Cyber Ethiopia

Continuing our examination of traditional Ethiopian handicraft technology, we turn this week to weaving: Weaving, in traditional Ethiopia, was carried out with the aid of a simple but efficient loom, which we must now consider. The Traditional Ethiopian Loom Two stakes perhaps as high as a man would be struck in the ground a metre and a half or so apart and would be kept firm by the attachment of a third piece of wood or pole which would be tied to the top of the two vertical posts thus joining them together. Towards each end of the horizontal pole a string made of wool was lowered to subtend a thin piece of wood, perhaps a span long. which served as a kind of balance from each end

of which other strings were lowered to hold a couple of weaver's reeds or combs. These latter were made of a couple of long thin horizontal pieces of wood or cane joined together by innumerable strings between which the weft passed. If you do not follow the above account - and are not reading this essay far away on a distant web site, dear Reader, you should visit the Ethnological Museum of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, in Addis Ababa University's Siddist Kilo campus, and see the loom there for yourself! And even of you are away, beloved Reader, there is such a thing as ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES, which can fly you to Addis Ababa from even the most distant of lands! But to continue! From Each Weaver's Reed... From each weaver's reed, a string or thong led down to a kind of stirrup made of a single flat piece of wood upon which the weaver's foot was placed, a peddling motion of his feet causing shedding, i.e. the two weaver's reeds to rise and fall alternately. Also subtended from the horizontal pole was a somewhat stronger weaver's reed made of a couple of long horizontal beams joined at frequent intervals by horizontal bars of thin twig like pieces of wood or cane. This latter reed would be pulled backwards for beating-up, i.e. to strike the weft threads into their appointed position in the fabric. Parallel to the above mentioned equipment, and perhaps a metre behind it, a couple of smaller vertical stakes would be erected also about a metre and a half apart, upon which would be fixed a second horizontal pole. This pole acted as a kind of roller on which the woven thread would be taken up, i.e. gradually wound as the work proceeded. To prevent the material from unwinding, the upright pole nearest the weaver's right hand would be so shaped or carved as to be able to fit into one of a series of holes cut in the corresponding end of the roller. As more and more cloth was woven the weaver would wind up the roller, always securing its subsequent immobility by means of the aforesaid locking device. Stuck in the Ground Three other stakes were also stuck in the ground to hold the warp. The largest and strongest would be placed several metres in front of the loom, a second considerably smaller stake would be some metres to its right, while the third, usually smaller again, would be immediately beside the loom on the weaver's right. The warp thread would originate near the smallest stake to which it would be tied and be let off or released every now and then by the weaver. The thread, which was so placed as to form something of a circle, then passed round the two remaining stakes before entering the loom on the side opposite the weaver. By this simple expedient the warp was kept always tight and never allowed to sag. The shuttle, which was about a span long, was made of wood and shaped like a hollow canoe. In this canoe the bobbin--a simple piece of bamboo--was fitted horizontally by means of a thin reed which ran through it in such a way as to prevent it from falling out while at the same time allowing it to rotate and the thread to unwind. From the bobbin the thread passed out of the shuttle by means of a small hole cut in one of its sides. Feet on the Ground The weaver, who would be sitting on the ground with his feet in a specially dug hole perhaps two feet deep, would thus use both his feet and his hands. This, dearest Reader, cannot be replicated in the Ethnological Museum, or else you might fall from the First Floor into the Ground Floor! But again to continue: Peddling By a peddling motion of his feet the weaver will raise and lower the two weaver's reeds alternately thus shedding the warp threads, while with his hands he could throw the shuttle from side to side, beat up the weft with the third weaver's reed, and from time to time release some of the warp at his right and roll the woven material on the roller immediately in front of him. The loom, in traditional Ethiopia, would invariably be used in the open air, usually only a few yards from the weaver's house, and at nightfall when the work came to an end the weaver would probably take up his stakes, and then roll the warp around them. The whole contraption would then be replaced in its former position at daybreak. An Inferior, Not to Say Despised Occupation Weaving, as we have seen