Cultural Ideology in Woven Fabric Motif Insana Communities at The Indonesian– Timor Leste Border

The Insana woven pattern has a distinctive shape and arrangement. This is considered to be correlated with the socio-cultural life of Insana community. The problem discussed in this study was what cultural ideology that was contained in the Insana woven fabric pattern. This study aimed at describing the cultural ideology in the woven fabric pattern of the Insana community. This study was a qualitative descriptive study. The focus of this study was the Insana woven fabric pattern which led to the cultural ideology it carried. The results reflected that Insana woven fabric consisted of two types, namely sotis and bunak. The basic pattern generally utilized in Insana woven fabric was in the form of a rhombus. In addition to the rhombus, the weavers developed other patterns such as bei’ 'crocodile' and leaf shapes. The basic colors of Insana woven fabric were black and white. In addition, other colors such as red, yellow, and green were also added to enrich the aesthetics value of the woven fabric. The cultural ideologies behind the use of patterns on Insana woven fabrics were (1) the rhombus pattern symbolized the appreciation of the Insana community for the work of the first king, (2) the bei’ pattern symbolized the Insana community's appreciation of the crocodile as an effort to commemorate the crocodile's services in the past, (3) the linking relationship between the patterns in the woven fabric symbolized the social strata of the Insana community. In addition, it illustrated that the Insana community could not live individually, but they were social human beings. Another cultural ideology shown in Insana woven fabric pattern was Insana's feudal system of government in the past