In-Between Textiles, 1400-1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters 9789048556960

Table of contents :
Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
1. Subjectivities In-Between Early Modern Global Textiles
Part I Unhomeliness, Mimicry, and Mockery
2. Māori Textiles and Culture
3. Contesting Images
4. “A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance”
Part II The Material Enunciation of Difference
5. Textiles, Fashion, and Questions of Whiteness
6. Abolitionism and Kente Cloth
7. Dressing in the Deccan
8. “Rags of Popery”
Part III Identity Effects In-Between the Local and the Global
9. Globalising Iberian Moorishness
10. Tornasol Techniques as Cultural Memory
11. In-Between the Global and the Local
12. African Cotton : Cultural and Economic Resistance in Mozambique in the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Part IV Material Translation and Cultural Appropriation
13. Mediating Mediterranean Cultures
14. The Material Translation of Persian and Indian Carpets and Textiles in Early Modern Japan
15. Globalisation and the Manufacture of Tablet-Woven Sanctuary Curtains in Ethiopia in the Eighteenth Century
16. Cochineal and the Changing Patterns of Consumption of Red Dyes in Early Modern European Textile Industries
Archives, Libraries, and Museums (Abbreviations)
Select Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800

Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 A forum for innovative research on the role of images and objects in the late medieval and early modern periods, Visual and Material Culture, 1300-1700 publishes monographs and essay collections that combine rigorous investigation with critical inquiry to present new narratives on a wide range of topics, from traditional arts to seemingly ordinary things. Recognizing the fluidity of images, objects, and ideas, this series fosters cross-cultural as well as multi-disciplinary exploration. We consider proposals from across the spectrum of analytic approaches and methodologies. Series Editor Allison Levy is Digital Scholarship Editor at Brown University. She has authored or edited five books on early modern Italian visual and material culture.

In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800 Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters

Edited by Beatriz Marín-Aguilera and Stefan Hanß

Amsterdam University Press

The publication of this book is made possible by The Leverhulme Trust, the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester, and Churchill College (University of Cambridge).

Cover illustration: Tlingit armour with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Chinese coins. Museum Purchase, 1869. Image © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 69-30-10/2065 Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 908 6 978 90 4855 696 0 (pdf) e-isbn doi 10.5117/9789463729086 nur 685 © All authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.

For Amalia

“At a time when the fabric of democracy is rent by xenophobic zealotry, this outstanding volume provides us with the warp and woof of historical exchange and cultural co-existence. These enthralling essays engage with material practices of weaving across genres and geographies, displaying the travelling world of textiles as they record the shifting global communities of a ‘woven imaginary.’ Reading In-Between Textiles, brought to life the migratory memory of my mother’s Parsi garas: a traditional sari, commissioned in Bombay from Chinese sailors who offered her a range of silks and motifs, and brought her the sari, months later, when they docked again in Bombay harbor. Set out on this wondrous voyage of the woven world.” Homi K. Bhabha, Harvard University. “Ranging across five centuries, six continents, and an impressive range of fields, from chemistry-based technologies to ethnographic fieldwork, this broad collection of textile studies recovers the place of subalterns in history, and the varying meanings that early modern textiles took on depending on the communities that used them. Employing the concept of ‘in-betweenness,’ this volume includes the agency of the excluded and allows historians to move away from glorifying metropolitan ‘culture’ without a clear consciousness that it is a culture of imperialism.” Suraiya Faroqhi, Ibn Haldun University. “What happens when a material methodology is used to investigate subjectivities? This remarkable collection of sixteen essays considers the ways in which textiles and clothing serve to unlock the space ‘in-between,’ one of negotiation, translation, and sometimes subversion of identities. In this book early modern cloth, but also dress, embroideries, and carpets are interrogated to create a new conceptualization of the global. Here material exchange, cultural connections, and the encounters of ideas are woven together in a rich tapestry traversing the entire world.” Giorgio Riello, European University Institute Florence. “This pioneering volume offers sixteen case studies that consistently cross-fertilize Homi Bhabha’s postcolonial theory with the new history of material practices to show how dress and textiles produced difference and mimicry in cultural struggles that remade subjectivities in the early modern world. A remarkable feat and excellent read. Beautifully illustrated, incisive, and original, this book presents cutting-edge scholarship.” Ulinka Rublack, University of Cambridge.



Table of Contents

List of Illustrations

11

Acknowledgements 19 1. Subjectivities In-Between Early Modern Global Textiles Beatriz Marín-Aguilera and Stefan Hanß

21

Part I  Unhomeliness, Mimicry, and Mockery 2. Māori Textiles and Culture

57

3. Contesting Images

75

4. “A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance”

95

Adaptation, Transformation, and Manifestation in Early Aotearoa Catherine Smith

The Archaeology of Early Modern Textiles, Clothing, and Closures from Puritan New England Diana DiPaolo Loren

Enslaved Textile-Makings in Colonial Brazil and the Caribbean Robert S. DuPlessis

Part II  The Material Enunciation of Difference 5. Textiles, Fashion, and Questions of Whiteness

Racial Politics and Material Culture in the British World, c.1660–1820 Beverly Lemire

115

6. Abolitionism and Kente Cloth 139 Early Modern West African Textiles in Thomas Clarkson’s Chest Malika Kraamer

7. Dressing in the Deccan

Clothing and Identity at the Courts of Central India, 1550–1700 Marika Sardar

163

8. “Rags of Popery”

Dressing and Addressing the Material Culture of Disrupted Faith in Early Modern England Mary M. Brooks

185

Part III  Identity Effects In-Between the Local and the Global 9. Globalising Iberian Moorishness

205

10. Tornasol Techniques as Cultural Memory

219

11. In-Between the Global and the Local

241

12. African Cotton: Cultural and Economic Resistance in Mozambique in the Mid-Eighteenth Century

265

Japanese Visitors, Chinese Textiles, and Imperial Cultural Identity Javier Irigoyen-García

Andean Colonial Practices of Weaving Shimmering Cloth, and Their Regional Forebears Denise Y. Arnold

Silk in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Russia Victoria Ivleva

Luís Frederico Dias Antunes

Part IV  Material Translation and Cultural Appropriation 13. Mediating Mediterranean Cultures

285

14. The Material Translation of Persian and Indian Carpets and Textiles in Early Modern Japan

305

15. Globalisation and the Manufacture of Tablet-Woven Sanctuary Curtains in Ethiopiain the Eighteenth Century

327

Silk Embroidery and the Design of the Self in Early Modern Algiers Leyla Belkaïd-Neri

Yumiko Kamada

Michael Gervers and Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux

16. Cochineal and the Changing Patterns of Consumption of Red Dyesin Early Modern European Textile Industries

347

Archives, Libraries, and Museums (Abbreviations)

369

Select Bibliography

371

Ana Serrano

Index 379



List of Illustrations

Figure 1.1:

Left (a): Dalmatic, fourteenth-century Italy/Germany, Iranian cloth. © Victoria & Albert Museum, 8361-1863. Right (b): Tlingit armour with seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury Chinese coins. Museum Purchase, 1869. Image © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 69-30-10/2065.22 Figure 1.2: Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Nicolas Trigault in Chinese Costume, Antwerp, 1617. Drawing, 44.6 × 24.8 cm. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.222.24 Figure 1.3: Dutch-style pattern of Indian calicoes (top left) in a Japanese pattern book, no date. © National Diet Library, Tokyo, Ms. 1 v (わ753-2), Kowatari sarasa fu.27 Figure 1.4: Anon., petticoat panel, India (Coromandel Coast?), eighteenth century (third quarter). Cotton, painted resist and mordant, dyed. Total view and detail. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992.82.37 Figure 1.5: Aelbert Cuyp (circle), VOC Senior Merchant with His Wife and an Enslaved Servant, c.1650–1655. Oil on canvas. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-A-2350.39 Figure 1.6: Anon., Bankoku sōzu (萬國総圖), Nagasaki, 1671. Total view and detail. © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, Cod.jap. 4.42 Figure 1.7: Aboriginal Australian bag (twine, wool, human hair) containing pituri, South Gregory?, nineteenth century. © The Trustees of the British Museum London, Oc1897,-.635.43 Figure 1.8: Andrés Sánchez Galque, Portrait of Don Francisco de Arobe and His Sons Pedro and Domingo, Quito, 1599. 92 × 175cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, P04778. © Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado.45 Figure 1.9: Reza Abbasi, Young Portuguese Man, 1634. Watercolour, ink and gold on paper, 14.6 × 19.1cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, 58.334. © Wikimedia Commons/Detroit Institute of Arts.49 Figure 1.10: Anon., Portrait of a Portuguese Gentleman, c.1600. Ink, watercolour and gold on paper, 14 × 11.5cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 14.661. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.50