in previous articles, was traditionally considered an inferior, not to say despised, occupation. It was often in the hands of non-Christian Amhara peoples: Muslims in Tegray and Bagemder, Falashas, or Judaic Ethiopians, in the Gondar-Lake Tana area, and Oromos in certain parts of Shawa. Slow and Painstaking Work Production was inevitably a slow and painstaking affair. The English traveller Henry Salt, writing of Adwa early in the nineteenth century, says that the typical Christian weaver produced every year only three dresses of fine cloth, each of which was worth perhaps 12 Maria Theresa thalers. Muslim weavers, he claims, generally made more, but of a cheaper and inferior quality. Almost a century later, Dr Merab, the Georgian pharmacist and long-time Addis Ababa resident Dr. Merab estimated that Addis Ababa weavers, who worked all day, turned out about a thaler's worth of cloth every three or four days and obtained a quarter of a thaler's profit on every thaler's worth of cloth. Dyes Ethiopian dyes, in the past, were usually made by the maceration of leaves, barks, fruits and above all roots, though minerals were also sometimes used. Dr Merab, one of the few observers to discuss these traditional dyes, states that the most widely used were the red obtained from the root of the Gushered (lmpatients tinctoria), the orange from the leaves and bark of the Keret (Osyris abyssinica), and the yellow from the flowers of the Suf, or safflower (Carthamus tinctorious). The keret, which was used in the dying, not only of cloth. but also of skids and gourds, was largely used by Muslims, while Gushered and Suf tended to be preferred by the Christians. Utilisation of Local and Imported Textiles The production of cotton cloth was based, for at least the last two centuries, on the utilisation of both local and imported cotton. The ratio between the two was by no means constant. Once upon a time, of course, production had been based entirely on local cotton which long remained far more important than that imported from abroad. The first penetration of foreign thread seems to have been due to the difficulty of obtaining fast locally made dyes for the coloured borders of the shamma, or traditional toga-like dress. "Round-about Production" This problem was met at least as early as the late eighteenth-century by the imports of coloured cloth which was unraveled - this is what economists might term "round-about production" on any showing! This was done to obtain the coloured thread required for weaving coloured borders. The weaver thus used a warp of local material but at least some imported thread as weft, for the borders. This practice was widespread throughout most of the nineteenth century. At the Red Sea port of Massawa the use of imported cotton was even more advanced. The British naval Captain Weatherhead noted in 1810 that before weaving the cloth it was common practice at that time to add locally grown cotton, the latter being of a superior quality, and hence more costly. The Threat of Factory-Produced Imports The increase in textile imports during the nineteenth century inevitably subjected local production, on some parts of the country at least, to strong competition. Thus by the 1880's the Austrian Philipp Paulitischke found that the import of cotton cloth from India and America had thrown the once famous cotton industry of the walled city of Harar in the doldrums, and that handicraft industry had been virtually destroyed in the surrounding countryside. Professional weavers, with their "primitive", i.e. traditional, looms could still be seen, Paulitischke adds, but they were becoming rarer and rarer, and weavers, he claims, were by then quite willing to dispense with their looms. The local peasantry, he adds, had little knowledge of the real causes of their predicament: being unacquainted with the wide world and the Industrial Revolution there going on they put the blame on improved security in the Somali area and the consequent greater facility of import. foreign textiles. The decay of local handicrafts was much slower in the interior of the country where foreign competition was limited by often tortuous transport difficulties, the. restricted growth of a market economy, and the undeniable preference for local manufactures, particularly as far as the gossamer-like shamma was concerned. At the close of the nineteenth century this traditional garment was still mainly made at home. The British traveller Augustus B. Wylde reported in 1900 that "all shammas are made of locally grown cotton," while a British consular report for 1905-6 noted that "native woven shammas are of a finer quality and more lasting than the imported." The tendency, as we shall see. was to employ imported cloth in the manufacture, for example, of trousers while sticking to local production of the shamrna. In the remoter areas, however, very little imported cloth of any kind penetrated. Thus in 1900 a British official, J. L. Baird, reported that at Debra Marqos, in Gojjam, he had seen "hardly any but native woven cloth".