Loom Design/Loomates/Arunachal Pradesh >> | Seven Sister States
Arunachal Pradesh (अरुणाचल प्रदेश) is one of the Seven Sister States of Northeast-India, where you find a great range of Austro-asiatic loin loom cultures.
The "Phang Thak" of Arunachal Pradesh
It's a Bhutan-type of Phang Thak, that seems to be older than the early Bhutan-type, or it is just another version. It may even be found in Bhutan, but actually there is no record of that! Similar to the early Bhutan-type it has just a frame, and comes with no seat nor platform, nor any stands or feet. So someway how a type of stilt loom with a circular warp.
Instead of the two warp beams, it needs for the triangular shaping of the warp, this Arunachal version got plenty of warp beams from up to down each 10 cm or similar on its vertical rack. The warp gets led through them on zigzag, what strengthen the tension.
On top this version may give us an abstract inspiration of how a first loin loom could once have been invented by a plain vertical carpet loom-type; even that isn't true! But mountains' already high here in Arunachal Pradesh, so we're touching the sky: Fed up of standing all day long while weaving, the weaver sat down onto the floor and pulled a part of the warp at the lower end out of the vertical frame and connected it by a breast beam to her waist. And as she succeeded her descendants are still going on with that manner....
LOOM:DESIGN