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Figure 1.11: Anon., Young Man in Portuguese Dress, Iran, midseventeenth century. Ink, watercolour and gold on paper, 31.1 × 18.4cm. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 55.121.23.51 Figure 2.1: Example of customary Māori garment. Korowai (cloak). Unknown weaver, 1820–1880, New Zealand. Purchased 2001. Te Papa (ME022703).58 Figure 2.2: (a) kākahu rāranga from Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand, E109.7; (b) detail of hiki join, Kaitorete assemblage, 2010.64; (c) carbonised rāranga fragment showing possible hiki join, Kaitorete assemblage, 2010.64.61 Figure 2.3: Maps of the geographic distribution of Celmisia semicordata and Freycinetia banksii, and Puketoi Station artefacts made from them: bundle of wharawhara. Copyright Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, D24.577B; Pukoro, Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, D24.589.69 Figure 3.1: John van der Spriett, Increase Mather, 1688. © Massachusetts Historical Society, Artwork 01.175.77 Figure 3.2: Anonymous, Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary, late seventeenth century. Image © Worcester Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Rice, 1963.135.78 Figure 3.3: 1629 Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Public Domain.77 Figure 3.4: Tatted silk lace recovered from the Katherine Nanny Naylor residence. Image courtesy of Joseph Bagley.87 Figure 3.5: Woven bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 90-17-50/49302.89 Figure 3.6: Wool sash attributed to Metacom. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 90-17-10/49333.91 Figure 3.7: Stone button mould. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 24-7-10/94279.91 Figure 4.1: In this stylised view from the French West Indies, the men and woman preparing tobacco for drying wear the strippeddown version of the enslaved work uniform. Tobacco processing, from Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amérique […] (Paris: Cavelier, 1722), vol. 4, 496. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.100

List of Illustr ations 

Figure 4.2: These untitled sketches and watercolours by William Berryman depicting sixteen Jamaicans, drawn between 1808 and 1816, show the limited palette of colours and garments worn by enslaved vendors and porters. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.101 Figure 4.3: In this watercolour of a Twelfth Night (Day of the Kings) procession, the rich costumes of the queen and accompanying musicians and dancers illustrate black Brazilians’ striking festive dress. “Cortejo da Rainha Negra na festa de Reis,” from Carlos Julião, Riscos Illuminados de Figurinhos de Brancos e Negros dos Usos do Rio de Janeiro e Serro do Frio, last quarter of the eighteenth century. © Fundação Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro.108 Figure 4.4: This composite sugar plantation scene was sketched by a British Royal Navy surgeon and one-time Barbados resident circa 1807. In the right foreground enslaved field labourers wear the minimal slave outfit, while the couple in the cross-sectioned hut in the centre are dressed in the complete version; the left foreground portrays smartly attired bondspeople at a village dance. “Slaves in Barbados,” from John A. Waller, A Voyage in the West Indies […] (London: Phillips and Co., 1820), vol. 2. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.109 Figure 5.1: Chintz fragment, c.1600–1800, dyed in two shades of red and two shades of blue and painted in yellow and green for the European market. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RMA), BK-1998-63. Public Domain.123 Figure 5.2: Dress (England), manufactured by Bromley Hall (United Kingdom). Cotton; H × W (height of centre back; shoulder width; waist circumference): 142.2 × 30.5 × 71.1cm (56 × 12 × 28in.). Cooper Hewitt. Museum purchase from Au Panier Fleuri Fund, 1960-72-2. http://cprhw.tt/o/2CtTi/. Public Domain.128 Figure 5.3: Jean Laurent Mosnier, Margaret Callander and Her Son, James Karney, 1795. Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Lowell Libson and Spink-Leger Pictures in honour of Brian & Katina Allen, B2001.6. Public Domain.133 Figure 5.4: William Kay (active from 1795), Seamstresses, St Kitts, Caribbean. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.2639. Public Domain.134

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Figure 5.5: Muslin dress, c.1800, woven in a geometric design in white cotton by Brown, Sharp & Co. of Paisley, Scotland. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection, E.2013.7.135 Figure 6.1: Textiles from West Africa in the Clarkson Chest. © Wisbech and Fenland Museum, 1870.13. Photograph by Sarah Cousins.140 Figure 6.2: Left: Detail of an eighteenth-century cloth sample woven with a supplementary warp. Wisbech and Fenland Museum, 1870.13.S. Right: Detail of a late twentieth-century cloth sample with a supplementary warp, woven by Ben Hiamale, Anlo-Afiadenyigba, Ghana. © Photographs by Malika Kraamer.141 Figure 6.3: Ghanaian weaver producing a cloth with a supplementary warp, Anlo-Afiadenyigba, Volta Region, Ghana, 2017. © Screenshot video by Malika Kraamer.141 Figure 6.4: Table with information on the cloth in the Clarkson Chest and its characteristics.145 Figure 6.5: Alfred Edward Chalon, Thomas Clarkson with His Chest, 1790. Watercolour painting, 44.3 × 35.2 cm. © Wilberforce House Museum/Bridgeman Images, KINCM:1980.840.147 Figure 6.6: Kwame Kusi Boateng weaving a kente cloth, Bonwire, Ashanti Region, Ghana, 2018 © Photograph by Malika Kraamer.159 Figure 7.1: Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II Playing the Tambur, ascribed to Farrukh Beg. India, Bijapur, c.1595–1600. Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper, folio: 42.3 × 26.5cm. Naprstkovo Muzeum Asijskych, Africkych a Americkych Kultur, Prague, A.12182.168 Figure 7.2: Malik ‘Ambar. India, Ahmadnagar, early seventeenth century. Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper, folio: 30.5 × 21.1cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 26.8. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.174 Figure 7.3: Khanzah Humayun and Sultan Husain Nizam Shah. Folio from the Ta‘rif-i Husain Shahi (India, Ahmadnagar, c.1565). Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, Pune. Photo © Antonio Martinelli (Paris).179 Figure 8.1: Whalley Abbey chasuble, back. Burnley, Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery. Photograph courtesy of Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery.195 Figure 8.2: Chasuble associated with the Duke of Norfolk; rose-pink outer face and brown-black inner face (UCI.645). Photograph courtesy of the trustees of Ushaw Historic House, Chapels & Gardens.197

List of Illustr ations 

Figure 8.3: Green velvet fragment with the outline of an appliqué motif of Virgin and Child surrounded by an embroidered nimbus. Church’s name withheld by request.200 Figure 9.1: Anonymous, “Haist el Schvgo de Kainna” [It is called the Game of Canes]. Códice de trajes, 1r. Courtesy Biblioteca Nacional de España, RES/285.207 Figure 10.1: Detail of a fine headcloth (ch’uqaña) from the late colonial period, with a structural shot effect from the contrasting warp and weft colours. © Musef, La Paz, register 452. Photographed by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA Collection.230 Figure 10.2: Man’s mantle (llaquta) from Killpani, in Potosí, showing a variegated effect through changes in the natural fibre tones of the dark brown plain areas. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, MCM-ARQ 0397. Photo in the ILCA Collection.231 Figure 10.3a: Thick felted or plush mantle with a variegated effect through the natural fibre tones, from the Late Intermediate Period site (AD 1000–1420) of Killpani in Potosí. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, register MCM-ARQ 0400. Photo by Elvira Espejo, in the ILCA Collection.232 Figure 10.3b: Detail of the head opening of a closed tunic fragment from Finca Carma, in Potosí, from the Late Intermediate Period, with speckling from the warp-thread spin effect in the greyish stripes. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, register MCM-ARQ 0401. Photo by Elvira Espejo, in the ILCA Collection.232 Figure 10.3c: The spin effect of a thread with contrasting black and white strands, as applied in the greyish stripes of Fig. 10.3b. © Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA collection.232 Figure 10.4a: A late colonial miniature open tunic (unku), probably from the Titicaca lakeside area, with a tornasol effect by contrasting the warp and weft colours in the main pampa, and an additional shot effect in the lateral pink strips by combining warp threads plied to the right and to the left. © Musef, La Paz, ref. 21144, Cat. 92. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.234 Figure 10.4b: Detail of a late colonial woman’s overskirt (ñañaka), from northern Pacajes, with several applied shot effects. © Musef, La Paz, register 293, Cat. 94. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.234

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Figure 10.5a: A colonial ceremonial wayllasa from Pampa Acora, near Chucuito, with a shot effect in the wide stripes by the warp count. © Museo Nacional de Arqueología, La Paz, MNA 82-027, etiqueta blanca, no. 11. Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA collection.235 Figure 10.5b: Detail of design bands in a late colonial or early republican mantle from Sica Sica (north Pacajes), with skull designs and a speckled termination. © Musef, La Paz, register 363, Cat. 97. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.235 Figure 10.5c: Detail of a provincial Tiwanaku belt-bag with a band of skull designs showing their speckled termination. © Museo Arqueológico y Antropológico, San Miguel de Azapa, Arica, Chile, register Az-6 T.4 No. 12028.1. Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA Collection.235 Figure 11.1: Maiden’s Festive Costume. Russia, second half of the eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERT-13037. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.246 Figure 11.2: Chasuble, with images of Majnun being comforted by animals. Sixteenth-century Persian silk; seventeenth-century shoulder piece embroidered in Russia. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number IR-2327. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.249 Figure 11.3: Dutch-style oak chair with brocade upholstery made in Russia, early eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERMb-6. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.252 Figure 11.4: Peter I’s dressing gown from Chinese damask made by Russian and Dutch masters in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERT-8343. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.260 Figure 13.1: Tenchifa towel, detail. Algiers, eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.289

