Variations in Resist Work.—The resist method has been discovered in many parts of the world, and has been carried out in many ways. In Java, for instance, a beautiful art was developed known as Batik, to be described later, in more detail. These people used, as a resisting medium, molten beeswax, which could be poured or painted on to the cloth wherever desired, and, according to whether it was applied hot or only just warm enough to be liquid, would protect the material covered, either wholly or partially, against the action of dyestuffs in a cold bath.
Less elaborate, but still very interesting processes are reported from many other quarters. As will be described in the next chapter the Japanese have long used a resist paste, to make white patterns against dark backgrounds with their stencils. In some of the Pacific Islands natives have learnt to make patterns by pressing pieces of cloth tightly between shells, as for instance the two halves of a clam shell, and then dyeing or staining around them. Other tribes learnt the trick of tying or sewing flat thin pieces of wood together, tightly compressing the cloth between them and thus preventing the dyestuff from reaching those parts of the goods when dyed later.
But the most common process, and one which is not only the simplest and easiest to carry out, but also offers to the skilful dyer an almost unlimited range of interesting and effective results, in color and design, is the so-called “Tied and Dyed Work.”
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.