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Silver Palaung weaver in ThailandIn February 1998 Kathleen Forance Johnson visited the area encompassed by the old Lan Na kingdom centered in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and extending into Northern Laos to its ancient capitol in Luang Prabang. Kathleen referred to the use of back strap looms in Thailand as follows: "Back strap looms are in use in some of he Thai hill tribe villages we visited. In this settlement there were only a few older women at home weaving simple traditional cloths for domestic use and a couple of younger women weaving souvenir type bags and belts for sale to tourists. They use a type of backstrap loom with their warp tied to a railing on the "front porch" of their houses which are often built on stilts. The colorfully banded tube skirt is a basic item of clothing for the women of these communities. In some other places we saw a few women wearing inexpensive sarong prints, but they still seem to be in a minority." |
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Back strap loom in use, Chiang Mai, Thailand, hill tribe village
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| open warp, with beater and heddle stick, backstrap loom | |
| Looking at the photos it is clear that Kathleen was visiting a Silver Palaung village and the weaver was weaving fabric for a traditional striped Silver Palaung tube skirt. The village was possibly one in which Michael C Howard and Wattana Wattanapun carried out fieldwork in 1997/98. They were researching the Silver Palaung who had fled from Burma in the 1980s to escape the fighting between communist insurgents and Burmese army troops and now live in a handful of villages north of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. This research forms the major part of their 2001 book “The Palaung in Northern Thailand” | |
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click
here
for the complete story of Kathleen's trip
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