List of Illustr ations 

Figure 13.2: The pomegranate pattern on a bniqa headdress. Algiers, seventeenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.290 Figure 13.3: Door curtain made of three panels and silk ribbons. Algiers, early eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.292 Figure 13.4: The chromatic scheme of Algiers embroidery on a linen stole. Algiers, detail, late eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.294 Figure 13.5: The Algiers purple on a linen stole, detail. Algiers, eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.297 Figure 14.1: Carpet, India, eighteenth century. Collection of Mr. Kojiro Yoshida (Kyoto Living Craft House Mumeisha). After Kokka 1505 (2021), pl. 5.306 Figure 14.2: Kyoto Gion Festival. © The author (17 July 2013).308 Figure 14.3: Coat made for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kōdai-ji Temple. © Kōdai-ji Temple.317 Figure 14.4: Tokugawa Yoshikatsu sitting on an Indian carpet, 1866. © The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry.320 Figure 14.5: Ito Jakuchu, Mosaic Screens of Birds, Animals, and Flowering Plants (detail), late eighteenth century. © Idemitsu Museum of Arts.325 Figure 15.1: Two eighteenth-century Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hangings in the British Museum. Left: upper figural portion; entire length 520 × 60cm (BM, 1868.10-1.22). Right: section of a geometrically patterned example with hanging straps; entire length 536 × 60cm (BM, 1973 Af 38.1). © Michael Gervers.328 Figure 15.2: Tri-panelled eighteenth-century figurative Ethiopian tabletwoven silk hanging in the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), measuring 535 × 212cm (reg. no. 926.26.1). © Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum.328 Figure 15.3: Tri-panelled eighteenth-century figurative Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hanging with figurative and geometric patterning from the monastery of Abba Gärima (Tǝgray Province, Ethiopia), measuring 410 × 212cm. Conserved by Eva Burnham of Montreal, Canada. © Michael Gervers.329 Figure 15.4: Tri-panelled eighteenth-century Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hanging with geometric patterning from the monastery of Abba Gärima (Tǝgray Province, Ethiopia), measuring 375 × 198cm. © Michael Gervers.329

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Figure 15.5: Claire Gérentet weaving a 230cm section of the Ethiopian tablet-woven hanging in the British Museum as seen in Fig. 15.1, using 346 tablets on an improvised tension loom. © Jacques Mérigoux.335 Figure 15.6: Four-panelled tablet-woven curtain made of cotton which hangs in situ in the Ethiopian church of Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen (Tǝgray Province, Tämben region, Ethiopia). © Michael Gervers.338 Figure 15.7: Table indicating the number of tablets required for weaving each of the panels which comprise the three large hangings extending across the entire width of the church of Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen (Tǝgray Province, Tämben region, Ethiopia). Table prepared by Jacques Mérigoux.339 Figure 16.1: Fragment of loom width of gold-brocaded crimson silk velvet cloth with asymmetric pomegranate vine design. Crimson pile warps dyed with lac dye, alternated with beige pile warps dyed with brazilwood (originally crimson). Italy, last quarter of the fifteenth century, 55 × 59.6cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-NM-11580.352 Figure 16.2: Compound weave silk fragment in twill with geometric pattern of yellow stars alternated by rosettes and small roundels enclosing a stylised flower on a crimson background. Crimson wefts of the background dyed with American cochineal. Southern Spain or North Africa, probably second quarter of the sixteenth century, 14.4 × 32cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-NM-11916.358 Figure 16.3: Cape of silk lampas with point repeat pattern of large flowers and fruits on crimson background. Crimson wefts dyed with American cochineal. France, probably 1720–1730, 108 × 146cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-1998-7.361

Acknowledgements Editing this volume meant weaving together different people and disciplines, institutions and collections, geographies and methods; a dream for every researcher with an interest in cross-disciplinary enquiries into material cultures. As editors, we wish to express our gratitude to those who accompanied and supported this project, which very much resulted from the lively interdisciplinary environment of St John’s College, Cambridge, the institutional home of the editors back then. Despite a global pandemic, contributors submitted intellectually stimulating chapters from around the globe and were excited to relate Homi K. Bhabha’s theoretical writings with their own research on early modern textiles. It is thanks to their time, thoughts, words, and generosity that this volume brings forth such a rich and diverse perspective on early modern textiles and cultural theory, materialising a wide-ranging perspective, also in institutional terms, on a truly global phenomenon. Some met in Cambridge in April 2018, others joined later. A variety of institutions supported these first conversations, namely St John’s College, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. We also acknowledge the generous financial support of the George Macaulay Trevelyan Fund of the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of History, the Fellows’ Research Enterprises Grant of St John’s College, as well as the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge. The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology welcomed us to their textile collections. We are grateful to these institutions, as well as the researchers who shared their expertise and curiosity. In addition to the contributors of this volume, Ulinka Rublack, Chris Wingfield, Giorgio Riello, Suraiya Faroqhi, and Abigail Gomulkiewicz provided invaluable input. Over the years, further conversations shaped this volume; in particular, the exchange with Uthra Rajgopal, Andrew Mills, Annette de Stecher, Jonathan Lainey, Thomas Vernet, and Atta Kwami. We thank Erika Gaffney and Allison Levy for their enthusiasm and support, and for welcoming this volume to Amsterdam University Press. Reviewers provided warm encouragement and insightful advice, which we gratefully acknowledge. The Research Development and Support Fund of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures, The University of Manchester, as well as the Fellows’ Fund of Churchill College, Cambridge, provided invaluable financial support enabling the publication of this richly illustrated book, and The Leverhulme Trust’s Philip Leverhulme Prize, awarded to Stefan, gave us the time to finalise the volume. Cambridge and Manchester, October 2021.

1.

Subjectivities In-Between Early Modern Global Textiles Beatriz Marín-Aguilera and Stefan Hanß

Abstract Between 1400 and 1800, intensifying cultural, economic, and colonial connections turned textiles into global artefacts. In a world as globalised as never before, this chapter shows, experiences and strategies of cultural positioning put textiles centre-stage for the negotiation of ever more ambivalent identity politics across the world. This chapter introduces the concept of “in-between textiles,” building upon Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of in-betweenness as the actual material ground of the negotiation of cultural practices and meanings, as well as a site for elaborating material strategies of subjectivity. Keywords: in-between textiles; postcolonial theory; identity politics; critical material culture studies; Critical Indigenous Studies

Introduction Between 1400 and 1800, intensifying cultural, economic, and colonial connections turned textiles into global artefacts. One fourteenth-century cloth bore Chinese floral designs, but was woven in Mongol Iran and processed into a clerical vestment in Europe (Fig. 1.1a). In Christian symbolism pelicans were associated with the offering of blood to the bird’s offspring, which evoked associations with the sacrifice of Christ. In European services, therefore, Asian textiles could materialise core principles of faith. From a Mongol perspective, this textile’s transcontinental mobility was imbued with spirituality since “Steppe nomads […] understood circulation as a spiritual necessity. Sharing wealth mollified the spirits of the dead, the sky, and the earth.”1 At the same time, the sub-arctic trade in furs further channelled 1 Marie Favereau, The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), 5; Thomas T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire: A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch01

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Figure 1.1  Left (a): Dalmatic, fourteenth-century Italy/Germany, Iranian cloth. © Victoria & Albert Museum, 8361-1863. Right (b): Tlingit armour with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Chinese coins. Museum Purchase, 1869. Image © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 69-30-10/2065.

the global mobility of Asian artefacts. An eighteenth-century armour made by the Tlingit, Northwest Coast Indigenous Americans, is covered with Chinese coins (Fig. 1.1b).2 Little is known about what it meant for European priests to administer the Eucharist wearing Asian textiles, or for Pacific Coast Indigenes to cover their body with metals minted with East Asian signs when going to war. Shimmering metals might have enlivened the light of Christ and Indigenous guardian spirits alike; however, wearing alien textiles also elicited experiences of displacement and dissimilitude.3 Sixteenth-century European Jesuits active in China consciously started wearing Asian clothing to employ the self-fashioning of Chinese scholars, thereby increasing the success of their proselytising mission in China and the readiness to donate money in Catholic Europe (Fig. 1.2). The Jesuit modo soave, the “gentle” way of conversion, had its ambivalences and perils in a time when cross-dressing was

2 John C. Yerbury, The Subarctic Indians and the Fur Trade, 1680–1860 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986); Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 2–3, 30–86. 3 Caroline W. Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone, 2011); Robert Bringhurst, A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World, 2nd ed. (Madeira Park, BC: Douglas and McIntyre, 2011).

