By: Michael C. Howard

A variety of peoples living in Vietnam have traditions of weaving Ikat patterned textiles, both warp Ikat and weft Ikat. Essentially there are two traditions: 1) northwestern Vietnam among certain Tai-speaking groups and 2) central and southern Vietnam where they are associated with the lowland Cham and several neighboring highland peoples.

Warp Ikat

 

The warp Ikat technique is clearly the older of the two and I will deal with it first. Wrap Ikat refers to a resist-dyeing process by which the warp threads are patterned prior to weaving. In their important surveys of Southeast Asian textiles, both Fraser-Lu (1988: 42) and Maxwell (1990: 75) indicate that they believe warp Ikat weaving to be of great antiquity in Southeast Asia, and they associate it with some of the oldest weaving traditions in the region.

While Bϋhler (1942: 1606) argued in a pioneering article that warp Ikat weaving probably originated in eastern Indonesia (also see Loebr 1903: 45), later writers have tended to look elsewhere for its origins. Jayakar (1955) argued that, although some form of simple Ikat weaving was probably previously known in Indonesia, the influence of Indian Ikat weaving led to a significant refinement of the technique.

 

Pointing to how extensive warp Ikat weaving was in Indonesia and noting the widespread use of back-strap looms, Buhler (1959: 10-11) disputed the notion of dominant Indian influence.

Drawing heavily on Buhler's work and new evidence from various parts of the world, Jack Larsen and Bronwen and Garrett Solyom (Larsen 1976) re-analyzed the problem of the origin and diffusion of warp Ikat weaving. Citing old Chinese reports indicating that the warp Ikat technique "was not used by the Chinese themselves but by various non-Chinese tribes of present-day south and southwest China (Szechwan Province) and probably of the northern parts of mainland Southeast Asia," Larsen (1976: 135) then hypothesized that warp Ikat textiles were being produced in southern China by the sixth century CE and that the technique spread from these tribal cultures south into other parts of Southeast Asia and north and west through China, with India serving as a "secondary center for this diffusion." He thus moves the center of attention away from Indonesia and India to southern China. If Larsen is correct, and I believe that he is, this makes the study of Ikat weaving in southern China and adjacent regions of Southeast Asia especially important for understanding the origins and diffusion of warp Ikat weaving.

At present warp Ikat weaving in northern Vietnam is associated with two groups if Taispeaking peoples living in the northwestern corner of the country: the southern Thai of Hao Binh, Thanh Hoa, and Nghe An provinces.

Similar weaving traditions are found among Tai-speaking peoples living in neighboring areas of Laos as well.

Beeswax is the traditional material used to resist the dye, but it is now common to use strings of various sorts. At present warp Ikat patterning is found only on cloth used for women's tube skirts. The warp Ikat patterns found on such textiles are relatively simple, consisting essentially of small dashes.