Chin Burma Shoulder Cloth

I bought this Chin textile from a Singapore textile antquie dealer.  It has beads and silver bell at both ends of the shoulder cloth.  It can be used as a throw, table runner or rug or hung up on a textile hanger.


The textiles of the Chin peoples of western Myanmar (Burma) are of extreme high quality and intricacies.

Textiles play a central role in Chin social life, illustrating an individual's success in achieving merit in this life and the next through worldly activities such as hosting feasts and bagging big game.

For the Chin, textiles signal the status of the wearer in several ways, playing their most dramatic role in the core Chin effort to achieve merit in this life and the next. Chin peoples have traditionally strived to distinguish themselves from their peers through accomplishments in hunting, war, wealth accumulation and feast giving. The textiles made and worn by the Chin announce those accomplishments through specific patterns reserved for the meritorious.

Chin weavers use a simple backstrap loom in which the warp is circular and continuous. They used
homegrown cotton, "flax" or hemp, often dyed with indigo or other locally produced natural dyes. The\Chin repertoire of weaving structures is broad and varies by division. Some of the more important structures employed by the Chin are warp-faced plain weave, weft-faced plain weave, twill, 1-faced supplementary weft patterning, 2-faced supplementary weft patterning, false embroidery and weft twining - an ancient textile structure that predates the use of heddles (the sets of parallel cords that compose the harness to guide warp threads in a loom).

http://www.huliq.com/4046/landmark-exhibition-of-asian-textiles-at-the-textile-museum