TIED AND DYED WORK
In this process, Tied and Dyed Work, the pattern is made by tying string or cord, more or less tightly, around certain selected portions of the material. When the goods, thus treated, are subsequently dyed, these tied portions will be kept from the action of the dyestuff, and after the operation is finished and the strings cut or untied, they will be lighter in color than the adjacent parts of the fabric.
This process has been known and widely used in many different parts of the world. Some interesting examples of it are found among the textiles from the so-called Inca graves, in Peru and Bolivia, dating from before the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century (see Fig. [2]). Some extremely interesting specimens of tied work can be seen in the Philippine collection in the New York Museum of Natural History, brought from the Bagobo tribe in Mindanao (see Fig. [5]). While perhaps the most extraordinary development of this process can be found in the so-called chundries or chunaries, imported from Central Hindustan, and sold by traders in Eastern goods and textiles at very moderate prices.
FIG. 3—SHIKAR CHUNDRI, FROM RAJPUTANA, WITH KNOTS STILL UNTIED
Chundries.—These are chiefly manufactured in the native State of Kotah, in Rajputana, and have been produced there from time immemorial, for use as clothing and hangings. Those that are imported to this country (see Figs. [3] and [4]) are generally made of extremely thin, flimsy muslin, most elaborately decorated in three or four colors, with patterns made up of an infinite number of small round or rectangular rings of white or light colors, against a darker background. They can be obtained in the same condition that they left the dyer’s hands, folded tightly together, colored red or brown or black from the final dye-bath, and covered over with hundreds of little hard knots or lumps. These, on examination, prove to be the tied places, each tied by hand, by winding round and round the base of the projecting loop of cloth, a very fine thread, closely laid and knotted extremely firm and tight.
When unwound, which must be done with much care on account of the thin, fragile nature of the cloth, the knotted portions often show most beautiful and interesting designs—done in different colors, put on before tying, and protected from the final bath by the close tight layer of thread. Among the most interesting of them are the so-called “Shikar” chundries, where the design, repeated over and over again, illustrates some hunting scene, as, for instance, a tiger hunt, with the animal springing at a man armed with a sword, and a horse or elephant with howdah. When fully opened one of these chundries makes a strip of cloth some five or six yards long, and in Rajputana is used as the full-dress costume of a young lady of fashion, being folded round and round the body and over the head in most graceful and charming lines.
On studying one of these chundries one is struck by the immense amount of labor expended in the tying process. The knots which form the pattern make, frequently, as many as twenty-five or thirty to the running inch, and each one is tied so tightly around the cloth, folded so as to form four thicknesses, and drawn or pressed out into loops, that it completely protects the part it covers from the dyestuff, only the tip of the loop remaining exposed. Hence, when it is untied, there results a small circular or rectangular ring not over three-quarters of an inch in diameter. To obtain a surface around which the string can be thus tightly tied, the folded cloth is evidently pressed out from the back by a thin pin or spike (the effect can be produced by tying a thin piece of cloth tightly around a wooden toothpick) around which the thread can be tightly drawn and knotted, and which usually is left in during the dyeing process and taken out afterwards.
The patterns are so elaborate, and yet are repeated over and over again, on the same chundries, with such regularity, that it is probable that some simple apparatus is used to press out the cloth in exactly the proper places. This could be done by using a little frame with holes in it, into which pins of wood or ivory could be set, like the markers in a cribbage board, for instance, forming definite figures on which piece after piece of cloth could be placed and pressed out into shape.
FIG. 4—SAME CHUNDRI AS IN FIG. [3], UNTIED AND SHAKEN OUT
The most interesting thing, after all, about these extraordinarily elaborate pieces of handicraft work is the fact that this vast amount of time and labor is expended upon such poor materials. The muslin of which they are made is so thin and poor that considerable pains must be taken in opening them, to prevent their tearing from the strain of pulling off the knots of fine thread. Then, too, the colors as a rule not only are fugitive to sunlight, but are easily affected by washing. Two minutes scrubbing in hot soapsuds will almost completely efface the pattern and color from some of the most elaborate and beautiful of them all. And this is not, as is claimed frequently by modern writers upon Eastern handicrafts, due to the introduction of cheap and fugitive “aniline” dyestuffs. The dyes, used for generations by the Rajput craftsmen, for their most elaborate chundries, were principally tumeric, safflower, and other inferior vegetable colors, applied so loosely as to be merely stains rather than dyes—and it would be hard to get modern dyestuffs which, applied with any care, would be as fugitive as those commonly used for the very best examples of these beautiful textiles.
Tied Work in the Philippines.—Of different quality is the work of the Bagobo tribe in Mindanao, interesting specimens of which are to be seen in the Philippine collection of the New York Museum of Natural History. As shown in Fig. [5], a headdress belonging to Miss Laura Benedict, the work is not unlike that done by the ancient Peruvians, and the patterns, although often exceedingly complex, are invariably geometrical, and do not approach in variety or in interest those from India. The coloring, too, is far simpler—practically all the examples showing light patterns on a dull purplish background. But the dyeing is most carefully and thoroughly made—taking about thirty days to complete, dyeing each night and washing thoroughly each morning during all that time, until the final product is exceedingly permanent to both light and washing.
Miss Benedict, who was the first white person to enter the Bagobo country and study and report on their handicrafts, states that the patterns are made in a curious manner. The pattern is first outlined upon the cloth by a series of basting stitches, the intersection of two stitches being the mark for the centre of one of the tied places. Then the operator, seated, puts over her big toe a ring attached to a line some three feet long, on the end of which is a simple hook made from a bent and sharpened piece of copper or brass wire. Holding the cloth in one hand, she then fastens the hook into one of the marked places, pulls the part out with her foot, and ties up the loop thus formed, rapidly and tightly, with waxed thread. This she winds round and round the loop, beginning with the bottom first, and knots it tight, using the free hand, assisted, except with very expert workers, with the thumb and forefinger of the other.
Specimens of textiles thus tied, and not yet dyed or opened, and also of the toe-ring, line, and hook used in the process, can be seen at the Museum, along with a great variety of beautiful specimens of the finished work.
FIG. 5—BAGOBO HEADDRESS FROM THE ISLAND OF MINDANAO
It is rare that, in our present surroundings, any craftsman can spare the time and patience to copy the elaborate patterns made in these ways by the Eastern dyers. But equally beautiful and interesting results can be produced with very little expenditure of time and labor, by the skilful dyer, who knows something of the fundamental principles of design and can use his dyes so as to get soft and beautiful as well as permanent color effects. It is impossible, in a work like this, to do more than suggest some of the many ways in which this process can be used. The rest depends entirely upon practice—and more can be learned about its possibilities in a couple of hours’ work with muslin or cheesecloth, and a ball of twine or tape, in connection with a dye-pot of a good Sulphur dye, than by weeks of listening or reading about it.