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considered to potentially change a person’s sex. 4 Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) therefore wrote to Italy in 1585, “I have become a Chinaman. Already you will be aware that in clothing […], in ceremonies, and in all exterior matters, we are now Chinese.”5 Although surely envisaged as a “half-joking declaration,” this textile strategy, in practice, was meant to exploit cultural in-betweenness with the consequence of not only pretending to be, but facing the possibility of gradually becoming different.6 Today, we hardly get the full pun of Ricci’s half-joking, half-concerned statement. This makes such a comment, according to Robert Darnton, worth an entry point for further enquiries presented in this volume, which applies critical cultural theory to examine the extent to which globally traded textiles reshaped what it meant to live in particular local settings in the early modern period.7 In a world as globalised as never before, experiences and strategies of cultural positioning put textiles centre-stage for the negotiation of ever more ambivalent identity politics. This volume is a decentred, methodologically innovative, and analytical study of how early modern textiles shaped, disrupted, and transformed subjectivities in the age of globalisation.8 We present a radically cross-disciplinary approach that brings together world-leading anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, historians, conservators, curators, scientists, and weavers to reflect on the power of textiles to reshape subjectivities on a global scale between 1400 and 1800. This volume establishes a new conversation between textile studies, critical theory, and material culture studies that positions textile researchers of different disciplinary backgrounds at the forefront of debates on the relationship between artefacts and subjectivities. We initiate a conversation about early modern links between textile economies, globalisation, and identity politics between 1400 and 1800—a period referred to as “the cloth age,” a time of intensified commerce in textiles that engendered, channelled, and changed the dynamics of intercultural

4 Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 126–29; Will Fisher, Materializing Gender in Early Modern English Literature and Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 5 Mary Laven, Mission to China: Matteo Ricci and the Jesuit Encounter with the East (London: Faber and Faber, 2012), 45. Cf. Alice Yeh, “The Hermeneutics of Silk: China and the Fabric of Christendom according to Martino Martini and the Early Modern Jesuit ‘Accommodationists,’” Comparative Studies in Society and History 61, no. 2 (2019): 419–46. 6 Laven, Mission, 45. 7 Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 77–78. 8 Jerry H. Bentley, Sanjay Subrahmanyam, and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, eds., The Cambridge World History, vol. 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Jan de Vries, “The Limits of Globalization in the Early Modern World,” Economic History Review 63, no. 3 (2010): 710–33.

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Figure 1.2 Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Nicolas Trigault in Chinese Costume, Antwerp, 1617. Drawing, 44.6 × 24.8 cm. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999.222.

connectedness and colonial encounters in an increasingly “interwoven globe.”9 Expanding on such research, this volume unravels the ambivalent identity politics behind an ever more globalised early modern world of textiles. We develop a novel 9 Lemire, Global Trade, 32; Amelia Peck, ed., Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013).

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cross-disciplinary approach to the study of how textiles created and challenged experiences of subjectivity, relatedness, and dis/location that transformed social fabrics around the globe. We posit the concept of “in-between textiles,” building upon Homi K. Bhabha’s notion of in-betweenness as the actual material ground of the negotiation of cultural practices and meanings; a site which has been identified by anthropologists and cultural theorists as a driving force of the production of notions of personhood. This volume explores the material dynamics of Bhabha’s dictum that “‘in-between’ spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal—that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself.”10 Addressing early modern textiles in these terms helps unravel the significance of fabrics for the articulation, negotiation, and subversion of increasingly contested identities. Textiles, we argue, established and eroded a world of “third matter” that reshaped subjectivities on a global scale. This volume explores how early modern fabrics produced what Philippe Descola calls “intersubjective ambience[s] in which regulated relations between one person and another flourish.”11 The power of inbetween textiles to mould early modern subjectivities did not result from the mere discursive attribution of cultural meanings; rather, meaningfulness was derived from the embeddedness of these fibres in life-worlds penetrated by the global rise of colonialism and consumerism. These textiles, as Tim Ingold states, “[partook] in the very processes of the world’s ongoing generation and regeneration.”12 As relational matter, early modern textiles span the matter of relations. We reconstruct this embeddedness in early modern life-worlds to examine how fabrics produced a sense of (dis)connectedness that remade societies around the world.

In-Between Textiles Early modern textiles shaped global economies and were thus at the very centre of profound historical transformations. As Beverly Lemire states, “textile manufacturing employed vast populations,” with more and more people drawn into new ambits of cultural expressions. “In every quarter of the world, fibres of all kinds were manipulated into media suitable for garments, embellishments and furnishings […] textiles evoked their origins and encouraged multiple meanings through their use,

10 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 2. 11 Philippe Descola, Beyond Nature and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 5. 12 Tim Ingold, “Materials against Materiality,” Archaeological Dialogues 14, no. 1 (2007): 9.

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while augmenting rivers of commerce.”13 Travelling the world, textiles channelled the realm and nature of global connections. Regional economies became enmeshed in globally coveted silks, which provoked the spread of sericulture and technological innovation.14 Colonialist drive and environmental intrusion further channelled the exploitation of dyestuffs.15 As Giorgio Riello shows, cotton, above all, radically transformed the nature of globalisation by giving birth to the hegemony of “a centripetal system, one based on the capacity of the centre to ‘exploit’ resources and profits towards its productive and commercial core, rather than a centrifugal system based on the diffusion of resources, technologies, knowledge and the sharing of profits.”16 The exchange of cotton for Asian spices and enslaved Africans shaped global dependencies, human hegemonies, and “the early globalization of style.”17 The interplay between local economies and global tastes stimulated the early modern drive of fashion, turning fashion novelty itself into a marketing concept.18 Textiles, thus, were the arena of change. Early modern global textiles reshaped what it meant to live in a globally connected world. Seventeenth-century Vietnam, for instance, was a marketplace for the export of raw silks to Portugal, Castille, the Netherlands, England, and, via Chinese merchants, to Japan.19 Ottoman luxury silks, too, were traded widely across Eurasia.20 Fibres like silk, cloths like cotton, and dyestuff like indigo were highly mobile; so too were merchants, artisans, and imperial agents with special interests in textiles. European East India Company officials ran surveys on the production of Indian 13 Lemire, Global Trade, 32. 14 Dagmar Schäfer, Giorgio Riello, and Luca Molà, eds., Threads of Global Desire: Silk in the Pre-Modern World (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2018). 15 Elena Phipps, “Global Colors: Dyes and the Dye Trade,” in Peck, Interwoven Globe, 120–35; John F. Richards, The Unending Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003). 16 Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 7. 17 John Guy, “‘One Thing Leads to Another’: Indian Textiles and the Early Globalization of Style,” in Peck, Interwoven Globe, 13–27; Riello, Cotton, 135–59. 18 John Styles, “Product Innovation in Early Modern London,” Past & Present 168 (2000): 124–69; Maxine Berg, “From Imitation to Invention: Creating Commodities in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Economic History Review 55, no. 1 (2002): 1–30; Evelyn Welch, “Introduction,” in Fashioning the Early Modern: Dress, Textiles, and Innovation in Europe, 1500–1800, ed. Evelyn Welch (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 1–30. 19 Samuel Baron, “A Description of the Kingdom of Tonqueen,” in Views of Seventeenth-Century Vietnam: Christoforo Borri on Cochinchina and Samuel Baron on Tonkin, ed. Olga Dror (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 210. 20 Suraiya Faroqhi, “Early Modern Commodity Routes: Ottoman Silks in the Webs of Word Trade,” in Handbook of Commodity History, ed. Jonathan Curry-Machado et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

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Figure 1.3  Dutch-style pattern of Indian calicoes (top left) in a Japanese pattern book, no date. © National Diet Library, Tokyo, Ms. 1 v (わ753-2), Kowatari sarasa fu.

cloths to broaden knowledge about materials and technologies.21 Concurrently, Japanese merchants studied Indian designs like the “continuous Dutch-style pattern” (Oranda tsunagi, 阿蘭陀ツナギ, Fig. 1.3).22 Chinese travellers praised Siamese women active in Cambodian silk production.23 Among mobile craftspeople and imperial agents, textile expertise and actual fabrics circulated. Entrepreneurs like Afanasy Nikitin (1433–1472), a Russian merchant travelling Persia and India, the land “where the indigo grows,” and from which damasks, silks, and cottons originate, contributed to the flourishing of new trade routes.24 So did Asian, European, and American First Nations fur traders in ever more competitive colonial settings across early modern Siberia and North America.25 The mobility of textile agents and textile 21 Riello, Cotton, 160–84. 22 We thank Erica Baffelli (Manchester) for her translation. 23 Zhou Daguan, A Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People, ed. Peter Harris (Suthep: Silkworm, 2007), 75. 24 Afanasy Nikitin, “The Travels of Athanasius Nikitin, of Twer: Voyage to India,” in India in the Fifteenth Century (…), ed. R. H. Major (New York: Franklin, n.y. [1970]), 8, 19. 25 Richards, Unending Frontier, 463–546, Yerbury, Subarctic Indians.

