ID Number

Title

Item Name

Culture

Material

Manufacturing Technique

Place Made

Date Collected

Date Owned

Owner

Acquisition Date

Source

Source

Measurements

Item Classes

Condition

Accession Number

Cultural Context

everyday

Iconographic Meaning

The embroidered forms are stylized representations of elephants, birds, butterflies and flowers, the natural life abundant in the area of the Naga Hills.

History Of Use

This shawl is representative of the woven and embroidered cloths used in Nagaland. Naga shawls have at least one common feature, they are usually three pieces of separately woven cloth sewn together. Traditionally, there was little time for the production of such cloth for market purposes, therefore, women created them for family use only. The cotton was brought into Nagaland and woven by hand on a loin loom. For the embroidery, cotton yarns are purchased in the markets. Formerly cloths of this style were used as shawls (chaddars) but are now produced for outside sale as bedspreads.

Description

Long rectangular shawl made of three rectangular strips of hand woven black cotton cloth machine stitched together to make one large cloth. There are stylized designs hand embroidered in darning stitch, depicting various sizes of elephant, butterfly, bird and flower-like forms in purple, white, orange and green. Decorative pulled thread open-work border at each end.