GUJARATI EMBROIDERY
Throughout the seventeenth century, Gujarat was probably the most important centre for fine commercial embroidery in the world. Today, the belt comprising of Kutch and Saurashtra up to northern Gujarat to western Rajasthan and the Thar Parkar district of Sind in Pakistan is the richest source of folk embroidery in the world.
Marriage costumes, wall hangings, quilts, cradle cloths and animal trappings are embroidered, appliquéd, decorated with beadwork and embellished with mirrors, sequins, buttons and shells. Each caste passes on unchanged from generation to generation its own distinct designs, colours and range of stitches which, together with the cut of their garments and their own particular tie-and-dye and block-printed designs, form the major visual part of a castes cultural identity.
Professional Embroidery
Mochi Embroidery
Chinai Embroidery
Domestic Embroidery
Mochi Embroidery
The
Gujarati embroidery tradition was maintained for many years by the
Mochi embroiderers of Kutch and Saurashtra, who worked for the court and
for the merchant and land-owning castes.
The Mochis were traditionally cobblers and leather-workers by trade, who developed the art of embroidering in fine silk chain stitch, using the ari. This is a fine awl, which has a notch incised just above its point to form a hook, and is akin to the European tambour hook. The thread is held below the cloth to be embroidered and the point of the ari is pushed through the fabric to pick up and pull through to the surface a loop of thread. The point of the ari is then again inserted into the fabric through this loop and the process is repeated, so that a continuous line of chain stitch is formed.
The ari is an adaptation of the cobblers awl and the Mochis would appear to have developed their methods of ari-work embroidery from the craft tradition in Sind of embroidering leather belts, shoes and bags.
Until recently, the ari was being used for domestic embroidery by the Lohanas of Banni Kutch. The embroidered silk was imported from Europe or China, and the satin embroidered on was again either imported or produced nearby, in Surat, Mandvi or Jamnagar.
The centre for Mochi embroidery was Bhuj, the capital of Kutch, but some Mochis worked elsewhere in Kutch and others moved to Saurashtra to work for the Kathi landowners there. The Mochis produced ari work for gaghra (skirt) pieces, chops (bodices), borders, childrens caps, chaklas (embroidered squares) and torans (pennanted doorway friezes). They also embroidered the devotional pichhavai hangings for temples, illustrating the Lord Krishna, as manifested at Nathadwara, Rajasthan.
The motifs usually embroidered were buttis (flowers derived from Persian or Mughal sources) often with parakeets perched on them. These were interspersed with figures of peacocks or putali (women), sometimes both.
The heyday of Mochi embroidery was most probably the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, the Mochi embroiderers practiced in Kutch and in Saurashtra; but the courts were to lose their wealth and powers of patronage, as were the Kathi landowners, and many of the merchant families who had traditionally commissioned Mochi embroidery left for Bombay. By 1947, Mochi embroidery was virtually extinct.
Chinai Embroidery
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a community of Chinese embroiderers living in Surat, south Gujarat, who nevertheless produced work that was completely Chinese in both design and technique. Their embroidery was known as chinai work and they made either garment pieces and shawls embroidered with fine floss silks, or saris, cholis (blouse), childrens dresses and borders, precisely embroidered with tightly spun two-ply silk. Long narrow border strips with interconnecting motifs of birds and flowers, predominantly in white against a coloured silk background, were a favourite of the rich Parsee community, and many examples of this work can still be found in Bombay.
Domestic Embroidery
Kutch,
Saurashtra, western Rajasthan and the adjoining province of Sind in
Pakistan are areas of arid scrubland, some of which is cultivatable, but
much of which affords only seasonal pasture for flocks and herds of
sheep, cattle and camels. Thus the inhabitants are mainly smallholding
farmers or pastoralists, with merchant and artisan communities in the
towns. They are divided by caste which, as in the rest of India, is here
usually equated with a hereditary occupation. These castes reflect a
cultural diversity that has resulted from the influx of people over the
centuries through both Iran and Central Asia. This in turn has had its
bearing on the domestic embroidery tradition in western India.
The people living in this region share a common dowry tradition. In addition to the usual gifts of jewelry and household utensils, a bride will bring to her husbands home a large number of richly embroidered textiles that she and the women of her family have worked on. This dowry will consist of costumes for the bride and groom, hangings for her new home and applique work often incorporating small mirrors.
