​​Pherri and Challi: Reviving the Traditional Flat Weaves of the Nomads from the Changthang Plateau

By 
Catherine Allié

The sounds of sheep, yak, and goats are present everywhere, the smell of fire is all around us. Windy often, we find ourselves high in the Himalayas in the Indian region Ladakh with the nomads of Kharnak. The Kharnakpa (Those of the Black Fort) people of Kharnak, is a nomadic community of the Changthang Plateau in Ladakh, bordering Tibet in the East. Their territory lies in midst of dry mountains, spotted with bits of grass and roots for the animals to eat. It is a very barren landscape one would not expect thousands of animals to live. However, the Kharnak people have stayed there with their yaks, sheep, and goats for centuries.

Rebo: the black tent

We observe the use of animal products everywhere – the milk we drink, the meat we eat, the carpet we sit on, the tent we stay in, and the bags the shepherds wear. This strong tie of the local raw materials is unusual in today’s age and fascinating. A very special focus of ours is on the wool of the hundreds of animals each family keeps, especially the very warm sheep wool, lambswool, and the extraordinary yak wool. 

The group of settled nomad weavers we work with setting up two warps for the traditional textile “Pherri”

It is a very natural phenomenon that cultural traditions change throughout the decades and centuries, even more with increasing progress. What we observe in Kharnak is that the use and thus making of certain textiles disappear. Textiles such as lug sgal (saddlebags for sheep and goats) and outdoor blankets as well as storage bags find less use nowadays. Back in the day, saddlebags were used for yaks, sheep, and goats to transport the belongings of the nomads as they shifted the location. Nowadays, these moves are done by truck/car.  Therefore the woven saddlebags made from sheep wool lost their purpose. 

Lug-sgal with locally made felt (phying-ba) stitched on the corners with the striped pattern “yud”

Challi , outdoor blanket woven from goat and yak hair

Tsug den – tsug-ches (attaching to the land), den (mattress)

Our efforts as a local social enterprise working with nomads and settled nomads are the reviving and weaving of exactly those textiles using the original raw materials which were always entirely handspun and local. The majority of nomadic textiles woven nowadays for the interior is the “tsug den”, a pile weave made from sheep wool and yak wool. We can see that in recent decades, also nylon fibers dyed with bright colors are used as well as machine-spun cotton yarn for the warp. The use of these non-local materials is specially made by settled nomads who have settled in the suburbs of Leh, the capital of the Leh region of Ladakh. 

Weaving the design of tubji (square) in the pile weave for a tsug den

Details of Tsug den with traditional design

Tsug den made from yak wool and sheep wool depicting the traditional arrangement of 4 "mentok" (flower) symbols

Tsug den made from yak wool and sheep wool depicting the new take on a more abstract design with 7 smaller "flowers"

A tsug den made in our team, the design and size slightly adjusted to the traditional way

Tsug den woven from sheep wool, with the traditional “mentok” (flower design) and the traditional size

 Pherri 

I would like to present a small selection of less common flat weaves of the Kharnak nomads which have often not been made for decades. A very interesting textile is the “pherri” – a heavy blanket mostly made from yak wool as well as sheep wool. It is a twill flatweave, using thick yarn in the weft. The motifs created in the weft are very minimalistic and carry names such as “lug mik/lug mig” – the sheep’s eye and “resso”. Of the latter we have not been able to find the original meaning, even some of our weavers who spent the majority of their lives in Kharnak do not know its literal meaning. Our team has woven a couple of pherris, both in yak wool and sheep wool. It is definitely very useful in the freezing Ladakhi winters but rather used as a carpet in a modern home. 

The weaving of a “pherri” and the different yarns for the weft in the bowls

Stitching the ends of the “pherri” consisting of 7 panels

A “pherri” woven from yak wool with designs of naturally dyed sheep wool created in March 2020

​Challi 

A style of the flat weave that has been used for various items such as outdoor blankets, saddlebags, storage bags, and shepherd’s bags is a flat weave for which the motif is created in the warp. The same motifs as in the “pherri” appear in this textile, the outdoor blanket is called “challi”.  Traditionally it has been made from “ral”, the coarse hair of the pashmina goat. In order to make it fit for the modern home we have replaced the “ral” with sheep wool, some of it naturally dyed with local plants. Like this, it is a very light carpet useful for every climate. As a next project, we are weaving the original style of the “challi” using the goat’s hair, a textile destined for the outdoors. 

Warp for a “challi”, naturally dyed with madder, lac, and marigold,

A close-up of the final woven textile

This is only a short summary of the  Kharnakpa textiles and touches some of the more common textiles. The textile world of the Kharnakpa is worth exploring as it also consists of items such as ropes, slingshots, yak wool/hair tents, and many more. Our enterprise We are KAL aims to share more of the rich textile art of these nomadic tribes with the world and pass on the skills of these textiles. 

Credits for all the images : We Are KAL

Acknowledgment: We acknowledge the support of all the weavers, spinners, and nomadic herders from Changthang Plateau who helped us to understand the nuances of the traditional weaves and the various products of the wool.

24/04/2021

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Catherine Allié | Founder

Catherine Allié is the founder of the textile company We are KAL. Together with her partner Tsering Angtak, who was born and partly brought up in Kharnak in the 1980s and 1990s, they have settled in Ladakh. Here they spend most of the time and work between Ladakh and Germany.