Traditional method of making clothes of the Zeliangrong
- Part 1 -

Budha Kamei *

Khwang Iyong - Loin Loom : 'Tribal hand woven fabrics of Manipur' Book by Mutua Bahadur

Material culture has two distinct but inseparable aspects. One aspect is the utilitarian side; it deals with the fulfillment of wants for biological livelihood of man, and its finish products appear different from place to place depending upon the natural conditions including the availability of raw materials. These products are, at the same time, the results of reason and can be considered as scientific inventions, and the method including the machines of their production is termed as technology. The second aspect does refer to the ideational side of human activities that satisfy the mental and the social needs of mankind are effected by means of the technology. This means to say that the idea of satisfying human psycho-social desires is inherent in the technology.

Now, as it does stand in this way, technology is an inseparable part of culture. Only because it is embodied in concrete, material form, technology has to be considered to be the material form of culture, which together with its non-material, abstract counterpart does form cultural holism. Therefore, for the study of a culture in its material form, the study of its associated technology is indispensible. The present article attempts to delve into the traditional methods of making clothes of the Zeliangrong.

The necessity to conceal the naked body or to enhance the body appearance (modesty) and to protect from the natural forces is presumed to be the primary factor which led to the invention of cloth among mankind. In the beginning, men extensively used both animal and vegetable products in making clothing. The simplest articles of clothing and perhaps the first to be used by men is probably the robe or untailored cloth made from the skin of a large animal. Even this simple garment, however, requires considerable processing, for an untreated or raw hide becomes stiff and hard as soon as it dries. The skin must be thoroughly scraped to remove the fat and flesh which adhere to it. Then, it must be softened. The hide is softened only by mechanical techniques, such as alternately wetting and beating the hide until it is flexible.

Mechanically soften hides, however, are not permanently cured, for if they become wet again the whole process must be repeated. Better curing is achieved by rubbing the hide with fatty or oily substance while it is being manipulated mechanically. Another way of utilizing animal materials for clothing is to employ the hair or wool. A central Asiatic people, probably the ancestors of the present Mongols, developed the techniques of felting. In one method, wool or hair is combed out and placed in layers on a mat. Water is sprinkled on the material and the mat rolled up as tightly as possible. It then may be beaten with a stick. At the end of this time the hairs or wool fibers have become thoroughly matted. After patting, stretching, and sometimes repeated- rolling, the resulting felt is light, warm and durable. In due course of time, the cloths made from hide of animals or bark of trees was replaced by the fabrics. This development denotes the change of man's life from his nomadic to settled life.

Textile is a fabric made by weaving. This term comes from a Latin word texture, which means to weave. Fabric can be classified into two: natural fibers and man-made fibers. Natural fibers are obtained from both plants and animals. The major natural fibers are cotton, flax, wool and silk. Man-made fibers are manufactured from animal, plant, mineral, or synthetic substances some man-made fibers are rayon, fiber, glass, nylon, polyester, acrylic, olefin and spandex.

History of Textile:

The art of textile making began to develop in the Old Stone Age, the period before 9000 B.C. The first textile fabric was probably a crude felt, made by compressing loose clumps of flues from wild sheep. It was the Chinese, the first technologically advanced people who used it for the first time. Later, pre-historic people discovered that they could make a coarse yarn by rolling plant or animal fibers between the palms of the hands. Fishing nets were the earliest known textile made from yarn. And the art of weaving yarn into fabric probably developed from the art of weaving strips of material into mats and baskets.

The Middle East people began to weave cloth on simple looms between 5000 and 3000 B.C. By about 2000 B.C., weaving had developed in Europe, Asia, and South America. A mesh fabric resembling knitting, was probably made by 1000 B.C. Yarns were spun from most major natural fibers –flax in Europe and the Middle East, cotton in Asia and South America, and wool in Europe. The basic spinning tools were the distaff and spindle.

In Asia, silk yarn was made by a process called throwing. By the beginning of the Christian era, many basic finishing treatments such as furling, napping, shearing, bleaching, dyeing, printing and pressing had been developed. The most highly prized fabrics were Chinese silk, Dacca of India cottons, Egyptian linens, and Roman woolens. Thus, in most parts of the World, clothing is as basic human need as food and shelter became a main factor in economic history.

Cotton is one of the most important vegetable fibers. Cotton has been spun, woven and dyed since pre-historic times. It formed the staple clothing of India, Egypt and China. Hundred of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and later their use spread to other countries of Mediterranean. Thus, textile manufacturing is one of the oldest industries in India. The Zeliangrong people of North East India have its indigenous origin of this industry since ancient time.

It is fact that handloom is a craft which requires skill with the hands. The Zeliangrong people have this quality. Traditionally every Zeliangrong woman does possess knowledge of weaving except disfigure. It is generally practiced among the Zeliangrongs that a mother has a responsible to teach her daughter the art of weaving from the tender age. Moreover, the girls' dormitory (Luchiu) in olden days acted as an institution where the growing girls learned the art of weaving. It is a shame for a girl who doesn't learn and posses the knowledge of weaving after attaining maturity.

Weaving is done by the women folk alone is an interesting feature of the industry. In this connection, E.W. Dun says that from plucking of the matured cotton from its plants in the fields to the stage of weaving is all the work of women folk. Therefore, every woman is expected to know the art of weaving and a woman with this knowledge is highly respected in the Zeliangrong society.

