When art meets wants

24 February 2010

Weaving has helped Radhipas cultivate their fields.

The tradition of weaving buray (silk) clothes and growing rice has become mutually supportive activities in Radhi Gewog in Trashigang. The two have become interdependent.

Farmers from Khudumpang village said weaving buray clothes is not only an alternative source of income, but also indispensable without which paddy cultivation is not possible.

According to Ngawang, a farmer from Khudumpang, some farmers weave buray clothes to earn money to hire farmhands during paddy cultivation in summer. Some, he said, weave to pay debts.

Poor farmers borrow money from well-off neighbours during paddy cultivation to pay farmhands and buy paddy seedlings. “The borrowers usually repay the debt in the form of labour during winter by weaving buray clothes,” he said.

The weavers are paid Nu 750 for a piece of buray cloth. The weaver earns Nu 2,600 for weaving a gho and Nu 2,250 for a kira. Three and a half pieces of cloths make a gho and three pieces, a kira.

Plain buray gho and kira are sold for somewhere between Nu 7,000 and Nu 7,500 and those with patterns between Nu 10,000 and Nu 12,000.

Villagers in the handloom business make a profit of Nu 30, 000 to Nu 40, 000 annually. The income, however, depends on the number and experience of weavers. An experienced weaver can weave a plain gho in 20 days and one with patterns in around 30 days.

The villagers said they make a profit of around Nu 1,500 from selling a gho or a kira.

“The profit from the sale of buray clothes is little,” said Samten Yeshi from Tsangkhar. “But it is worth working during the idle winter.”

The villagers from Khudumpang and Tsangkhar rely on handloom business to supplement their income. Even if the profit is less, villagers weave to make enough money to pay wages for paddy cultivation.

According to the villagers, weaving buray clothes in the community started hundreds of years ago when the people paid textile taxes. Since then, weaving became a vibrant culture passed down from generation to generation in the community. Even today, parents ensure that their daughters pick up weaving skills by the age of 15.

According to elderly villagers, in olden days, the people of Radhi wove clothes called kamthama using cotton yarn. During those days, the government supplied seeds for cotton plantation.

Later, weavers switched over to baaha (a silkworm nests) which was spun into buray kutpa or raw silk yarn to weave clothes.

The government started a silk house in Phomshing in Trsahigang Dzongkhag when buray was first brought into the dzongkhag. Buray kutpa was spun at the house and distributed to villagers.

Later, readymade buray kutpa became available in the market. It was when silk worm rearing stopped.

By Tempa Wangdi

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