Manipuri Textile from Bangladesh and Myanmar
- Production of textile -
- Part 9 -

By: Mutua Bahadur *

Leno weaving

Manipuris who settled in Bangladesh in the early period used the art of back-strap leno weaving. Leno weaving was for both domestic use and the market. At the warping stage, the leno weaver has a back-strap around her body at a height of 30 cm. from the ground and the back strap is kept parallel to the opposite warp-bar.

The foot-rest is made out of a length of split bamboo and it is connected to a bamboo roller with a rope. Most of the implements used both in leno weaving and loin loom is very similar. However, in ease of leno weaving done with khwang-iyong, bamboo-reed is used.

Technique of Khwang-iyong

There are two types of cloth produced by khwang-iyong (loin-loom) technique in Bangladesh. The first one is chadar made out of woollen thread or simple cotton yarn and weft-woven designed cloths. And the second one is made from rolled cotton. In khwang-iyong technique, around 1600 warp yarns can be used to weave weft-based designs.

The designs can be done with extra well. In khwang-iyongi only one cloth can be produced at a time. A chadar has an area of 2.23m in length and 0.83m in breadth. For an area of 1.3 sq. cm it has 20 threads in well and 11 threads in warp. For extra-woven design.

however, 5 extra threads are used on an average. But, in case of a cotton cloth with an area of 1.3 sq. cm 35 threads in weft and 16 threads in warp and another 10 threads for a weft are needed to produce the woven design,while the warp is at 40o. and 45o is for a cotton cloth-lashing “phi”.

A woman weaver of khwang- iyong, sits and stretches her two legs on the floor after placing sanam (back-strap) on the backside of the hip. In order to stretch the warp yarn the weaver places the two soles of her feet against a block of wood or bamboo etc. There are four main techniques for weft-woven design in khwang-iyong.

They are -
1) firstly, shedding motif
2) secondly, picking motif
3) design insert and
4) lastly, beating motif.

The shuna-chei (heald bar) is held by the left hand and then the right hand is used push down the utong (bamboo bar) at the same time. Then, the pangatem (shuttle) will be thrown by the right

hand and the left hand will receive it. After removing the pangatem (shuttle) with the right hand, the tem (weft beater) is pushed through the upper part and beating fake place. Then the tem (weft beater) is moved vertically and the gap is widened. The pangatem (shuttle) is pushed from the left side and the tem falls flat. For extra weft woven design, the nayet-chei (weaving rod) shall be pulled down the left hand and placed near the utong (bamboo bar). Then the right hand will take extra threads for weft-woven design and put the design in weft. In this way. Weft-woven design cloth may be woven from a khwang-iyong.

The right side of a weft-woven cloth is used and the left is not considered for use. The weft-woven designs are on the right side of the cloth and designs are hardly visible on the left part of the cloth.

There is not so much difference between the weaving of a lashing-phi and weft-design-cloth on khwang-iyong. The only difference is the pushing of pangatem welt horizontally one or two times according to its necessity and then pressing them by a tent. The next step is the insertion horizontally of a 30 cm long wachet (bamboo-splil) like pangatem encircled by a four-ply wool thread made out of two or four threads and this thread substitutes the rolled cotton after each pangatem's turn. To maintain tautness of the woven cloth, a bamboo-stick called singkap (temple) is fixed at the two borders.

Technique of Pan-iyong

Some of the welt-woven cloths, made from pan-iyong (throw shuttle loom) by Manipuris are inaphi, sari, pillow covers and peech etc. There are two types of weaving techniques among the Manipuri weavers in Bangladesh. A warp having 3.120 yarns is used for creating moirang-thokpa on the border and this is done by using a shuttle. This well-woven design is done in such a way that it is connected with the main weft threads.

And the second technique is to pick-up each thread by lingers and inserting the design. The weft-woven design is used along the borders of the cloth. The right and the left parts of the weft-woven cloth seems to have a similar look. To weave weft-woven cloths either on a pan-iyong or throw shuttle, two weavers may sit together on a bench. pan-iyong has used the same technique as is there in loin-loom.

For two weavers three pangatem (shuttles) may be used. The weavers sitting on the left and the right sides will use smaller

moirang - thokpa pangatem. A bigger pangatem will be used for the main weft (maphen). The weaver sitting on the right side will pass the pangatem to the weaver sitting on the left side alter hooking the moirang-thokpa pangatems inside the main weft. Then, the weaver on the left side will take the pangatem and connects the threads with the moirang-thokpa well. After that the weaver will place her legs on the bamboo khongnet (treadle) and

then the beating is done with samchei (reed), In this way. the weaver continues her weaving.

If weft-woven-designs of moirang-thokpa are to be used along the phibung (the main cloth), the weavers on both sides will insert extra threads with both hands. After placing weft-woven design of moirang-thokpa. the samchet will do the pressing. In this way. the weaver will continue her weaving. For an area of 1.3 sq. cm of inaphi or sari, it is to have 22 threads in warp and 27 threads in weft To weave comfortably, singkap (temple) made of bamboo/wood w ill he used along the boarder of the weft.

Those completed cloths will be rolled up around a konnaba (cloth beam made of wood) which is face to face with the weaver, There will he two holes on either side of the konnaba (warp beam). In order to prevent the rolled cloth from slackening, there will be a small round hanglakchei (split-bamboo) through one of the holes.

See a gallery photo of this Textile here.

To be continued ....

Mutua Bahadur

* Mutua Bahadur contributes to e-pao.net regularly. This article was webcasted on November 07, 2010.