When the bride leaves her parents home and moves to that of her parents-in-law (where the groom continues to reside after marriage), she traditionally brings with her a set of hangings, usually wrapped in a large chakia. In Kutch and Saurashtra a toran is hung above the doorway to the main room of the house, the pennants that hang down from it representing mango leaves, symbols of good luck and a welcoming device to gods and men alike. On each side of the doorway is hung an L-shaped textile known as a sankhia, and beside these are pantorans, smaller friezes and smaller chakia squares.
The display of embroidery takes pride of place at the great wedding celebrations and religious festivals, and on a more limited scale it brings color to everyday life too. Distinctive embroidered clothes are worn as the proud badge of caste, cultural identity. Each caste has its own style of embroidery, range of colours and repertoire of stitches. Caste and social status is indicated by the colours and materials used. The merchant communities often work on silk, whereas the farming and pastoral castes usually use cotton or wool.
Costume in this part of India is embellished with embroidery and mirror work and made as colorful as possible in order to provide a pleasing contrast to the generally dull shades of the surrounding desert landscape. Particularly vivid are the clothes of the children and young women. The cut is full, to combine maximum protection from the hot sun with a good circulation of air to promote coolness. The designs and motifs used are handed down unchanged from generation to generation; the indigenous flora and fauna and local mythology inspire them. It is a tradition that has survived intact and remains alive due to relative geographical isolation and the absence of industrialization.
Aside from weddings, the most important events of the year are the great religious festivals held at places of pilgrimage all over Rajasthan, Gujarat and Sind. At these festivals caste members can meet, marriages are contracted or celebrated, and religious rites performed. Here bards and musicians entertain the crowds, and camels, horses and oxen are traded and raced. These animals are decorated with embroidered trappings - on their backs, necks, ears, legs, chests, muzzles and even on the oxens horns. The patterned camel girths are woven out of goats hair, the wooden saddles padded out with patchwork quilts; oxen are bedecked in embroidered or appliqued cover called jhul. Families traditionally travel to a festival on their camels, or else in ox-carts. The wooden carts are covered with an appliqued tent known as a maffa, which provides shelter from the hot sun.
Throughout the seventeenth century, Gujarat was probably the most important centre for fine commercial embroidery in the world. Today, the belt comprising of Kutch and Saurashtra up to northern Gujarat to western Rajasthan and the Thar Parkar district of Sind in Pakistan is the richest source of folk embroidery in the world.
Marriage costumes, wall hangings, quilts, cradle cloths and animal trappings are embroidered, appliquéd, decorated with beadwork and embellished with mirrors, sequins, buttons and shells. Each caste passes on unchanged from generation to generation its own distinct designs, colours and range of stitches which, together with the cut of their garments and their own particular tie-and-dye and block-printed designs, form the major visual part of a castes cultural identity.
Professional Embroidery
The
Gujarati embroidery tradition was maintained for many years by the
Mochi embroiderers of Kutch and Saurashtra, who worked for the court and
for the merchant and land-owning castes. The Mochis were traditionally cobblers and leather-workers by trade, who developed the art of embroidering in fine silk chain stitch, using the ari. This is a fine awl, which has a notch incised just above its point to form a hook, and is akin to the European tambour hook. The thread is held below the cloth to be embroidered and the point of the ari is pushed through the fabric to pick up and pull through to the surface a loop of thread. The point of the ari is then again inserted into the fabric through this loop and the process is repeated, so that a continuous line of chain stitch is formed.
The ari is an adaptation of the cobblers awl and the Mochis would appear to have developed their methods of ari-work embroidery from the craft tradition in Sind of embroidering leather belts, shoes and bags.
Until recently, the ari was being used for domestic embroidery by the Lohanas of Banni Kutch. The embroidered silk was imported from Europe or China, and the satin embroidered on was again either imported or produced nearby, in Surat, Mandvi or Jamnagar.
The centre for Mochi embroidery was Bhuj, the capital of Kutch, but some Mochis worked elsewhere in Kutch and others moved to Saurashtra to work for the Kathi landowners there. The Mochis produced ari work for gaghra (skirt) pieces, chops (bodices), borders, childrens caps, chaklas (embroidered squares) and torans (pennanted doorway friezes). They also embroidered the devotional pichhavai hangings for temples, illustrating the Lord Krishna, as manifested at Nathadwara, Rajasthan.
