In December 2022, mission lead Adil Iqbal and his crew went on their first discipline journey to the valley of Garam Chashma in Chitral, northwest Pakistan, to doc the preparation of wool for the weaving of the famend Chitrali shu cloth. Adil displays on the 2 weeks the crew spent in Garam Chashma, assembly particular person makers and understanding the methods of life inherent to the creation of Chitrali shu.
Garam Chashma is three hours by jeep from Chitral city. The observe highway is a rugged drive however well worth the wrestle. It led us to our discipline website, Royee, a distant village in Parabeg, a aspect valley of Garam Chashma. Royee has a tight-knit group of round 1000 inhabitants who had been engaged in shu manufacturing. Up to now, shu symbolised the essence of communal spirit and cooperation. Total villages would come collectively to help one another by each stage of the spinning and weaving course of, fostering a shared sense of gratification and accomplishment. Regrettably, this cherished craft is now endangered, with just a few households persevering with the follow.
My EMKP-funded mission crew contains analysis assistant Mansura Shams of the ladies’s cooperative ‘Kho & Kalashi’ in Chitral city and videographer Feroza Gulzar. For the reason that making of Chitrali shu spans totally different seasons, this time our focus was to doc the phases of pre-carding, carding, teasing and spinning. This journey opened a breadth of strategies utilized by the makers that I had not seen earlier than and that not one of the humanitarian initiatives aiming to avoid wasting this follow previously, have ever talked about.
“Documenting one thing that’s slowly vanishing offers a way of accomplishment”, Feroza mirrored. “I felt this whereas filming. Royee is secluded from the remainder of the world, offering peace when working there.” For us as outsiders, it was a privilege and signal of belief that the makers invited us to watch their work. The expertise pushed our notion of ‘understanding one thing’: we had been required to stability paying respect to the makers and being attentive to what they had been doing to grasp the frilly processes that occurred earlier than us, the data that drove them and the dexterity that just about instinctively guided the makers’ palms. There was a religious thoughtfulness and meditative high quality above and past every exercise. The collaboration and co-creation concerned within the making of shu impressed me to consider the method as a creative medium that expresses group spirit.
“In the course of the interviews, many senior artisans had been so keen about shu making and stated that they needed to hold the wool to their graves.”
– Mansura Shams, mission analysis assistant
I fondly bear in mind assembly the shu maker Janat Bibi on a visit two years in the past. She was delighted to see us once more on this journey and invited us into her home. We nestled across the fireplace and he or she reminisced about her childhood days. Like most shu makers, she is a shepherd, and her total life has been centred round wool, livestock and the mountains. As a younger woman, Janat Bibi watched her mother and father increase sheep to make shu. The native Kailey breed of sheep has particular worth, and nice status is hooked up to it. The sheep are reared within the highlands of Garam Chashma, and their delicate wool is changed into one of many best woollen supplies from the Hindukush area. Up to now, she says, there have been extra flocks of sheep within the village, however step by step many households have offered their livestock as youthful generations migrate to the cities for training and employment.
Janat Bibi recollects watching her mom mild the lantern each night, and he or she would help her elder sisters in sorting and carding the wool all night time. She acquired her abilities by practising and imitating her group elders. Her mom suggested and taught her to carry out the identical duties at her husband’s residence after marriage.
Promoting the shu supported her total household; it supplied their kids with fundamentals like rice and flour and helped them buy further meals provides similar to oil and tea. “Shu had a whole lot of barakat (prosperity)” defined Janat Bibi. “The revenue introduced positivity, well being and wellbeing to your complete household.”
Shu maker Bibi Nisa demonstrated pre-carding actions for us. She defined that it is very important deal with the fragile wool fastidiously proper from the start. Usually, there’s moisture and grease within the fibres. To assist it dry, white soil (puchuti) obtained from mushy and sandy rocks is sprinkled and combined with the wool. Bibi Nisa talked about that this process was performed collectively by a mom and daughter, making a particular bond. She recalled that regardless of the filth from the soil going into her eyes and mouth, she carried on, which taught her endurance and resilience.
We had been lucky to satisfy Sahib Nisa, who demonstrated for us the usage of a carding bow (dundini). It’s constructed from an area tree (pasteli) which grows close to the river. The wooden must have a selected weight and be stable and moist in order that it may be tied with a powerful nylon thread or string right into a bow. Sadly, no makers had been left within the village to hold out this expert process. Though new instruments similar to brush cutters and drum carders save time, Sahib Nisa emphasised that hand carding yields the very best quality shu. As she defined, through the carding course of, the fibres are intermixed, the wool thinned and ready into small balls. She additionally checks that the soil has been brushed out.
After being carded, the wool is stored in coated baskets (warketi) and distributed among the many girls of the household for teasing. A handful of woollen fibres being teased known as dappi. As soon as the teasing is completed, the wool known as pizhonu and handed on to the spinner. Sahib Nisa described how, “The method of carding (dundik) helped with my psychological well being. The woollen fibres, gently drifting into the ambiance, created tranquillity and tranquility.”
The warketi basket is constructed from the bark of a willow tree and stitched with conventional designs. Shu maker Khushtan shared a reminiscence that many ladies previously used to get a warketi as a present from their mothers-in-law. A bride’s process was to get by the wool and display her craft talent. She was incentivised by a necklace or a hoop hidden on the backside of the basket.
Khushtan additionally informed us concerning the significance of geeve, a social gathering to work as a bunch. The native girls used to come back collectively on the lengthy winter nights to card, tease and spin the wool. She remembered geeve as an thrilling occasion that united the group, accompanied by tales, jokes, songs, poems and meals. “The ladies would boil black beans (an area delicacy) from Gobor, a close-by village, and provides them to us; generally they used to make shupa halwa (a standard Chitrali dish constructed from wheat and walnuts).”
It was a inventive approach of constructing shu, the place craft making, play and ritual got here collectively. Janat Bibi recalled how, “Geeve supplied a novel alternative to the children to study collectively from expert aged girls along with their very own lecturers at residence.” Since males weren’t allowed within the geeve occasion, it gave the ladies extra freedom and an area to specific themselves. Sadly, geeve is not practised.
As this journey got here to an finish, the ladies shocked us with a particular present. They determined to get collectively and present us how this gathering would have been practised previously. The occasion was a bit bittersweet for the ladies because it introduced recollections of group coming collectively. Based on Bibi Nisa, geeve had many psychological advantages because it helped deal with loneliness through the lengthy winters and was a protected house for girls to assist one another.
We left wanting ahead to our subsequent discipline journey in Could 2023, which is able to deal with documenting the method of washing, shearing, warping and weaving.
