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	East Caucasian rug (detail), Caucasus, 19th century. From the Collection of William Fern. Photo by Don Tuttle Photography.

Timbuktu to Tibet: Rugs and Textiles of the Hajji Babas
October 18, 2008 - March 8, 2009

Textiles are expressions of the lives of all peoples. As social currency, textiles reveal a great deal about an individual’s wealth, social status, occupation, and religious and ethnic associations, as well as a culture’s values, codes and social order. Textiles support commerce and delight us with their color and ornament. Within the diverse cultural traditions, lifestyles, fashions, and technologies represented by textiles, however, there are common threads that bind us together. People around the world use textiles to meet physical, aesthetic and spiritual needs: clothing themselves, defining their living spaces and performing their rituals.

One of the determining factors in how textiles have been made, decorated and used from Africa to East Asia is whether the people creating them are nomadic or settled. The textiles produced by these two divergent societies differ greatly in terms of their aesthetic, technical, and functional qualities, although, because of their continuous interaction, nomadic and settled people have shaped each others’ textile traditions.

Textiles’ functions and modes of production are often defined by the maker and the circumstances in which they live. These two points are an integral part of any discussion on the subject of textile art and history. Organizing textiles by social origin or according to the circumstances in which they were made and used allows us to see a more comprehensive picture of the different artistic categories.

Timbuktu to Tibet is curated for The Textile Museum showing by Sumru Belger Krody, Associate Curator, Eastern Hemisphere Collections. The New York Historical Society exhibition Woven Splendors: Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collectors, the basis for The TM's show, was curated by Jon Thompson, recipient of the 2008 George Hewitt Myers Award.

Caravans, Covers, and Containers

In rapidly disappearing nomadic societies, textiles facilitated life on the move and provided a medium for artistic expression. They were made for personal use, never for sale, except in times of extreme hardship. In addition to their practical role in everyday living, textiles were used as decorations on animals and in tents during special occasions such as weddings, religious ceremonies, and when hosting guests.

In order to pursue their way of life successfully, nomads would have required a fairly high level of material wealth. In Jon Thompson’s words, “The nomadic way of life had nothing to do with vagrancy or simply wandering about.” Its basis was the breeding of livestock and their movement between sets of terrain not usable at all times of the year. Wool and leather were absolutely basic necessities for the nomadic way of life. Nomads had to possess three important apparatus to survive: equipment for living—tents, felts, ropes, bedding, cooking utensils—camels or other sort of animals to carry their belongings and housing, and a large enough group of livestock to provide meat, milk, leather, and wool.

Nomads relied heavily on textiles for containing and carrying their belongings as well as  for creating and furnishing their tents. They produced covers and containers in a variety of shapes and sizes to serve these purposes. Women of the Bakhtiari Tribe in west central Iran have woven a special type of double-bag called khorjin using three different weaving techniques—knotted-pile, weft-wrapping (soumak), and tapestry weave. These bags contained attractive sets of slits and loops around the openings which were used to fasten the bag closed. The bags were then placed on the animal’s back and secured with woven bands.

The weaving of nomads is a traditional art form maintained only by women who weave from memory and knowledge of the designs that have been passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter. Their traditional designs have been used for centuries with little change, often making these textiles difficult to date. Many motifs embellishing nomadic textiles have now-forgotten origins, but the ease with which these motifs could be memorized ensured their continued use with little change over a period of five or more centuries.

By the time of her wedding, a young nomadic woman, such as a Turkmen of Central Asia, would had woven the basic furnishings, such as storage bags, a door rug, and a large floor carpet, for the tent in which she and her future husband would live. Of particular importance were the weavings to be used on her wedding day, which included pairs of large trappings for the decoration of the camel on which she would ride, concealed within in a covered litter, to meet her husband’s family.

While some nomadic societies still exist in Africa and Asia, they are fast disappearing, and many nomads are choosing to settle due to governmental policies and financial reasons. The customs of the nomadic lifestyle are, however, so rooted in these people’s lives and thinking that former nomads who settled even a century ago still arrange their stone homes like tents and decorate them with textiles in their traditional ways.

Textiles for the Urban Society

Textiles with the most intricate designs, complex weave structures, and very expensive silk and metal yarns are the products of people living in settled societies, who have the financial and human resources to devote to this art form. For centuries, the great disposable incomes of the wealthy urban elite and the ruling families provided the assets to sustain highly specialized and skilled craftsmen, from designers to weavers, who worked on major weaving projects. Urban societies also can provide the time and means for sericulture, or silk cultivation, and for growing cotton, both of which produce important materials for weaving. Unlike nomadic communities, settled communities have no strict time frame for weaving; there is no need to finish your work before you disassemble the loom to move on to the next pasture.

In traditional Islamic society, the fashion leader was the king, shah, sultan or local ruler who, according to the ideals of the time, would maintain an artistic establishment employing poets, artists, musicians, and a great variety of skilled craftsmen. These craftsmen produced items of the highest quality, such as weapons, furnishings, clothing, and animal trappings for the court’s use. These courtly styles were closely followed by people of lesser means, who were always keen to stay in fashion. High on the list of desirable items were silk textiles, which were produced by the most advanced technology of the times and often the most expensive items in circulation. These silk textiles were frequently copied using a less expensive material, such as silk instead of metallic threads, or a technology which did not require large complex looms, such as embroidery.

Carpets were produced at every level of urban society; however, those destined for the royal court were carefully designed in the prevailing courtly style woven by skilled craftsmen under the direction of the ruler’s staff, and created with the most costly materials available. Owing to the perishable nature of such materials, very few such carpets have survived intact. The highly complex and sophisticated designs and myriad colors of the textiles produced to serve the needs of the ruling court influenced generations of weavers and embroiderers from all walks of life.

Existing between the highly commercialized weavings of urban centers and the weavings done for one’s own needs in nomadic societies, we find numerous village weavings. Village weavers, always women, would work at home in order to produce textiles for themselves and for sale. This part-time self-employment supplemented the family income. By weaving at home, she could fit the work in at any convenient time while also keeping an eye on her children. Weavings made within these communities tended to have strong primary colors and bold designs. Their patterns often inclined towards the sophisticated urban originals but in execution retained an element of the simple beauty and in style exhibited a distinct local character.

For further in-depth discussion of these topics, see Dr. Jon Thompson’s books, Timbuktu to Tibet: Exotic Rugs and Textiles from New York Collections (2008) and Oriental Carpets from the Tents, Cottages and Workshops of Asia (1993).

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