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- These ancient textiles are sourced from the Orient and are extremely rare.
Melbourne collector Russell Howard has been collecting Lao textiles for over 20 years. He has made numerous trips to northeast Laos and Vietnam between 1993 and 2004 to locate the sources of these textiles which first appeared in the markets of Thailand in the early 1980's, well before these areas were open to westerners. The recognition and description of these textile traditions is based on his observations there and differs from that found in the literature. Field photos taken by Russell Howard. Textile photos taken by Jonathon Leidel. www.leidelphotography.com
Textiles from the border of Northeast Laos & Vietnam.
The mountain valleys straddling the border of northeast Laos and Vietnam are occupied by Tai groups who have until recently largely retained their traditional culture. They continue to live in villages of stilt houses and grow wet rice which forms the basis of their subsistence economy. Weaving by women was an integral part of this economy, not just for its utilitarian aspect of providing bedding and clothing, but socially as well: the unmarried girl weaving outside her home provided opportunities for social interaction with single men. Finer textiles were used as a display of wealth at marriages and funerals, while some special textiles used on these occasions and in healing ceremonies had special protective powers against malicious spirits. This world is quite alien to those of us brought up in the city; with the construction of good roads into these areas and the introduction of schools and western-style consumer goods and clothing, this culture is rapidly changing. Whilst weaving has been a traditional part of Tai culture everywhere, textiles from the Lao-Viet border stand out from textiles of other areas and ethnic groups because of the range of natural colours and designs employed and the variety of weaving techniques. The extraordinary design repertoire includes a range of mythical animals and represents a mixture of ancient Tai designs mixed with those introduced with Buddhism and by contact with other cultures, particularly the Chinese with which this area has long had contact.
Textiles from this region are generally attributed to a group known as the Red Tai or Tai Deng. This name was used by Robert (Notes sur les Tay Deng de Lang Chanh, 1941) for the inhabitants of Muong Deng in Thanh Hoa province, Vietnam, and by extension to the other Tai who live throughout Thanh Hoa and Nghe An province to the south. Unfortunately this includes two separate Tai groups with quite different textile traditions, the Tai Muong and the Thanh. While the name Red Tai is no longer used in Vietnam, it is still used in Laos where it is applied collectively to members of both groups who migrated to Laos in the 19th century. It appears to be used locally (in northeast Laos) to differentiate these non-Buddhist groups from the indigenous Tai who were Buddhist (the Lao Put or Tai Lao) and who had a quite separate textile tradition. Following the communist victory in 1975, some of these people moved to the capital of Vientiane where the name Red Tai took on the connotation of an ethnic group, and most of the textiles from the border region became attributed to them. The great variety of designs, colour schemes and weaving techniques shown by these textiles, together with variations in the textile assemblage from place to place, makes it improbable that they originated from the one group. In fact three separate textile traditions are recognisable and are the basis of this exhibition: those of the Thanh and Tai Muong in Vietnam and the Tai Lao in northeast Laos.
Textiles of the Tai Muong & Thanh Nghe An province, Vietnam.
The two main Tai groups living in Nghe An and Thanh Hoa provinces of Vietnam were until recently known as the Tai Muong and the Thanh, but they are now officially referred to as the White Tai and Black Tai respectively. Although the two groups often live in neighbouring villages, they generally retain quite separate customs and textile traditions. These differences are summarized on the following pages. In the three museums in north Vietnam that feature textiles of these groups (museums of ethnology in Hanoi and Bac Thai and the museum in Quy chau), these distinctions are recognized at least as regards costume. In narrow valleys such as the upper reaches of the Ca River in Nghe An (where the Tai Muong are known as the Tai Hangtong) and parts of the Ma river in Thanh Hoa, villages are close together, intermarriage is common and separate textile traditions are hard to discern, but differences are real in the minds of the local Tai. Summary of Tai Muong group. Women's Custome: White blouse, 3-piece skirt with white waist-band, plain body and embroidered hem, worn with red silk waist sash. Special Skirts: Usually alternating panels of blue cotton and red silk with supplementary weft decoration. Primary use is for funerals, and the owner would normally be buried in one woven by her mother-in-law. Funeral Dress: Daughter-in-law wears red blouse with special skirt woven by mother-in-law. Long textile for funeral: Yes. Decorative weaving techniques: Mainly discontinuous supplementary weft; also continuous supp. weft, compound weaves and minor ikat and embroidery. Blankets (pa hom): Large variety of all-over patterns.
Summary of Thanh group.
