Afro-Dit
Weavings and Wood: Introduction to Tribal Arts from Southeast Asia to West Africa
Fourth hour: Textiles from Central Asia (cont'd); Mainland Southeast Asia
I'd like to just spend a little time on the so-called Belouch group. These are pastoral nomadic people living in northeastern Iran and northwestern Afghanistan. Some speak an Arabic language and are known as Aimaq, which is Arabic for tribe. Some speak the language native to Belouchistan, a region in Pakistan from which these people seem to have migrated some time in the past; these are the Belouch. Some speak a Mongol language and are probably descendants of the Mongol tribes brought to the region by Tamerlane, or Timur. These people are known as Timuri. All three share a common aesthetic, and their weavings can be told apart only with difficulty and a lot of guesswork. For this reason, they are referred to collectively as Belouch or as Belouch group.
Belouch group weavings have a very distinct aesthetic. The palette is dark and saturated, with very little white or ivory. This gives it a rather somber appearance, and there was almost no collector interest in it until, perhaps 25 years ago. It was simply thought to be dull and uninteresting. Furthermore, much Belouch group work is clearly derived from Turkmen motifs, so another criticism of it is lack of originality. Nevertheless, there are some indigenous Belouch designs and motifs, the palette is unique, the wool has wonderful tactile qualities, and the low contrast in the palette lets some very interesting things happen.
The palette makes it very difficult to photograph, but I'll try to help with words and I have some of these things here with me for you to look at up close.
{Slide: Bird khorjin}
This is a bagface. You can see how little contrast there is, but how effectively this allows emphasis to be focused on the one white bird in the center. There are 9 birds in the field, you can probably make them out. What you can't tell is that, except for color, they are identical. That is, every element of the design is present in every bird. Yet, it looks like there are at least 4 different kinds of birds. The reason is that the low contrast between adjacent colors actually hides some of the design elements. You can see it a little more clearly in the next slide, which has been intentionally overexposed in order to make it a little easier to see details.
{Slide: Bird Khorjin Closeup}
The same aesthetic trick, hiding details by juxtaposing colors with low contrast, is seen in this Belouch pillow.
{Slide: Balisht}
There is actually only one kind of tree or shrub in the field of this one, and they're all pretty much the same size. The illusion of two types is given by outlining some in a color that contrasts with the background, some in a color that disappears into the background. This is an aesthetic that's unique to the Belouch among the weaving groups of western and central Asia, and I think it makes them extremely interesting.
{Slide: Tobacco Rug}
The Belouch produced huge numbers of prayer rugs during the 19th century, and on into the present, the target customer being the wealthy Moslems in Iran and the Europeans and Americans whose fascination with Islamic culture goes back into the 18th century. It is easily seen in the popularity of the so-called Orientalist school of painting, in the minareted structures in the gardens of so many European palaces, and in the popularity of Turkish themes in so much 18th and 19th century music. Examples include Mozart's Turkish marches, the second movement of Haydn's "Military" symphony, the Turkish march in Beethoven's choral symphony. Prayer rugs were very popular, still are, because of their association with the exotic world of Islam. The Belouch themselves were usually not Moslems, and, in any case, didn't have the wealth to use anything as valuable as a pile rug for prayer.
This is a particularly interesting prayer rug, for historical reasons. The design is known as the tobacco design. Not because it has tobacco leaves on it, but because of its association with what is known as the tobacco rebellion. In the late 19th century, the shah of Iran sold exclusive rights to the sale of tobacco to a British company, for something like 10,000 pounds. This immediately raised the price of tobacco in Iran, which precipitated protests, known as the tobacco rebellion, and contributed to the collapse of the dynasty that was replaced by the Pahlavi shahs, who ruled until about 20 years ago. There is a photograph taken in 1891, showing one of the mullahs kneeling on a rug with a design similar to this one and exhorting his followers to oppose the shah. It is the oldest known photo of a Belouch rug, so we know that this design was at least being made in the 19th century and that rugs of this type were in the hands of Persian mullahs. It also reminds us that a rug of this size had uses other than being a clean place for prayer.
The last Belouch piece I want to show you is known as a Dokhtor-I-Qazi prayer rug.
{Slide: Dokhtor-I-qazi}
The word means, daughter of the judge or hero. There is no historical data to suggest that there was ever a place by that name, or that there is any subgroup who were called that. There is a Belouch tribal group whose oral history includes a judge's daughter who wove exactly 23 rugs of this type. That probably accounts for the name, although there are certainly more than 23 of them out there. It is clear that they were woven within a fairly narrow area, and with so much in common that they probably do represent the work of one school of weavers - perhaps a woman and her daughters and nieces. The early examples, and this one of them, vary only in the details filling the spandrels. The palette, drawing, field and borders, even the stripes in the plainwoven ends, are essentially identical.
I want to finish by introducing you to some of the relatively little known textiles of the hill tribes of Laos, on the mainland of southeast Asia. These are T'ai speaking peoples in a remote area of Laos, not far from Thailand. They have a rich weaving tradition, with extraordinarily sophisticated supplementary weft brocading and ikat work. Let me spend just a few minutes explaining ikat. You might recall that I told you that a warp faced plainweave could only have vertical stripes and a weft faced plainweave could only have horizontal stripes. That's true, of course, if the each warp and each weft is a solid, single color.
