Weaving in Mizoram

I have been fortunate to have access to books written on Mizoram (Lushai Hills) during the “earlier days”. The breadth of the language and the richness of descriptions in these books have been a lesson on writing. The pictures in these books, some of which I had also come across earlier, depict local people then, wrapped in long cloths. I used to wonder whether they brought clothes from the plains or made them and in case of the later how did they procure the ingredients ~ Further, reading of “Lushei Kuki Clans" By Lt Colonel J Shakespear and "5 Years in Unknown Jungles" by R. A. Lorrain has made me aware to another of the amazing skill sets that used to exist here in this regard, yet another facet of people’s relationship with a natural resource.

I share select but fascinating details here ~

This is from 5 Years in Unknown Jungles ~

The weaving loom is then brought out, and with cotton grown and manufactured by themselves they make some very pretty cloths, decorating them very artistically with various beautiful designs, some of their cloths taking them months to complete, sometimes a year or more. Red, black, yellow and gold are the general colours employed in the making of this cloth, but the gold is always silk, procured from a silk moth not by the Lakhers themselves but by the hillsmen over the Burmese frontier, who once a year pass through the country in order to barter away the silk which they have obtained.

Weaving is a very tedious occupation, and the women show great skill and patience in their undertakings, the threads of the cloth being very carefully arranged. They obtain their black dye from the indigo plant which they cultivate, while their red and yellow cotton is obtained by boiling the white cotton with various roots dug in the jungle.

The cotton plant is grown upon their cultivations, and they make out of wood an instrument similar to a mangle for seeding the same, the raw cotton passing through the rollers and the cotton seeds in this way being pushed out. After the cotton has been seeded they flick it out and with a bow made of bamboo and a taut string, which they keep on flicking against the cotton, causing it to become like down. This down-like cotton is then carded, that is rolled out with the hands into pencil shaped rolls of about 6 to 9 inches long.

After this another instrument is then brought into use, a wheel made of wood around which a string acting as a band is placed, the other end of it encircling a rounded piece of wood on the end of a steel pin. As the handle of the wheel is turned so that steel pin revolves at a great rate, and in a very clever manner the carded cotton is touched against this steel spindle and is drawn out into thread. This thread, however, is not of sufficient strength to be of any use. It is therefore tied on to the end of a bamboo, which is weighted at one end by a disc of bone from the foot of the elephant, and this is the article with which one will see a woman when on her way to the jungle to fetch wood or water, carrying in her hand and spinning the weighted bamboo round, at the same time running her fingers nimbly up and down the thread, causing it to twist into strong cotton.

After this process has been completed it is wound into skeins and placed in rice water, which is boiled for many hours, afterwards the skeins of cotton being placed on a bamboo rack and stretched out to dry in the sun, during which process it is combed vigourously with a comb made from the fruit of the screw pine, all stray ends being in this manner separated from the cotton. This process of boiling in rice water is continued several times, and at last this skein of cotton are placed on a large winding wheel and is wound into balls ready for use.

Indigo dye is made by the pounding of indigo leaves and the boiling of the same, after which the cotton is dipped into the dye and hung up to dry in the sun, this process being repeated many times in order to get a sufficient deepness of colour.

Passing down the village street with the huts ranged on either side, one notices outside most of them a raised bamboo platform where some old Lakher woman may be seen squatting, sorting her tray full of freshly gathered cotton, placing the good in one heap and the bade in another.

This from Lushei and Kuki Clans ~

Cloth Manufacture-

Cotton in grown in the jhums. It is cleaned in a home-made gin, consisting of a frame holding two wooden rollers, one end of each being carved for a few inches of its length into a screw, grooved in the opposite way to the other, so that on the handle being turned the rollers revolve in opposite directions, and the cotton is drawn between them, the seeds being left behind. The cotton is then worked by hand into rolls a few inches long, whence it is spun into the spindle of a rough spinning wheel, or occasionally a bobbin is used, which being given a sharp twist, draws the cotton into a thread by its own weight. This method admits of diligent ones spinning as they go to and from their jhums. The thread having been spun, it is thoroughly wetted and then hung in loops some three or four feet long over a horizontal bar, and stretched by several heavy bars being suspended in these loops.

Weaving -

The warp is prepared by passing the thread round two smooth pieces of wood, one of which is fastened to two uprights, while the ends of the other are attached to the ends of a broad leather band, which passes behind the back of the weaver as she sits on the ground and, by leaning back, stretches the threads to the requisite degree of tightness. The woof is formed by passing to and fro bamboos round which are wound different coloured threads, which are beaten home with a well polished batten made of sago palm.

A very serviceable form of quilt called puanpui is made by passing round every fourth or fifth thread of the warp a small roll of raw cotton and drawing both ends up. A row of these cotton rolls is put in after every fourth or fifth thread of the woof, so that on one side the quilt is composed of closely tufts of cotton.

Dyeing -

The commonest dye is obtained by boiling the leaves of the Assam indigo (Strobilanthes flaccidifolia). Many immersions are required to render the colour permanent ad as the plan, which is cultivated near the villages or in the gardens, does not grow luxuriantly, it is seldom possible to obtain enough heaves in any one year for more than two immersions, so that the whole process may take two or three years.

Several read and yellow dyes are known, but they are little used, and most of the thread, excepting the blue and while is obtained from the bazaars.