The motifs usually embroidered were buttis (flowers derived from Persian or Mughal sources) often with parakeets perched on them. These were interspersed with figures of peacocks or putali (women), sometimes both.
The heyday of Mochi embroidery was most probably the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During this period, the Mochi embroiderers practiced in Kutch and in Saurashtra; but the courts were to lose their wealth and powers of patronage, as were the Kathi landowners, and many of the merchant families who had traditionally commissioned Mochi embroidery left for Bombay. By 1947, Mochi embroidery was virtually extinct.
Chinai Embroidery
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was a community of Chinese embroiderers living in Surat, south Gujarat, who nevertheless produced work that was completely Chinese in both design and technique. Their embroidery was known as chinai work and they made either garment pieces and shawls embroidered with fine floss silks, or saris, cholis (blouse), childrens dresses and borders, precisely embroidered with tightly spun two-ply silk. Long narrow border strips with interconnecting motifs of birds and flowers, predominantly in white against a coloured silk background, were a favourite of the rich Parsee community, and many examples of this work can still be found in Bombay.
Domestic Embroidery
Kutch,
Saurashtra, western Rajasthan and the adjoining province of Sind in
Pakistan are areas of arid scrubland, some of which is cultivatable, but
much of which affords only seasonal pasture for flocks and herds of
sheep, cattle and camels. Thus the inhabitants are mainly smallholding
farmers or pastoralists, with merchant and artisan communities in the
towns. They are divided by caste which, as in the rest of India, is here
usually equated with a hereditary occupation. These castes reflect a
cultural diversity that has resulted from the influx of people over the
centuries through both Iran and Central Asia. This in turn has had its
bearing on the domestic embroidery tradition in western India. The people living in this region share a common dowry tradition. In addition to the usual gifts of jewelry and household utensils, a bride will bring to her husbands home a large number of richly embroidered textiles that she and the women of her family have worked on. This dowry will consist of costumes for the bride and groom, hangings for her new home and applique work often incorporating small mirrors.
When the bride leaves her parents home and moves to that of her parents-in-law (where the groom continues to reside after marriage), she traditionally brings with her a set of hangings, usually wrapped in a large chakia. In Kutch and Saurashtra a toran is hung above the doorway to the main room of the house, the pennants that hang down from it representing mango leaves, symbols of good luck and a welcoming device to gods and men alike. On each side of the doorway is hung an L-shaped textile known as a sankhia, and beside these are pantorans, smaller friezes and smaller chakia squares.
The display of embroidery takes pride of place at the great wedding celebrations and religious festivals, and on a more limited scale it brings color to everyday life too. Distinctive embroidered clothes are worn as the proud badge of caste, cultural identity. Each caste has its own style of embroidery, range of colours and repertoire of stitches. Caste and social status is indicated by the colours and materials used. The merchant communities often work on silk, whereas the farming and pastoral castes usually use cotton or wool.
Costume in this part of India is embellished with embroidery and mirror work and made as colorful as possible in order to provide a pleasing contrast to the generally dull shades of the surrounding desert landscape. Particularly vivid are the clothes of the children and young women. The cut is full, to combine maximum protection from the hot sun with a good circulation of air to promote coolness. The designs and motifs used are handed down unchanged from generation to generation; the indigenous flora and fauna and local mythology inspire them. It is a tradition that has survived intact and remains alive due to relative geographical isolation and the absence of industrialization.
Aside from weddings, the most important events of the year are the great religious festivals held at places of pilgrimage all over Rajasthan, Gujarat and Sind. At these festivals caste members can meet, marriages are contracted or celebrated, and religious rites performed. Here bards and musicians entertain the crowds, and camels, horses and oxen are traded and raced. These animals are decorated with embroidered trappings - on their backs, necks, ears, legs, chests, muzzles and even on the oxens horns. The patterned camel girths are woven out of goats hair, the wooden saddles padded out with patchwork quilts; oxen are bedecked in embroidered or appliqued cover called jhul. Families traditionally travel to a festival on their camels, or else in ox-carts. The wooden carts are covered with an appliqued tent known as a maffa, which provides shelter from the hot sun.
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