tribaltextiles.info

Susan Stem and I have been exchanging emails about Khami, Khumi, Mru and Zantu textiles as both of us appreciate the complex weavings of these textiles. See the link to tribaltrappings where there are currently 3 pieces shown under Burmese textiles (although 2 of these will be shifting to ‘archives’ on the site as I am in the process of adding them to my textile collection!). http://www.tribaltrappings.com/TAB_1.html

Both of us are keen to source reference material on these interesting textiles. There is a very good article in the 1999-2000 Textile Museum Journal by Deborah Lindsay Garner and Jay Bommer – pages 26-41 with informative text and some excellent black and white photos. I found my first of these textiles in a gallery in Bangkok last October and then found myself attracted to several other woven textiles in other galleries which were referred to as ‘Khumi/Khami’. The article refers to ‘in recent years, various intricately woven textiles have surfaced on the Southeast Asian markets of Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Mae Sai/Thachilek. Visually dynamic and technically superb, these “mystery weavings appeared without provenance or accompanying documentation. When asked, the more knowledgeable Thai dealers could only shrug their shoulders and answer with a simple “Burma;” some offered “Chin” as a possibility.” Garner and Bommer speculate that the textiles are Khumi, Khami and Mro and say that the groups live in villages in the ‘lush, tropical environs of the Kaladan River valley and the surrounding hills in northern Arkan State and southwestern Chin State in Burma.” Michael Howard in ‘Textiles of the Hill Tribes of Burma’ has some text - pages 43, 44 re Khumi/Khami and 56,57 re Mro with figures 73-89, 102 and text on these photos on 114-116. The photos are in colour but rather small and indistinct for trying to identify weaving patterns. Richard K Diran ‘Vanishing tribes of Burma’ has some nice photo details pages 162-3. 'National Ethnic Groups of Myanmar' by U Min Naing, a native of Burma/Myanmar, who has had an interest in the ethnic groups of the country since 1952, has some info on pages 62-3 on Khami - mainly black & white photos and one colour. (See Burma bibliography for details of all the foregoing references http://www.tribaltextiles.info/bibliogr ... _books.htm ).

Sorry for this long post… Susan and I would welcome any contributions on further text or web info.

Originally posted on 19 Jun 03

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

I was not at all surprised to receive an email yesterday evening from Olivier and finding that he had a beautiful Khumi tube skirt in his collection - the complexity of the weaving in the Khumi textiles has affinity with the complexity of weaving in the Li textiles. Olivier sent me an excellent photo showing a detail of the weave and bead trim on the skirt. I have pasted this into a web page. http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... umi_01.htm I hope to add a few more similar photos which Susan Stem took to show me a skirt which she had recently acquired and which I hope will soon be on its way to me. Susan took several photos of the piece and I would like to share them with you when I get a chance to get them put into web pages. I will also create a references page based around the material off my earlier post. Pamela (and my thanks to Olivier for sharing the excellent photo.)

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

Olivier has emailed me another photo detail which I have again pasted into a web page. He says it is: "a detail of a cloth (a blouse, sleeveless with V neck, made of two pieces sewn together vertically (like page 139 of Michael Howard). I found it four or five years ago, and I bought it as a Chin Akha man's blouse (?). I suppose it is Chin (may be is it difficult to recognize with just a detail). Do you know if Chin men are suppose to wear same kind of blouse as women?"

I have responded with information from the article mentioned in my first post above by husband and wife Jay Bommer and Deborah Garner in the 199/2000 Textile Museum Journal: I referred him to two photos of a 'Zantu man's tunic approximately 93x81cm' - the whole tunic and a detail. The detail is very similar to the detail in Olivier's photo. The Zantu are thought to live in a similar area to the Khumi, Khami and Mro. "The long tunic is worn by the Zantu (or Santu) who live on the lower parts of Lemro River. Their area stretches from Myebon, which is southeast of Sittwe. Local people call the Zantu the "Sea Chin" due to their proximity to the Bay of Bengal. The second type of tunic is worn by men. (figs 31, 32). The men's garments are more somber in colour than the woman's. The black background is striped in beautifully woven, geometrically designed bands of varying widths, in soft warm tones of madder and tan." My thanks again to Olivier for his photo - especially as all the photos in the Journal article are in black and white. http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... ntu_01.htm