Raw material:

The art of weaving begins from the work of separating the cotton seeds from the cotton balls. The cotton plant is extremely –sensitive to weather conditions. It cannot grow in cold climate but thrives in tropical climate. Cotton is grown on a limited scale in Manipur mostly homegrown in small patches with a few plants to meet the minimum requirement of making a few clothes at home. Whatever is grown is neither enough nor of good quality. Presently, cotton plants are seen mostly grown in the hill areas. Among the Meiteis, cotton as well as silk was used in weaving. The cocoon of the Silleima Til (the larva and the caterpillar) that feed on the leaves of the Silleima tree(caleophylum inophylum) and also the cocoon of other worms are said to have been used for producing silk yarn, since the days of yore.

The process of making cloth may be divided into three main stages: (a) preparation of yarn (Lng Loimei), (b) dyeing (Kapaan), and (c) weaving (Phei Dakmei).

Preparation of yarn: Almost all fabrics –construction processes require that fibers be made into yarns as an intermediate step. The amount and type of processing required depend on a number of fiber properties including length, diameter, strength, tenacity, surface, characteristics, susceptibility to various treatments, and reaction to finishing processes. Processes may be specific for one fiber or common to a number of fibers. Preparatory processes carried out prior to those common to several fibers are termed preprocesses.

Preprocesses: Cotton is the shortest spinnable fiber and probably could not be made into yarn were it not for the frequent spiral twists, or convolutions, along its length. Preprocesses for cotton are:
(1) Plucked cottons are exposed to the sun for drying.
(2) Separation of the seeds, the hardened part of cotton from the wooly fibers. This process is called ginning. The apparatus used in this process is called Mui. The ginning is done by two wooden rollers vertically placed one upon the other coupled with a wooden gear at one end and moved in opposite directions. The Mui is supported by two upright wooden pillars. The weaver sets the rollers in motion by means of a crank that fitted to the lower roller. She moves the crank with the right hand while the left feeds the cotton between the rollers, by which process the seeds are pressed out.

(3) The cottons are softened by Lng-pai, a bow like apparatus. It consists of a bow made of bamboo, and cane strip used as the string of the bow and an elongated bamboo basket. The basket is laid on the ground lengthwise and the seedless cotton in the bow is then flicked with fingers of the right hand while the left hand holds the bow. This process of softening the cotton is called carding.

(4) Some carded cotton is taken and spread upon a small flat wooden piece, and a stick made of bamboo about 20 centimeters long as big as a forefinger size is placed over it. The cotton is rolled round the stick by hand and then stick is pulled off, the Lngji is then ready for spinning. This process is known as rolling.

(5) The Lngji is then place to the point of iron rod fitted in the spindle. The spinning tool is locally known as Tareng. The weaver with her left hand does draw out a thread by rotating movement (clockwise) given to the instrument by the right hand, thread drawn from the Lngji round the iron rod when gathered a sufficient quality of thread has to be then removed and coiled round a stick locally known as Tak.

The second stage in the process of cloth making is dyeing. Dyeing is a process of coloring textiles fibers so that the coloring matter becomes an integral part of the fiber.

History of dyeing:

Dyeing is an ancient art. It was practiced in Egypt, Persia, China and India thousands of years before Christ. Little is known about the dyes used in those times, but it is probable that they included madder as a red dye and indigo as a blue dye. In the early days of Roman Empire, the imperial family and the nobility worn the garment dyed with Tyrian purple. It was obtained from the secretion of a selfish. And this dye was extremely valuable as late as the 4th century C.E. Cloth colored with Tyrian purple was literally worth its weight in gold.

Dyes that produced various colors were also known to the ancient Chinese, Babylonians, Egyptians and Greeks. In the 13th century, the art of dyeing was stimulated by the discovery of a purple dye, archil, made from a species of lichen. Northern Italy became the centre of dyeing in Europe because where the discovery of lichen was made. During the Middle Ages, dyeing was carried on in the Byzantine Empire, the Near East, and China, but not in Rome. Well-to-do Europeans purchased cloth from the Eastern nations. By the end of the 13th century, the European dyeing industry was revived. In the 16the century, explorers brought back a number of dyestuffs such as cochineal and logwood from the Americans and these new materials were included in the dyers' art. Among the important natural dyes which were used during the ancient times were quereitron, wild, fustic, brazilwood, safflower and indigo. It is a long known art.

In Zeliangrong society, dyeing is done by the womenfolk. It is generally done either after weaving when the fabric is to be uniform color or in the yarn to get the appropriate colors in case of the cloth is to have strips in the multicolor. This color dyeing reflects taste and customs of the people. Like other Naga tribes, they also had enough knowledge of dyeing in different hue and shades by using natural dye which handed down from generations to generation. The Nagas used dark, blue, red, and rarely yellow dye.

There are two types of dye namely, natural and synthetic dyes. The Zeliangrong followed only the method of natural dyes which obtained from the materials of locally grown plants. They used materials like plaintain ash, Acantha cease, lae, garecimala, etc. and wild indigo for black color. T.C. Hudson writes, "They purchase from the plains a bark which gives red color shading to terracotta. Lamp black is also used for the black dye, but the better black shades are obtained from a strong decoction of indigo. The green and yellow or orange shades are produced from the barks of jungle tree."

For dark blue color, a wild plants locally known as Apiu is used. These leaves are pluck by women folk and boiled in a pot in which yarn or cloth is immersed and after five minutes, it is removed and thus, the cloth is dyed in that color, which is exposed again in the sun to dry.

To be continued..