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matter also dynamised the forced migration of manpower—plantation slaves and artisans. From early on, the Portuguese took Asian needleworkers captive, predominantly women but also men from the Philippines, China, Malacca, and Sumatra. Asian, African, and creole needle-working slaves and servants also shaped colonial textile-businesses in Dutch Asia or the French Caribbean.26 Textiles were on the move, and moved people, knowledge, and the sense of belonging. The cloth age engendered violence, displacement, and the ambivalence of embodied cultural positioning. Therefore, this volume builds on and goes beyond economy- and consumption-focused research. We follow Ingold’s call to study consumption and production to examine the enactment of matter, and its power to negotiate encounters.27 Ulinka Rublack in particular shows the close links between fabrics and identity performances in early modern Europe, where textiles functioned as innovative visual acts that helped with staging and claiming identities.28 “Renaissance dress,” Rublack argues, must be understood as “thick in sensorial and affective experience that related as much to the materials that were used as to the shapes that were achieved. […] The body, bodily memory, and aspects of subjectivity thus were known and experienced in relation to matters of dress.”29 If “[a]ffect arises in the midst of in-between-ness,” how did circulating textiles shape global in-betweenness as the realm within to situate and negotiate “the capacities to act and be acted upon”?30 This line of research brings the study of early modern textiles, for the first time, into a conversation with critical cultural theory and Bhabha’s work in particular. Textiles, we show, became the material ground onto which to negotiate in-betweenness. As in-between artefacts, textiles contributed to the negotiation of what cultural practices meant and did in the early modern world. Early modern global textile flows embodied human inter-est, a term which Bhabha discusses in reference to Hannah Arendt as “an exploration of what lies 26 Lemire, Global Trade, 255–56, 262; Karol K. Weaver, “Fashioning Freedom: Slave Seamstresses in the Atlantic World,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 1 (2012): 44–59; Elise van Nederveen Meerkerk, “Threads of Imperialism: Colonial Institutions and Gendered Labour Relations in the Textile Industry in the Dutch Empire,” in Colonialism, Institutional Change, and Shifts in Global Labour Relations, ed. Karin Hofmeester and Pim de Zwart (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018), 135–72. 27 Ingold, “Materials,” 9, 11. 28 Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 21–26. 29 Ulinka Rublack, “Renaissance Dress, Cultures of Making, and the Period Eye,” West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 23, no. 1 (2016): 7. See also Ann R. Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 34–58. 30 Gregory J. Seigworth and Melissa Gregg, “An Inventory of Shimmers,” in Affect Theory Reader, ed. Melissa Gregg and Gregory J. Seigworth (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 1.

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in-between (inter-est) these distinct, even disjunct moments that allow them to become affiliated with one another in the spirit of a ‘right to difference in equality.’”31 By examining early modern textiles in terms of their in-betweenness, this volume’s contributors acknowledge the role of fabrics and dyes in shaping the “borderline conditions to ‘translate,’ and therefore reinscribe, the social imaginary,” thus, these textiles’ significance in mapping a “Third Space […] which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew.”32 Bhabha’s concepts of Third Space and hybridity depart from Mikhail Bakhtin’s intentional hybrid, which highlights the fusion into a single utterance of two or several utterances that are opposed and socially distinct.33 As such, Bhabha’s hybridity does not dwell in a cultural mixture with racial overtones, unlike concepts such as mestizaje, syncretism, pidginisation, or creolisation.34 Hybridisation, sensu Bhabha is not a “consensual mix of diverse cultures,” but the transfer of power “from an authoritative system of cultural hegemony to an emergent process […] that changes the very terms of interpretation and institutionalization, opening up contesting, opposing, innovative, ‘other’ grounds of subject and object formation.”35 Foregrounding the in-betweenness of early modern textiles, hence, encourages a closer study of material translation as cultural practice. Instead of taking for granted that textiles represented or mixed cultural identities, contributors examine how textiles constituted practices that opposed and negotiated boundaries and belonging.36 In-between textiles are far from being part of an untroubled melting pot, as this volume shows, but are situated between assimilation and expression, submission and aggression, obedience and rebellion; it is from this “supposedly empty, clandestine location” that their constitutive power emerges.37 31 Bhabha, Location of Culture, xx (quote), 271–72. Cf. Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998 [1958]), 7–17, 188–89. 32 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 9, 55. 33 Mikhail M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 358–66. 34 Cf. Charles Stewart, “Syncretism and Its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture,” Diacritics 29, no. 3 (1999): 40–62; Ulf Hannerz, “The World in Creolisation,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 57 (1987): 546–59. 35 Homi Bhabha in Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks, “Surviving Theory: A Conversation with Homi K. Bhabha,” in The Pre-Occupation of Postcolonial Studies, ed. Fawzia Afzal-Khan and Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 370, as a response to Aijaz Ahmad, “The Politics of Literary Postcoloniality,” Race & Class 36, no 3 (1995): 1–20. 36 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 13. 37 Silviano Santiago, “O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano,” in Silviano Santiago, Uma Literatura nos trópicos: Ensaios sobre a dependência cultural (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 1978), 11–28, 28.

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Critical theories of in-betweenness therefore serve as important correctives to the primary focus on early modern global textile economies, consumerism, and styles in current debates. Textiles materialised connections anchored in and leading to the further articulation of disconnections.38 This volume brings a fresh theoretical perspective to the study of the enmeshment of textiles, power, and identities. We build on recent anthropological work on modern fashion and fashion theory, as well as historians’ new interest in the politics of early modern “global textile encounters” and “global bodies,” bringing Bhabha’s theoretical concepts to the fore of an incisive, methodological discussion about early modern textiles’ role in the formation of subjectivities and the negotiation of identity politics.39 Examining early modern fabrics as in-between textiles reveals the often subtle negotiation of subject formation; the complexity of scale manifest in the local/global translation of textiles into identity effects; the agency, creativity, and resistance of textile performances; strategic investments into the articulation and subversion of contested subjectivities; and novel approaches across disciplines to put textiles centre-stage for a discussion of material culture and critical theory. Introducing Bhabha’s concepts to debates on early modern history, we argue, allows to unravel the significance of material culture(s) for the articulation of new identities in a time of manifold contestations. The rise of consumerism, economic dependencies, and social inequalities across the world; the shock and novelty of global encounters; the violence of colonialism; the displacement, discrimination, and deprivation resulting from forced migration and slavery; the shock of religious uncertainties resulting from confessional upheavals in Europe and across the world—all these processes of historical transformations unsettled notions of belonging and shook off the certainty of identities. By challenging, corroding, and contesting long-held systems of identifications, the early modern period provoked the articulation of new identities. Focusing on the troubled and troublesome performance of identity in postcolonial times, Bhabha’s work provides a powerful and refreshing methodological approach to unbundle the unsettling complexities behind the ways in which such fundamental historical transformations interrelated with the negotiation of difference and belonging, subjectivity and community, 38 Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, “Subaltern Debris: Archaeology and Marginalized Communities,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 31 (2021): 6–8. 39 Joanne B. Eicher, ed., Dress and Ethnicity: Chance across Space and Time (Oxford: Berg, 1995); Joanne B. Eicher, ed., Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, 10 vols. (Oxford: Berg, 2010), here vol. 10: Global Perspectives; Marie-Louise Nosch, Feng Zhao, and Lotika Varadarajan, eds., Global Textile Encounters (Oxford: Oxbow, 2014); Joanne B. Eicher and Sandra L. Evenson, eds., The Visible Self: Global Perspectives on Dress, Culture and Society, 4th ed. (New York: Fairchild, 2015); Beverly Lemire and Giorgio Riello, eds., Dressing Global Bodies: The Political Power of Dress in World History (London: Routledge, 2020).

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identification and identity. Steering historical debates about such question towards Bhabha’s oeuvre is thus an excitingly new and promising endeavour. Bhabha’s work has been widely used in cultural, literary, political, ethnic, and postcolonial studies, but the application of the concept of in-betweenness to material culture studies charts new territory. This neglect might result from the fact that Bhabha’s analysis, as postcolonial archaeologists have noted, largely focuses on texts without regard for the role of artefacts in discursive and material acts of cultural enunciation. 40 Putting forward the potential of material culture studies when applying Bhabha’s concepts, archaeologists have mostly discussed mimicry, the Third Space, and hybridity, emphasising resistance and the creative agency of people facing colonial oppression. 41 Art historians and museologists have too examined hybridity in length, mostly interrogating “hybrid objects,” going beyond the two-cultures divide and exploring how newness enters the material world—not as a clash of cultures but as something that evolves in its own right. 42 These analyses, however, rarely narrate for the sense of intersubjectivities, confusion, relatedness, and creativity evolving thereof, and do not relate shifting materialities with shifting subjectivities, and the longer-term consequences of such. In consequence, the potential of material culture in general, and textiles in particular, to negotiate the enactment, translation, and subversion of in-between 40 Peter van Dommelen, “Colonial Matters: Material Culture and Postcolonial Theory in Colonial Situations,” in Handbook of Material Culture, ed. Christopher Tilley et al. (London: Sage, 2006), 104–24. 41 Martin Hall, Archaeology and the Modern World: Colonial Transcripts in South Africa and Chesapeake (London: Routledge, 2000); Robert W. Preucel, ed., Archaeologies of the Pueblo Revolt: Identity, Meaning, and Renewal in the Pueblo World (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007); Peter van Dommelen, ed., World Archaeology: Postcolonial Archaeologies between Discourse and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011); Matthew Liebmann, “Parsing Hybridity: Archaeologies of Amalgamation in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico,” in The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, ed. Jeb J. Card (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2013), 25–49; Diana DiPaolo Loren, “Considering Mimicry and Hybridity in Early Colonial New England: Health, Sin and the Body ‘Behung with Beades,’” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 28 (2013): 151–68; Alicia Jiménez Díez, “Mímēsis/Mimicry: Teoría arqueológica, colonialismo e imitación,” in El problema de las imitaciones durante la protohistoria en el mediterráneo centro-occidental: Del concepto al ejemplo, ed. Raimon Graells i Fabregat et al. (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 2014), 27–40; Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, “Food, Identity and Power Entanglements in South Iberia between the 9th–6th Centuries BC,” in Creating Material Worlds: The Uses of Identity in Archaeology, ed. Louisa Campbell et al. (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), 195–214; Peter van Dommelen, “Classical Connections and Mediterranean Practices: Exploring Connectivity and Local Interactions,” in The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Globalization, ed. Tamar Hodos (Oxon: Routledge, 2017), 618–33. 42 Carolyn Dean and Dana Leibsohn, “Hybridity and Its Discontents: Considering Visual Culture in Colonial Spanish America,” Colonial Latin American Review 12 (2003): 5–35; Finbarr B. Flood, Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu-Muslim” Encounter (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).