Pamela - This detail is interesting- is there any way to see a larger photo of the entire textile, and one of the piece in the article to which you refer? What is the protocol for showing published photos? thanks,

Susan - I received an email from Olivier today saying

'I had took some pictures of the whole tunic, I have to scan it and will send you as soon as possible. Your forum is a very interesting way of working . Too many things to learn in textile! All the best, Olivier'

so, a little patience and we may be able to see a photo of the whole textile! I am not too clear about posting a photo from the article on the forum. I may contact the Textile Museum to ask. Seems to me I am generally encouraging sales of the journal.... I will try scanning the 2 photos to see how they come out and see about getting you a copy if it comes out OK. The black and white photo of the whole tunic does not have a great deal of contrast. Pamela

Please check out the link to see a colour photo of the full tunic which Olivier kindly emailed to me yesterday. http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... ntu_02.htm It is very similar indeed to the one in the shown on page 40 of the Bommer and Garner article. There is no doubt that Olivier has a very good 'eye' indeed for interesting and complex weaving. Pamela

I have now created a small photogallery of 5 photos of a Khumi woman's tube skirt using photos which Susan sent me of the skirt which is currently winging its way to me. The photos give a very good indication of the skirt and the details show very clearly the weaving techniques - especially the dark warp threads over supplementary weft colours. It is very similar indeed to Olivier's except that the beading is not as long. It is also similar to skirts in Howard and Garner & Bommer referred to above. http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... kirtPG.htm

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

Pamela, Olivier, et al- here is the link for the photos of the Zantu tunic which I've just found: http://www.tribaltrappings.com/Forum_Photos.html I hope it works, tho it doesn't look like hypertext here. Pamela to the rescue??? Please note that the color correction is less than perfect; it is not 'pinkish' as might be surmised from the photos, but softened natural dyes of rusty red and dark gold, with black. The weave is very interesting (sorry I don't have a photo right now) in that the back is 'blind', similar to the Khumi chestcloths, but not as heavy a fabric. I have seen this referred to as 'double weaving'- do we have any weavers out there who could clarify how this is done? It obviously takes a lot of skill and there is little known about the technique used by these people.

Note from Pamela 21 Dec 03 - see http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... _PAC01.htm for a detail of the tunic which is a better colour indication although still not completely true. (I could not resist purchasing this tunic from Susan when I visited her in Chiang Mai in Oct 03!)

In the Textile Museum article there is some detail about the weaving and, in the Michael Howard Burma book in the pages where there is detailed text about the Khumi etc weaving I think there is a reference to 'single' warp weaving which I found surprising as it appears to be double in that it has 2 different surfaces. The Khumi tube skirt is similar to the breast cloths in that it has a one colour (black) reverse to the fabric. i.e. the design is all front facing. Pamela

_________________
Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

Just to let you know that, following on from an earlier post from Susan Stem asking whether I could show photos of the Zantu tunic in the Textile Museum Article by Jay Bommer and Deborah Lindsay Garner, I contacted the Textile Museum at the end of June and asked them if the editor of the journal would give me permission to post scans of the photos. About 10 days later I heard from the editor that he had passed on my request to the authors/photographers. Some days passed and I then heard from Jay Bommer asking me to send my request directly to him. This I did and I am very pleased to say that, last Sunday, Jay agreed that I could post the photos. Not only did he say I could post the photos from the article - see http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... ntu_03.htm - but he asked me whether I would prefer to have the original colour photos. Of course, I said yes and he very kindly sent four immediately - one of the full tunic (see below) and three details. (See rest of post below image)


I have put together a small photogallery of the four photos from which enlargements of each image may be accessed. The details are excellent showing every thread of the weaving. See - http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... ntu_JB.htm I am very grateful to Jay and Deborah for generously sharing their photos with us.