There's a technique in which bundles of yarn are tied with cloth at various points, dipped into a dye, then tied at different points and dipped into another dye, and so forth. The outcome is that the yarn has different colors at different places along its length. If that yarn is used as the warp in a warp faced plainweave, the colors form a pattern. This is called warp ikat, and is actually used widely in parts of central Asia. The dyed yarn is placed onto the loom, then adjusted to give the pattern the weaver wants (she can see the warps, after all), and the weft weaving then begins. If the dyed yarn is used for the weft in a weft faced plainweave, the technique is referred to as weft ikat. This is much more difficult than warp ikat, since the wefts can't be adjusted on the loom to create the design before weaving begins. This method is used throughout southeast Asia, and is among the techniques seen in T'ai textiles.
{Slide: T'ai Skirt - Diamond Motifs}
Let me start with a glorious T'ai skirt. The garment that is worn to cover the lower part of a woman's body is particularly important in Laotian tribal people, since this is the source of life itself. This skirt, and the others I'll show you, are worn to the funeral of a woman's mother-in-law, and pass from generation to generation. The skirts have three main sections. The top red panel and the bottom blue panel are both simple cotton plainweaves. They take the wear from abrasion when the skirt is worn, and are replaced periodically. The central section has cotton warps and silk wefts, and is decorated with extraordinarily fine supplementary weft work in silk as well as with some bands of silk weft tapestry weaving. The diamond shapes are stylized eyes. It's kind of interesting how widespread this custom is. Among the Indians in the new world as well as throughout Asia, concentric diamonds represent an eye. They are protective, warding off the evil eye of envy. Serpentine forms are probably the most important of all iconographic elements to the T'ai. Their mythology holds that water snakes are the routes through which the gods maintain contact with the physical world, and the many serpentine forms in this skirt probably all refer to the magic of water snakes. You might notice the similarity of part of it to the roofs of Buddhist temples in Thailand.
{Slide: T'ai Skirt - Big Blocks}
This is another skirt from the same group, showing one of the many variations in design they use within the rather rigid grammar of the tradition.
{Slide: T'ai Skirt - Cloudbands}
This is another, with an extraordinary and rare wide block of tapestry design that seems related to ancient Chinese dragon and cloudband motifs. All three of these skirts are made by the T'ai Hun, the only T'ai tribe that did tapestry weaving.
But I told you we'd see some weft ikat. Here it comes.
{Slide: T'ai Daeng Skirt}
This is a skirt, central section only, that's been opened up and mounted. It's made by another T'ai tribe, the T'ai Daeng. It has some of the most skillfully done weft ikat work I've ever seen, along with the terrific supplementary weft brocading that's kind of typical of all the T'ai tribes. Let's look at a little closeup for detail.
{Slide: T'ai Daeng Skirt, Detail}
The serpentine strip separating the two ikat panels is supplementary weft work, as is very traditional throughout the tribal peoples of mainland southeast Asia. In this skirt it's the ikat that's so remarkable. The red panels have what are almost surely serpent representations, but the details could also be read as including shrubs and flowers. The ambiguity is very much a part of the T'ai aesthetic tradition, and is very pronounced in the indigo panels, where all sorts of images seem to emerge and then disappear as you look at it.
Finally, I want to show you a T'ai Daeng shaman's shoulder or headcloth. This is something that the shaman would wear during healing ceremonies. Thus, although the serpent is an important iconographic element, much of the iconography in it is quite different than what you see on the ceremonial skirts.
{Slide: T'ai Daeng Headcloth}
The surface is heavily covered with silk supplementary weft work, almost all done in white against a deep indigo background. Notice the little spots of color that tend to distract the eye and disrupt the flow of the motifs. This is part of the T'ai Daeng aesthetic, and although you don't see it in many of their skirts, you do see it in a lot of other ritual textiles.
The T'ai mythology includes a magical long-nosed lion, sort of a cross between elephant and lion, and it figures prominently in much of their work and is well done in this piece. It appears in several sizes, and bears quite a resemblance to the birds, which differ in having only two legs. You might also notice how the central element, which looks like a bird with a gaping bill, actually consists of two of these lion-elephant figures arranged in opposite directions. This kind of ambiguity and double entendre is characteristic of a lot of T'ai textile art, and is one of the appealing things about it. Notice, too, the little human figures, which are the spirits that the shaman invokes. The diamond shapes, as in other cultures, are eyes.
{Slide: T'ai Daeng Headcloth - Detail}
Here's a little closer look at part of it. Notice the association of the humans with the birds. The concept of birds as a route for transportation of spirits between this world and theirs is very widespread, and fairly evident here.
{Slide: T'ai Daeng Headcloth - Detail}
This is another detail view of the same piece, where you can get a real good look at the central element. The ambiguous shifting between lion-elephant and bird, and the association with the spirit, are clear here.
This raises the issue of secrets, a very important element of many kinds of tribal arts. One of the interesting things about it is that the secret itself is often not terribly important. What is important is that others be aware of the fact that certain members of the group know secret things that they don't. This is part of the basis of the societal structure of African groups, and we see it manifested over and over again in other tribal societies.
Let me offer some closing remarks. This has been a very
sketchy survey of some of the principles common to tribal arts. I've done it
with specific examples of the art of a very small number of tribal groups, but
I think the generalities hold for others as well. I think tribal arts are
simply wonderful. They are artistically unique and original, and the people who
make the best pieces show an astonishing level of creativity within the
constraints of strict traditional rules. They also offer us the rare
opportunity to vicariously participate in cultures very different than our own,
and to learn something about those cultures. No other art form offers so much.