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