Jay also confirmed that "Oliver definitely has a Zantu man's tunic, I am very certain of that." http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... ntu_02.htm

I asked Jay whether he and Deborah had written anything else on these tribal groups. He responded that: "Regarding our writing, as of the moment the Textile Museum Journal is the only place we been published so far but we are just finishing up on a manuscript that we hope to have published soon. It will have expanded information on the Khumi, Khami and Mro plus full documentation and field photos of the Laytu people who live along the Lemro River. The Laytu are the group who produce the red beaded tunics at the end of the Journals article and also who do the facial tattooing." I have asked him to keep us posted on publication of the new article.

Jay has joined this forum via Tribal Spirit which is the name of their website, currently under development. http://www.tribalspirit.com/ There are half a dozen textiles currently up on the site with nice detail and good photos. Jay is just leaving on a trip but hopes to contribute to our community in due course.

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

I have seen the pictures of your chin textiles. I travel since ten years to Burma every year. I met a chin family and I bought also some chin textiles, I have these Zantu man tunic but I have much more interresting pieces. One dealer who is very famous (Moses) in Mandalay has seen some pieces and he was very surprised by the quality. I can send you some pictures. Last june I was in London to visit Hali, I met a dealer and he says that he never see so high quality.

Bernard,

We would very much appreciate it if you would share some photos of your Chin or other Burma textiles with us and information on where you found them. Either email to me or upload the photos via the forum. If you join the forum as a member you will be able to upload images.

It is so hard to find information on these textiles from Burma which are very fine. It sounds as if you have some very special examples.

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

Collectors of Chin textiles might be interested in the information I have given at http://www.tribaltextiles.info/communit ... c.php?t=57 on The Textiles of the Northern Chin in the July/August edition of Arts of Asia. (It does not cover the southern Khumi, Khami, Mru or Zantu textiles of this thread but is relevant to comments immediately above.) It is a well researched piece including detailed comments of the weaving of the textiles shown in very good quality colour photos.

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

I was checking out the TurkoTek forums to recommend one of our members to try them for assistance when I came across an excellent post by John Howe on 'Tunics of the "Burmese" Chin People' at
http://www.turkotek.com/VB22/showthread ... readid=713 This refers to a programme given at the Textile Museum in Washington on 6 Dec 03 by David and Barbara Fraser on "Tunics of the Chin Peoples of Myanmar, India and Bangladesh." The post contains very helpful detail on the tunics of these people and I thoroughly recommend it. (For photo illustration it actually links to photos of Zantu tunics on the tribaltextiles.info and tribaltrappings.com sites).

I have added to the Zantu material on the tribaltextiles.info site a detail of the tunic which is on the tribaltrappings.com site and which is now in my collection. The colour is a little closer to the original.

John notes that the Frasers are currently working on a book - which I eagerly await!

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Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource

For those who are also interested in the Chin tribes of Myanmar and Bangladesh I have put together a small photogallery of a Mru tubeskirt which I collected in Chiang Mai in October: http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... kirtPG.htm

I was wandering around the CM night bazaar somewhat shell shocked after a long day's travel from Tokyo and generally having a look to see what textiles were in town. I was attracted to a piece of weaving which was tantalisingly familiar (see the Khami skirts via http://www.tribaltextiles.info/Gallerie ... _Zantu.htm
I asked the girl in the shop which tribal group had made it. A voice to my left, hidden behind a textile hanging on the shop wall, said ‘Mru’! and I started talking to the shop owner. After a short conversation she said: ‘Are you Pamela?’ It turned out that I had encountered Laura Kan of ‘Pusaka’. Laura had helped Michael Howard with his book ‘Textiles of the Hilltribes of Burma’, is a friend of my gallery owner friend Akemi in Singapore, who recommended that I should visit Laura's Chiang Mai bazaar shop and also known to Susan Stem. Laura is keen to research Chittagong tribes in Bangladesh and the skirt which had caught my attention was from a Chittagong Mru group.

If anyone has information, can recommend further reading or has photos of more of the textiles of this Chin groups in the borderlands of Myanmar, Bangladesh and India please share the material with us.

Many thanks,

_________________
Pamela

http://www.tribaltextiles.info
on-line tribal textiles resource