Aboriginal Women’s Speechless Communication

Economic and social subordination and the absence of political representation characterize the living conditions of women. Part of the living conditions are the “conditions of the expression”, those that are latent in daily verbal or nonverbal language as well as in the codes of mass media. In this sense, the silence of women can be simultaneously from various perspectives. One of these is that a non-verbal language expressed in the domestic environment compensates verbal silence.

Aboriginal women have engaged in individual and collective projects of recovering historical memory. Communication in this context represents a strategic venue for struggling against the silence of a community’s ethnic and cultural dynamics, with memory, speaking, and writing providing the space for the creation of group alternatives and the drafting of an oppositional agency. Indian Tribal Women and their communities maintain the connection between the past and the present at the grassroots: their quilts for example have sustained a culturally distinctive tradition and an alternative grassroots communication.

Embroidery- is the needlecraft, which has been passed on for generations by “the needle painters”- from mother to daughter and is largely a “dowry” tradition. The pastoral tribe’s mainstay for the women has been embroidery. Very often, the embroidery traditions in each region point to communities, and reveal caste identities, status and the village of its origin. There is a universal thread running through the entire fabric, a passion for creative expression, for beauty and for traditional continuity. It covers historical perspectives, regional expressions, pastoral and nomadic traditions.

Quilts, simply stated, are both objects and a means of warmth and comfort. Whereas Euro-American generally makes a distinction between art and craft between display and use, African-American art is often a functional part of everyday life like the Indians. African-American quilts possess a multiplicity of value even further in their illustrative significance of sociopolitical communication systems identified within a visual vocabulary of patterns chosen by quilter herself.

The Euro-American quilter frequently signed her quilts by stitching her name and the date the piece was completed into the top corner of the quilt. The signature of an African-­American slave woman, who under slavery was denied her birth name along with any other public expression of her individuality, was expressed through an assemblage of color and pattern encoded with ritual, ancestry, and individual creativity. In African-American quilts off-­beat patterns are created when the strips of contrasting bright colors are juxtaposed in asymmetrical patterns, causing the colors to clash visually, or hit each other.

If we look at the quilt as a community, with each piece functioning individually while simultaneously being part of the whole, we can see that the quilt, like jazz, is a democratic ensemble. The figures include fish, people and houses, biblical scenes, biblical scenes are accompanied by patterns that illustrate meteorological events that occurred during and before her lifetime. They are visual testimonies, each carrying a message to those of her own era and of the generations following that speaks of community support, personal strength, and religious belief. Various African-American women’s clubs have collectively produced quilts as a means of documenting specific historical events or a celebrating personal or community achievement.

Contemporary gallery exhibitions of African-American quilts have continued tostimulate discussion and historical and artistic appreciation. “Stitching Memories: African-­American Story Quilts”, a travelling exhibition organized by William College Museum of Art, distributed a flyer to patrons that distinguished six types of story quilts that were made with the applique technique:

“Wrapping Home Around Me” quilt refers to some one’s home. “Articles of Faith” quilts, depict biblical stories. “Histories”, quilts tell stories of both United States and African-American history. “Family Stories” quilts recall after-dinner family gatherings. “Fabrications” quilts show fictional narratives written by the quilters. “Womanist”, quilts tell the stories of personal achievement. Patterned quilts have a uniform motif repeated across the surface of the quilt and that bear traditional name like Log Cabin, Basket of Flowers, and Wild Goose were also included.

The Indian Tribal textiles almost always demonstrate the identity of the community. Border designs and colors used for sarongs or shawls define the village of the tribe. Motifs in the northeast symbolize mountains, streams, houses, snakes, birds or a temple. Designed priests wear specific colors on ritual occasions. There are ways of differentiating between a shawl woven by a hill tribe and a plains tribe and the chieftain’s shawl is always distinct. Sometimes shawls are woven by one tribe and embroidered by women in another tribe, as among the Dongrias and Damas in Orissa. The use of the colors symbolizes forest, fertility, unity and peace, gods and the sacrifices of animals.

Artifacts such as cattle belts, buttermilk chums, spice grinders, blanket, Jewellery, totems, garments and votive articles have the unmistakable imprint of community identification. It is only after these serve their basic purpose, whether ritualistic or utilitarian that they become crafts for the marketplace. A better understanding of their skills and offerings to the composite culture of India will help in preserving the true value of these crafted objects.

The delicate art of the ledra which means “waste clothes” is a source of tribal inspiration, maternal strength and spirituality. Yet it also draws attention to the cultural economic and environmental crisis wrought on tribal communities by technological development.

On textiles across the country the motif is worked on cotton, silk and wool. In the coastal areas such as Orissa and Bengal, the fish is a much-loved design. The ikkat weave of Orissa employs it in the pallus and borders of the Sambalpur and Paripada saris and in the sari text as well. So too in Bengal, where the Dhonekhali can have rows of fish running across in horizontal stripes throughout the text.