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spaces and subjectivities remains largely unexplored.43 Neither Bhabha’s sensibility for “historical specificities” nor his general call for historical contextualisation have been taken fully seriously in research thus far: “We must rehistoricize the moment of ‘the emergence of the sign,’ or ‘the question of the subject,’ or the ‘discursive construction of social reality.’”44 Foregrounding the experiences and material dimensions of such questions, historical research on material culture, as assembled in this volume, provides a crucial contribution to the historicisation and contextualisation of the production of the self and society in times of change. Such insights, in turn, will help refining interdisciplinary and methodological debates connecting materialities with shifting subjectivities, contributing to what Robert Preucel has aptly called “a hermeneutics of generosity.”45 Scholars working on migration, racial, and ethnic studies in particular have successfully explored becoming-selves by using the concept of in-betweenness when exploring transnational movements, exclusion, racism, and transcultural literacies.46 They focus on the identities that arise from living in a specific interstitial and marginal space, what Patricia Hill Collins calls “the outsider within,” and Gloria Anzaldúa being in a “state of perpetual transition” and “facing the dilemma of the mixed breed”—being a Mestizo. 47 In the field of gender studies, and centring on body politics, researchers have also investigated in-betweenness in relation to transgender identities and feminism, and the marginality and oppressions that those “complicated locations” entail. 48 Rosi Braidotti draws on Gilles Deleuze to 43 Felipe Hernández, Bhabha for Architects (London: Routledge, 2010); Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, Leonor Adán Alfaro, and Simón Urbina Araya, “Challenging Colonial Discourses: The Spanish Imperial Borderland in Chile (16th–19th Centuries),” in Transnational Perspectives on the Conquest and Colonization of Latin America, ed. Jenny Mander, David Mindgley, and Christine D. Beaule (New York: Routledge, 2019), 85–98; Carrie Brezine, “A Change of Dress on the Coast of Peru: Technological and Material Hybridity in Colonial Peruvian Textiles,” in The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, ed. Jeb J. Card (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2013), 239–59; Paul Basu, The Inbetweenness of Things (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). 44 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 15, 47. 45 Robert W. Preucel, “In Defence of Representation,” World Archaeology 52, no. 3 (2020): 395–411. 46 Marcelo Diversi and Claudio Moreira, Betweener Talk: Decolonizing Knowledge Production, Pedagogy, and Praxis (London: Taylor & Francis, 2009); Susanne Korbel, “From Vienna to New York: Migration, Space and In-Betweenness in Im Weißen Rößl,” Jewish Culture and History 17 (2016): 233–48; Leslie K. Wang, “The Benef its of In-Betweenness: Return Migration of Second-Generation Chinese American Professionals to China,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (2016): 1941–58; Tom Brocket, “From ‘In-Betweenness’ to ‘Positioned Belongings’: Second-Generation Palestinian-Americans Negotiate the Tensions of Assimilation and Transnationalism,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43 (2020): 135–54. 47 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands = La Frontera: The New Mestiza (San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987), 78; Patricia Hill Collins, “Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought,” Social Problems 33 (1986): S14–32. 48 Sonny Nordmarken, “Becoming Ever More Monstrous: Feeling Gender In-Betweenness,” Qualitative Inquiry 20 (2013): 37–50; Laura Fantone, Traces and Visions of In-Betweenness (New York: Palgrave, 2018), 63–92.

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define in-betweenness: “the enfleshed Deleuzian subject is rather an ‘in-between’: it is a folding-in of external influences and a simultaneous unfolding outwards of affects.”49 The effects and affects of material culture in fleshing the in-between subject are, however, absent in feminist, migration, and ethnic studies, save for a general approach to historical contexts. Hence, the contributors’ focus on material cultures offers a novel perspective to postcolonial debates. This volume brings together perspectives on material culture studies and migration, ethnic, and feminist work for the first time in a cross-disciplinary endeavour. Contributors interrogate the in-betweenness of textiles as material culture, and their effective and affective entanglements with subjects-in-becoming as “an interrogatory, interstitial space.”50 Applying Bhabha’s inter-est/in-betweenness to early modern textiles allows researchers to examine how such folding-in and unfolding takes place in relational and processual terms with regard to a complex historical world of matter. What follows ties some of the main concepts of Bhabha’s critical theory of in-betweenness towards the world of early modern textiles as discussed in the four different sections of this volume. Each part is grouped around key concepts in Bhabha’s work, which open new perspectives on crucial early modern developments affecting notions of subjectivity. Part I introduces the concepts of unhomeliness, mimicry, and mockery to the debate on the violence of displacement, dislocation, and disruption of belonging resulting from early modern forced migration, slavery, and colonialism. Part II links Bhabha’s notion of the enunciation of difference with the articulation of racial and religious differences in the early modern period, revealing the material dimensions of the human politics of cultural difference. Part III’s focus on Bhabha’s concept of identity effects sheds a new light on early modern processes of globalisation, recovering the significance of the local for the articulation of new subjectivities in a connected world. Part IV, then, puts forward the notion of material translation to address the merging qualities of global consumerism and their consequences for the performance of identities. While chapters are grouped under these concepts, themes like resistance and agency also cut across the chapters. The contributors’ goal to bring the perspectives of often forgotten protagonists, slaves and Indigenes for instance, and geographies like north, southeastern, and the Horn of Africa, Oceania, the Andean Highlands, the Deccan, and Russia, to name only a few, towards often still surprisingly coarse-cut stories of early modern globalisation similarly shapes the volume’s overall appearance. Cross-references and the following more detailed outline of the argument will help readers navigate the topics and concepts that traverse the chapters. 49 Rosi Braidotti, “Teratologies,” in Deleuze and Feminist Theory, ed. Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 159. 50 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 5.

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Unhomeliness, Mimicry, and Mockery The first part of this volume examines the relationship between textiles, in-betweenness, and “the ‘unhomely’” in relation to early modern migration, slavery, and colonialism.51 Textiles, we show, held a pivotal role in the negotiation and relocation of early modern experiences of unhomeliness, thus, the sense of estrangement, dislocation, and inbetweenness that could result from globalisation, colonialism, and forced migration. “To live in the unhomely world,” Bhabha notes, also means “to find its ambivalences and ambiguities enacted in the house of fiction, or its sundering and splitting performed in the work of art.”52 As the contributors in this volume argue, such “sundering and splitting” performances in the early modern period were not limited to texts; textiles also echoed the “ambivalences and ambiguities” of unhomeliness. Textiles relocated subjectivity, anchored cultural positioning, and expressed a sense of solidarity connecting “these lonely gatherings of the scattered people.”53 This volume’s first part therefore addresses the significance of textiles in the remaking of communities and belonging in an unhomely early modern world, disrupted by migration, slavery, and colonialism. Textiles negotiated inter-est as the experience of “cultural contemporaneity.”54 “[T]o live together in the world,” Arendt states, “means essentially that a world of things is between those who have it in common […]; the world, like every in-between, relates and separates [people] at the same time.”55 Textiles therefore sparked prominent interest during first encounters, for instance, between Indigenous people of the Caribbean and Columbus in the late fifteenth century, and Indigenous Australians and the British in the early 1800s.56 Also for Russians travelling India or Jesuits visiting Tibet, textiles provided interpretative entry points to unravel social hierarchies and cultural positioning.57 In the early modern world, mobility could result from voluntary acts of venturing into new possibilities of travel and commerce, as well as forced migration especially in light of widespread poverty, colonial expansions, or enforced movement like Ottoman or Inca resettlement policies.58 For slaves 51 Ibid., 13. 52 Ibid., 26–27. 53 Ibid., 200. 54 Ibid., 13, 6. 55 Arendt, Human Condition as in Katherine Adams, “At the Table with Arendt: Toward a Self-Interested Practice of Coalition Discourse,” Hypatia 17, no. 1 (2002): 1–33. 56 Oliver Dunn and James E. Kelley Jr., eds., The Diario of Christopher Columbus’s First Voyage to America, 1492–1493 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 81; Matthew Flinders, A Voyage to Terra Australis (…), vol. 1 (London: Bulmer and Co., 1814), cxl. 57 Nikitin, “Travels,” 9–10, 18–19, 30; Filippo de Filippi, ed., An Account of Tibet: The Travels of Ippolito Desideri of Pistoia, S. J. (London: Routledge, 2014 [1932]), 178. 58 Nikolay Antov, The Ottoman “Wild West”: The Balkan Frontier in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017); Jacob L. Bongers et al., “Integration of Ancient DNA with

