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This is the second textile I'm needing information on. Any help will be appreciated. It is a woven ikat from Burma. It is a coarse cotton, maybe handspun, natural dyes. Age unknown but not new. It is woven in two panels. The size is 85 cm x 140cm. Can you help identify? Thank You
http://f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/rgmook ... m=f246.jpg

originally posted 25 Jan 03 - See the link given above by Richard for several photos but below for a 'taster' - Pamela

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Richard

Richard - this piece I REALLY like and can understand why it found a home in your collection (it certainly would have a place in mind!). I find it very interesting but cannot pin it down right away. The Karen (and there are many sub groups in Burma) use ikat and it has some of the feel of their textiles although it is much bolder than any I can find in the literature or have seen. (It has some echos of Batak weavings from north Sumatra.) I would very much like to get some help on this. There are a couple of people who may have an idea and I will send out a email or two. I may also put a link on the 'Myanmar' page on the tribaltextiles.info website along the lines of 'can you identify..' as this might catch someone which the right knowledge who does not get to the forum. Did you buy this and the other textile in Burma or from a dealer? Where was the dealer(s) located? Pamela

Hi Richard, This is a very beautiful piece, but is not Karen. I am wondering if it is a "lon-gyi", a tubal sarong worn by both men and women in Burma, and woven by the Shan (Tai), as well as the Burmese (Tibeto-Berman), and other groups. That mauve color has always been a characteristic of Burman dying. My husband thinks it might actually be from one of the Tai groups from the Indo-Burman border, or Kachin. Unless otherwise discovered this piece was made to be worn.

Hi Richard, I'm still going through everything I missed, and picked up on the latest comments. I prefer calling the textile anything but a skirt, since both men and women wear long sarongs in Burma, and it seems so unmanly to wear a skirt! As to origin, the texture is close to Karen style cotton weaving, but the dye work and design seem quite different, but of course I've been wrong before! It is very remeinicent of some cotton sarongs I picked up in Burma, which were definetly

Thanks to Susan Stem's reference on another textile of Richard's to the book 'Thai Textiles' by Susan Conway, (details on the Thai bibliography page on the website http://www.tribaltextiles.info/bibliogr ... _books.htm ) I think that I have found the 'answer' to this texile. On page 144 of the Conway book is an example of "a cotton phasin, Nan Province (Thailand). Red and white cotton matmi, alternating with bands of supplementary weft woven in white, black, red and yellow cotton". It is very similar indeed to this one of Richard's. On page 142 Susan Conway talks of Nan province (lying to the east of the Chiang Mai valley, separated by a range of small mountains. She says that the largest Tai group living in the Nan valley are Tai Lue. She says they are Sino Tai origin, they migrated from Sipsong Panna, southern China, and in the last 200 years have settled in the Nan valley. Some good explanation of the textiles. Sandie was much nearer than I in thinking that it was a Shan (Tai) piece from Burma rather than I in thinking it possibly Karen. Interesting how, though, in this case and in Richard's other piece 'Karen' has come up as a possible both times yet it has not felt 'right'. I am very pleased to have identified - I think - this piece as I very much liked it when I first saw it. Lets hope that Richard can find us some more pieces to set us off...! Pamela

!'m back! And as picky as ever. T'ai Lue, like all major T'ai groupings, originated either in an area of Southern China, or as far east as northern Viet Nam, and as far west as Burma. The term Sino-Thai is an ethnonym used specifically, and only, for ethnic Chinese who live in Thailand, have Thai names (very rare for "overseas Chinese"), and speak Thai almost exclusively. It is inaccurate to apply that term to any T'ai group, regardless of its origin in China or elsewhere. And guess what: the Li of Hainan are now the Hli; Yao are Mien (remember my husband's dissertation on Iu Mien grammar); and Miao, now forever, Hmong. Gee, its good to be back!

Sandie, have you got hold of Michael C Howard and Kim Be Howard's book 'Textiles of the Daic Peoples of Vietnam' yet? I would be interested to get your feed back. It is available from the Textile Museum in Washington via their web shop http://www.textilemuseumshop.org/ and Mr Diego Silva who deals with the order is very helpful and really whooshed out my last order! Glad to see that you are challenging us again.....Pamela