In Andhra Pradesh, the fish worked as gold motifs surface on the pallus of the fine cotton Venkatagiris. Kalamkari is another famous craft of painted and printed fabrics in Andhra Pradesh. It derives its name from Kalam or pen with which the patterns are traced. It is an art form that developed both for decoration and religious ornamentation. The discovery of a resist-dyed piece of cloth on a silver vase at the ancient site of Harappa confirms that the tradition of Kalamkari is very old. Even the ancient Buddhist Chaitya Viharas were decorated with Kalamkari cloth. The great Alexander is also supposed to have acquired this Kalamkari cloth. With their roots in temple rituals Kalamkari cloth also followed the old tradition of religious mural paintings. Craftsmen painted the narratives of religious legends from which people learnt the stories of their gods. Bards recited verses describing these episodes, using the paintings as illustrations. Richly displayed episodes from the Puranas and mythological material form the themes.

The waves, the fish, the swan, the lily and even the crocodile have found representation in a continual thread from the Indus Valley civilization to the present.

If the river personified as a beautiful female form is portrayed on stone by the sculptor, the undulation of her waves has inspired the weaver and craftsman. Chief among these is the lovely design of the leheria (waves), of the Rajasthani textile idiom. Favored as monsoon wear in the desert region, they bring memories of cool dancing streams at all times to minds weary of a parched landscape.

Typical of Jodhpur, Udaipur and Jaipur, the Leheria’s traditional blend of colors are five - Pancharanga - or seven - Satranga. Headwear fit for royalty! And it was truly a prized item in the wardrobe of Rajput princes.

Stripes that owe their origin to the river are also found in tribal weaves. In Assam and Manipur, the loom is wielded with such an unerring eye for symmetry and impact, that white and red or maroon alternate in striking patterns on the wool and cotton. Weave and embroidery complement each other in the designs of the phanyeks or lungis, which the women wear. The stunning black borders are embellished with embroidered fish, circles and flowers.

The earliest incarnation of the Lord in Hindu religious belief is logically from the waters where life began. The auspicious Matsya brings progeny, riches and food.

The popularity of the aqua symbol is not confined to the coasts. In interior North Bihar, thrifty rural women sew together discarded saris into quilts. Then with needle and thread, they create magical embroidery called the Sujuni on the cloth, which makes it vibrantly new. Flowers and trees, birds and bees spring up and so too the curved form of the fish.

The Nakshi Kantha or embroidered quilt is typically Bengali. These are still to be found in various parts of Bengal. Fairdpur, Rajshahi and Jessore are famous for the embroidery made by village women using layers of old saris with the colorful threads taken out from the seams or borders of the simple everyday saris woven by the local weavers.
The lotus is the most enduring aqua symbol in Indian philosophy and art. Synonymous with perfection, it is the peetam (pedestal) of Lakshmi, Saraswati and the Buddha. The lotus blooms everywhere in Indian craft - on Kalamkari, ikkat and Kanchipuram textiles and its many petals and seeds represent fertility.

The Rajasthani bandhini, the colorful and elaborate tie-and-dye process employs this symbol of fertility.

Professor Victoria Rivers, Department of Environmental Design, University of California, explained the “Layers of Meaning, Embellished Cloth for Body and Soul”, linking it with surface ornamentation on textiles, conveying powerfully, relationships with ancestors, gods and spirits.

‘Stitches’ help express feelings, experiences, says Judith Smith. Women across the globe express their feelings about violence and war through their domestic arts.

During a meeting of PC (USA) mission pastors, Susan Ryan, coordinator of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, displayed one of the Afghan quilts. She pointed out the red stitching that holds the quilt together. “This red thread makes me think of the blood of Christ,” she said, “the true thread of hope.” The Afghan quilt project is life sustaining for the present and a gift of hope for the future.

Of all the discrete collections MSU Museum’s quilt collections perhaps the most important is the collection of North American Indian and native Hawaiian quilts. Several museums have one or a few samples of native quilts. A handful of museums have quilts specializing in the quilts of one culture or tribe.  Perhaps the chief reasons for quilters not being known to outsiders were that it is an art form that has appeared so extensively in everyday life and that it was primarily the result of indigenous cultural contact with outsiders. Considered commonplace and perceived firmly tied to a European rather than a native artistic tradition, quilts, unlike other native arts, were historically not collected or studied as items of ethnographic, aesthetic, or marketplace value. In addition, most quilts made within native communities were made for everyday use; even those made and given in ceremonies were intended for everyday use. Thus, there are few extant historical quilts in either private or public collections.

Traditional motifs are receding into the past, and sadly these women cannot recall the significance of these motifs. To quote Dr. Jyotindra Jain, “is ethnicity so frozen in the past, or is it a transforming reality with a contemporary face? If this fact is considered, we can consider craft as part of an evolution and will emerge from the close circle of bias”.