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in the Caribbean, Robert DuPlessis shows in this volume, textiles were powerful “manifestations of group identification” renegotiating the repercussions of diasporic unhomeliness.59 Textiles shaped the ground on which protagonists negotiated the materialisation of inter-est, solidarity, contemporaneity, and hierarchies. This volume’s discussion of experiences of migration and estrangement brings a fresh perspective to debates on early modern mobility and its material dimensions. Researchers stressed early modern Muslim and Jewish global mobility, thus, reaching beyond a focus on mobile Christian Europeans.60 However, hardly any research addresses the topic beyond a focus on European protagonists or globally expanding European empires. If non-European perspectives on early modern mobility are discussed, then it is generally within the realm of empires.61 By anchoring the Māori migration to fourteenth-century Aotearoa in the wider debate about unhomeliness, this volume writes the global material history of early modern migratory inter-est from a non-European and non-imperial perspective. Catherine Smith highlights the significance of textiles for negotiating the “sense of dislocation from the Pacific homeland” engrained into “[t]he migratory experience of Māori settling in Aotearoa”: “The ‘in-between’ space occupied by Māori on arrival in Aotearoa,” she argues, “required the production of new cultural meanings, and textiles were a potent vehicle to do so.”62 Textiles could create a sense of home in an unhomely world, just as they disrupted and drove unhomeliness itself. Since “globalization begins at home,” this volume uncovers exactly this role of early modern textiles in what Bhabha calls a “multi-storied world.”63 Contributors highlight the significance of textiles to negotiate and revoice African, American, Asian, and Oceanian Indigenous perspectives of early modern global consumerism, colonialism, and the unhomeliness it caused. The notion of “cultural contemporaneity”—favouring translation over comparison and the study of the local enmeshment of a globally remade material world—is thus at the heart of this volume’s organisation.64 Transdisciplinary Dataset f inds Strong Support for Inca Resettlement in the South Peruvian Coast,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117 (2020): 18359–68. 59 Robert DuPlessis in this volume. 60 Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers: The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); John-Paul A. Ghobrial, “The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon and the Uses of Global Microhistory,” Past & Present 222 (2014): 51–93. 61 Nicholas Thomas, Islanders: The Pacific in the Age of Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010); Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Three Ways to Be Alien: Travails and Encounters in the Early Modern World (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2011); Peck, Interwoven Globe; Coll-Peter Thrush, Indigenous London: Native Travelers at the Heart of Empire (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016); Sujit Sivasundaram, Waves across the South: A New History of Revolution and Empire (London: Collins, 2020). 62 Catherine Smith in this volume. 63 Bhabha, Location of Culture, xxiv–xxv. 64 Ibid., 6.

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The first part’s focus on unhomeliness also invites further reflections on the relationship between textiles and mimicry which, according to Bhabha, is “constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference.”65 As contributors argue, textiles feature prominently in the early modern production of exactly this “slippage”: by clothing, shaping, and staging the hybrid, fabrics disturbed the “visibility of the colonial presence” and problematised the recognition of its authority.66 Early modern textiles enacted subversive strategies that, in Bhabha’s words, “turn the gaze of the discriminated back upon the eye of power.”67 In colonial contexts in particular, textiles were at the very heart of early modern in-betweenness charting “a map of misreading that embarrasses the […] certainty of good government.” Such textiles “open[ed] up a space of interpretation and misappropriation that inscribe[d] an ambivalence at the very origins of colonial authority.” Thus, textiles could de-stabilise the foundations of power.68 To illustrate this point, an eighteenth-century Indian petticoat panel displaying the life of Dutch East India Company (VOC) servants in “anecdotal figural compositions” is a telling example. Produced for a Dutch market, the panel testifies to local artisans’ responses to global market dynamics (Fig. 1.4).69 With Dutch colonial authorities seeking to exploit Indian textile resources, local textile makers could carve out spaces of economic survival. This in-between textile, however, also comments on the local colonial condition and its gender politics. In eighteenth-century India, VOC officials faced a highly imbalanced marriage market. In 1750, only one European woman lived among 200 Europeans in Cochin, Kerala. Almost all Calvinist Dutchmen married either baptised Indigenous or Roman Catholic Mestiço women of Portuguese-Indigenous heritage.70 Economically independent Mestiço widows with well-established social and commercial networks were highly sought-after partners among ambitious VOC servants. Depicting Dutchmen courting local women by exchanging vistas, flirtatious compliments, blown kisses, and marriage proposals, this fabric ridicules that “[f]or European servants of the Company […] [Mestiço] women became a part of the fabric of their lives.”71 65 Ibid., 122. 66 Ibid., 159. 67 Ibid., 160. 68 Ibid., 135. 69 Alice M. Zrebiec, “Portion of a Skirt or Petticoat,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 53, no. 3 (1995/96): 56 (quote); Peck, Interwoven Globe, 240–41. 70 Anjana Singh, Fort Cochin in Kerala, 1750–1830: The Social Condition of a Dutch Community in an Indian Milieu (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 109–15. 71 Ibid., 111 (quote), 112–14.

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Figure 1.4 Anon., petticoat panel, India (Coromandel Coast?), eighteenth century (third quarter). Cotton, painted resist and mordant, dyed. Total view and detail. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1992.82.

This textile speaks to the anxieties of colonial authorities. Wouter Schouten (1638–1704) claims that many Mestiço women married Dutchmen and kept their locks uncovered—devout Calvinist wives were expected to cover hair. The Dutch traveller noted that Mestiço women continued wearing local clothing including, as

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the textile shows, dress with a provocatively low neckline. The discussion of dress serves Schouten to denominate Mestiço women as “brown animals,” which illustrates a point made by Bhabha: “Hybridity is the revaluation of the assumption of colonial identity through the repetition of discriminatory identity effects.”72 Such dressing practices, however, were also women’s powerful tools of colonial subversion. Mestiço women did not transform into devout Calvinists, as VOC commissioner Hendrik Zwaardecroon complained in 1698, but turned Dutch husbands into “Papists.” “I think it is best if marrying native women would be forbidden,” since Dutchmen stationed in India should “rather be accustomed and kept to a proper exercise” in a “daily and weekly parade.”73 Citing Zwaardecroon’s juxtaposition of marriage and parade, the textile ridicules colonial authority. “[T]he effect of colonial power is seen to be the production of hybridization rather than the noisy command of colonialist authority or the silent repression of native traditions,” and any such textile, following Bhabha, “creates a crisis for any concept of authority based on a system of recognition.”74 This fabric is a manifesto of colonial mockery, materialising the perspective of local male calico printers and chintz painters who mock Dutch colonists for caring more about flirtatious adventures with resident women than military authority over residents. This textile praises the power of local women over colonial agents. The absence of local men can also be understood as a critique of Mestiço women to perpetuate hybrid colonial marriage patterns. This mockery is a hidden but powerful pun undermining Dutch sentiments of colonial superiority. In 1693, Daniel Havart (1650–1724) wrote that “the natives are so stupid that they are unable to produce anything original; but they can imitate and produce a perfect copy.”75 This apparently innocuous textile, speaking to new global tastes, proves otherwise. Local chintz painters used the in-betweenness of this textile to push the boundaries of cultural expression and colonial subversion. This fabric countermines the official linkage of controlled patriarchal, religious, and racial hierarchies of VOC ideology (Fig. 1.5) and “quite simply mocks [colonial authority’s] power to be a model, that power which supposedly makes it imitable.”76 In-between textiles “both challeng[ed] the boundaries of

72 Wouter Schouten, Oost-Indische voyagie (…) (Amsterdam: Meurs and van Someren, 1676), 180; Bhabha, Location of Culture, 159. 73 H. K. s’Jacob, ed., De Nederlanders in Kerala 1663–1704: De memories en instructies betreffende het commandement Malabar van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1976), 110. 74 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 160, 162. 75 Daniel Havart, Op-en ondergang van Cormandel (…) (Amsterdam: Hoorn, 1693) in Giorgio Riello, “Asian Knowledge and the Development of Calico Printing in Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Journal of Global History 5, no. 1 (2010): 25–26. 76 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 125.

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Figure 1.5 Aelbert Cuyp (circle), VOC Senior Merchant with His Wife and an Enslaved Servant, c.1650–1655. Oil on canvas. © Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-A-2350.

discourse and subtly chang[ed] its terms by setting up another specifically colonial space of the negotiations of cultural authority.”77 This volume also explores textile mimicry and mockery in American contexts. Diana DiPaolo Loren “highlights the material creativity enacted in hybrid colonial settings” of New England, which “resulted in and got enacted through in-between textiles.” As her chapter shows, textile mimicry was key to renegotiate the unhomeliness that early modern colonialism itself created. Colonial authorities sought “to deny—and discipline—the reality of in-between textiles” to replace Indigenous with Puritan identity. Indigenous subjects, however, used clothing “strategically and carefully to embody identity”: “dressing ‘in-between’ fashions was effective in creating new hybrid fashions that continued to fissure the language of clothing that the English Crown attempted to inscribe in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”78 The following chapter, then, focuses on a specific and particularly widespread form of early modern forced migration, slavery, that produced particularly incisive experiences of dislocation and unhomeliness. Examining the role of textiles in subjectivity formation of slaves in Brazil and the Caribbean, DuPlessis shows that fabrics served to recreate bondspeople “as intelligible but not equal to free settlers.” 77 Ibid., 169–70. 78 Diana DiPaolo Loren in this volume.