Women's Custome: Dark-coloured blouse, 2-piece skirt usually with white silk supplementary warp stripes, worn with white cotton string belt. Special Skirts: Usually blue cotton with the one symbol repeated in coloured silk in embroidery or supplementary weft; sometimes combined supplementary warp and weft designs. Funeral Dress: Do not dress up for funerals; relatives wear white with, generally speaking, the closer the relative the more white clothing. Long textile for funeral: No. Decorative weaving techniques: Predominantly supplementary warp, lesser continuous and discontinuous supp. weft, ikat and embroidery. Blankets (pa hom): Stripes predominate.
FUNERAL CLOTHS: LONG CLOTHS AND BLANKETS.
Long cloths (pa vieng rong) were made by the Tai Muong of Nghe An province, Vietnam, and are a characteristic part of their textile assemblage. They were keenly sought by collectors when they first became available in the early 1990's and so are no longer commonly seen in Nghe An. Their origin was generally attributed by dealers to Sam Tai in north-east Laos, which is where they came across the border from Vietnam, and this misconception as to their provenance still persists. (As some Tai Muong live in Sam Tai, some pieces would have been made there but the vast majority of these pieces came from Vietnam). When a Tai Muong person dies, the body is put in a coffin and kept in the family home for three days or so, giving relatives from other villages time to arrive. Four posts are erected, one at each corner of the coffin, and the resulting structure swathed in white cotton. The long cloth is wound horizontally around the structure 1-2 metres above the floor. If the family no longer has (and cannot borrow) one of these cloths, a strip of commercial cloth is used.
These cloths are usually 7-8m long and between 35 and 60cm wide depending on the weaving technique. The commonest are the narrower (35-40cm wide) pieces made of red silk with decorative bands in supplementary weft featuring a wide variety of designs. Less commonly the background is of blue cotton. The wider pieces are woven using a compound weave whereby silk weft threads in three different colours, usually cream, orange and blue, are inserted into the warp and twisted so that the colour needed for the design is brought to the surface. This weaving technique is very unusual and not done by other Tai groups in the area. In Quy Chau in 2001 I was told that only two elderly ladies were still able to use this technique. In contrast to the variety of designs found on the narrower 'long cloths', the design repertoire of the wider cloths is very limited. Some of the wider cloths are woven in two colours using a double warp technique.
Blankets (pa hom) for bedding are amongst the commonest textiles of the upland Tai groups, and usually comprise two decorative strips of cloth sewn together with cotton edging and backing. Finer blankets are also woven for display on special occasions and at ceremonies where they serve to display a family's wealth. The weaving of special blankets is particularly well-developed amongst the Tai Muong where these textiles include some of their finest weavings. Given their evident love of bright colours, these pieces can be quite confronting when taken out of context. These pieces would also be used at funerals where they were hung on the walls of the house or placed on the coffin. The majority of these special blankets are of red silk with geometric or mythological animal designs. Others were woven on a white cotton background and generally feature geometric or naturalistic designs woven in supplementary weft or one of a number of compound weaves. These more naturalistic representations are far less common but illustrate the individualism of these weavers.
TEXTILES FROM NORTHEAST LAOS
Traditionally these textiles are regarded as being made by the Red Tai from Sam Neua in the province of Houaphan, and they are amongst the most highly regarded of the region. The main weaving areas are villages and towns along the valley of the Ma River and its tributary the Sam River, and include Muong Ven, Sam Tai and Xieng Khor. The Tai population is made up of the original Tai inhabitants who are Buddhist and variously referred to as Lao Put, Tai Neua or Tai Lao, and the Thanh and Tai Muong who migrated from present-day Vietnam from the 19th century and are together known as Red Tai.
It seems more likely that most of these textiles belong to the textile tradition of the Tai Lao because: 1. The textile assemblage in north-east Laos is quite different from that across the border and includes the pa toum style of blanket, the blue shawls and the red head-cloths; 2. The main weaving techniques (supplementary weft and ikat), colour schemes and design repertoire are also different, although the latter could be attributed to geography; 3. The one type of textile on display here that is consistently not attributed to the Red Tai is the black skirt with the woven mythical animal designs in the hem. The example shown here is attributed to Muong Ven, a Tai Lao village famous for weaving. The presence there in a district without Red Tai of pa toum (which is in common use), blue shawls and ikat skirts is supportive of these pieces being part of a separate textile tradition.
Whilst more anecdotal than empirical, general observations from looking at textiles in Red Tai and Tai Lao villages in the northeast support the recognition of a separate textile tradition, although it is difficult to be conclusive because there has of course been a certain amount of mixing of the groups and because most of the old textiles had disappeared before my visits. Textiles shown here are from three districts: Sam Neua (including Muong Ven and Xieng Khor areas), Sam Tai and Nam Noen. While the textile assemblages are similar, each district has distinct preferred colour schemes and motifs.
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