download - OATG. Oxford Asian Textile Group

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cotton and natural dyes, so that the quality of the weaving does not deteriorate in the face of
commercial pressures. Her work on the island is encouraging the islanders to value their textile
traditions, so that while the museum collection preserves actual examples of the weaving, she
hopes that her intervention will help to sustain weaving itself.
Savunese weaver at work. This loom and the part-woven textile on it were collected for the Horniman
and are on display in the current exhibition.
All the textiles in the exhibition have been made in the traditional way and using
traditional patterns. This is important, because the patterns are associated with particular
families and their histories. Particular patterns, made using the ikat technique, can only be
worn by people of certain lines of descent, traced in this instance down the female line.
According to legend, everyone on the island is descended from two sisters, who lived some
forty generations ago, and who quarrelled over their weaving. To settle the quarrel, materials
were divided between them. The older sister took the largest number of areca nuts, creating
the ‘Greater Blossom’ descent group; the younger sister had only what was left and her
descendants belong to the ‘Lesser Blossom’ group. However, the older sister, in taking her
share of the indigo dye vat first, left her sister with the lower part, which contained the
greatest concentration of dye. Her textiles were characterised by a rich, midnight blue. Since