from Lampung, Papua, Javanese motif ayam puger.

Sumatran woven cloth from North Sumatra is clustered with one from West Sumatra in the other
group. The close clusters made by one from West Kalimantan, Jambi, and West Sumatra, for
instance, could be seen as the cluster of Malay clusters. It is interesting to see that batik from Jambi
is not closely related with one from Java. The memetic influence in the production of Sumatran batik
is apparently distinguishable from the one from Java. The data we included in this phylomemetic
construction is collected in the reference of modern and recent documentations. This explains that
some handicrafts from geographically very far apart ethnic groups can be clustered for influencing

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