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However, “[b]ondspeople resisted with bricolage,” forms of mimicry and mockery met with anxiety by free colonists. At the same time, dress also enacted a sense of solidarity and community connecting, in Bhabha’s words, “these lonely gatherings of the scattered people.”79 DuPlessis emphasises that slaves “sought by self-attiring to express […] their ‘desire for recognition’ and consideration as self-fashioning subjects.” Textiles, in that sense, “decode how enslaved people exploited fissures, inconsistencies, and distractions in hegemonic policies and procedures to adapt, resist, mimic, and mock dominant groups’ sartorial authority while establishing their own.”80 Textile mimicry and mockery were thus crucial tools to reclaim communities of belonging and solidarity in an unhomely early modern world disrupted by the experiences of dislocation and displacement caused by migration, colonialism, and slavery.

The Material Enunciation of Difference The second part of this volume charts the significance of early modern textiles for what Bhabha calls “the act of enunciation,” thus, “the performance of identity as iteration, the re-creation of the self in the world of travel, the resettlement of the borderline community of migration.”81 Across the early modern globe, textile performances became widely associated with “the process of the enunciation of culture as ‘knowledgeable,’ authoritative adequate to the construction of systems of cultural identification.”82 Textiles, in other words, came to materialise cultural differences since their performance could enact the enunciation of difference itself and, thus, the association of textiles with, as well as their fixation as, identities. Textile identities have never been fixed, but textiles became tools to create the fiction of fixed cultural differences. Textiles could feature prominently in “a process of signification through which statements of culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate and authorize the production of fields of force, reference, applicability and capacity.”83 In often deeply hierarchical early modern societies, textiles materialised the “desire to see, to fix cultural difference in a containable, visible object”; thus, fabrics could be made relevant to signpost differences as significant.84 Sumptuary laws, issued across the globe to regulate dressing, as well as the rise of costume albums illustrate the degree to which textiles embodied “[t]he enunciation of cultural 79 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 200. 80 Robert DuPlessis in this volume. 81 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 12, 188, 195, 235. 82 Ibid., 50. 83 Ibid., 49–50. 84 Ibid., 72.

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difference.”85 Such albums flooded the European book market from the sixteenth century onwards. However, the genre also found use in Edo Japan.86 Costume albums, to adapt Bhabha’s wording, were crucial devices to transform knowledge about textiles into knowledge of cultures, how they differed and how such differences, in early modern terms, were understood to matter.87 As Riello highlights, “costume books […] move[d] away from the partial and the experiential towards the comprehensive and totalizing”: Standardization however highlights difference. In sifting through the pages of costume books, one is encouraged to compare, observe variations and […] position figures in separate spaces.88

Presented in this manner, textiles made differences recognisable; they were made to matter in the production of cultural difference around the globe. Rublack termed this the “ideologies of dress.”89 Costume books established visual arguments of “ethnic stereotyping,” associating textiles with “national styles” and “moral geographies.”90 Albums framed the representations of costumes with often rhymed comments on alleged national and moral characteristics of their wearers. Caspar Schmalkalden (1616–1673), a German voyaging the world in Dutch service, depicted clothing habits to label Chinese women as skilled embroiderers and shy virgins, and Javanese women as of “yellow colour” and obsessive with tea ceremonies.91 In seventeenth-century Japan, too, textiles were made to matter to ascribe cultural difference (Fig. 1.6). Edo world maps showed costumes alongside phrasings like: “The world is broad; the variety of its peoples is without end. Just as its countries differ, the peoples are likewise different in appearance.”92 Across the early modern world, visualisations of costumes made textiles part of the “ideological manoeuvres through which ‘imagined communities’ [were] given essentialist identities,” sensu Bhabha.93 85 Ibid., 51 (quote); Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack, eds., The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c.1200–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). 86 Giulia Calvi, “Cultures of Space: Costume Books, Maps, and Clothing between Europe and Japan (Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries),” I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance 20, no. 2 (2017): 331–63. 87 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 50. 88 Giorgio Riello, “The World in a Book: The Creation of the Global in Sixteenth-Century European Costume Books,” Past & Present 242 (2019): 292. 89 Rublack, Dressing Up, 129. 90 Ibid., 127, 135, 146. 91 Universitäts- und Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha, Chart. B 533, Caspar Schmalkalden, Reise von Amsterdamm necher Pharnambuco in Brasil, 1642–1652, 19, 259. 92 Ronald P. Toby, “Imagining and Imaging ‘Anthropos’ in Early Modern Japan,” Visual Anthropology Review 14, no. 1 (1998): 24; Calvi, “Cultures,” 349–51. 93 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 213.

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Figure 1.6 Anon., Bankoku sōzu (萬國総圖), Nagasaki, 1671. Total view and detail. © Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, Cod.jap. 4.

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Figure 1.7 Aboriginal Australian bag (twine, wool, human hair) containing pituri, South Gregory?, nineteenth century. © The Trustees of the British Museum London, Oc1897,-.635.

As signs of differentiation, textiles materialised the making of communities as political projects.94 Fabrics could potentially function as “the sign of colonial government” and thus be used to (de)legitimise authority.95 In Australia, colonial authorities distributed “government blankets” and cheap clothing, known as “slop,” among Aboriginal communities to annihilate Indigenous textile heritage and its identificatory resonances.96 Since such textiles were meant to make difference meaningful to legitimise “colonial governmentability,” Indigenes altered such fabrics to challenge claims to authority.97 Aboriginal Australians dissolved these “government blankets” and used their twine and wool to weave bags to carry pituri, a mix of plants widely used by Indigenes (Fig. 1.7). The addition of human hair turned the bag into a personalised artefact embodying Indigenous identificatory practices, life, and resistance. In-between textiles, then, could negotiate the legitimacy of 94 Ibid., 4. 95 Ibid., 163, 133–34. 96 State Library New South Wales, Sydney, A 3016, list of blankets distributed among Indigenous Australians at Bathurst, 1826. 97 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 134.

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power. This bag testifies to Indigenous resistance against the imposition of colonial entitlement through textiles, and their use to carve out space for survival and what Bhabha calls the “right to difference in equality.”98 As this volume shows with reference to race and religion, textiles were key in negotiating the material enunciation of difference. Lemire highlights the extent to which the intersectionality of gender and race was anchored in the trade and consumption of textiles in the eighteenth-century British world, where fabrics were “weaving together a tapestry of imperial sentiment.” White fashion played a crucial role in the formation of racial politics.99 Malika Kraamer’s ethnographic and scientific analysis of textiles adds to this discussion by showcasing how West African kente cloth reshaped English abolitionist debates, brokering processes of othering and the status of humanity. Marika Sardar examines the links between textiles and ethnicity in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Deccan, arguing that fabrics turned the expression of court members’ different ethnic affiliations into an identificatory feature. What to wear, and how to wear it, made textile a code of ethnicity as part of the notion of identity. Focusing on Reformation England, Mary M. Brooks shows how garments could be (re)loaded with religious meanings. Textiles negotiated the possibilities and limits of the expression of contested faith, “negotiating the politics of identity and difference.”100

Identity Effects In-Between the Local and the Global The third part of this volume addresses the “identity effects” of early modern in-between textiles; the politics of textile identification in a globalised world whose protagonists used clothing to scale, relate, and distance themselves towards the local and the global.101 Bhabha’s theoretical repertoire allows for a conceptualisation of dressing as performative cultural translation and positioning: “identification is never the affirmation of a pre-given identity, never a self-fulfilling prophecy—it is always the production of an image of identity.”102 Textiles served the performativity of subjectivity by allowing protagonists to stage “new forms of meaning, and strategies of identification.”103 Early modern textiles produced performative “reality effect[s]” that “construct[ed] a mode of address in which a complementarity of meaning 98 Ibid., xvii, xx, xxv, referencing Arendt, Human Condition; Etiénne Balibar, Masses, Classes, Ideas: Studies on Politics and Philosophy before and after Marx (New York: Routledge, 1994). 99 Beverly Lemire in this volume. 100 Malika Kraamer, Marika Sardar, and Mary M. Brooks in this volume (quotation, Brooks). 101 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 128–29. 102 Ibid., 64 (quote), 233. See also Welch, “Introduction.” 103 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 233 (quote), 100.

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Figure 1.8 Andrés Sánchez Galque, Portrait of Don Francisco de Arobe and His Sons Pedro and Domingo, Quito, 1599. 92 × 175cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, P04778. © Photographic Archive Museo Nacional del Prado.

produces the moment of discursive transparency.”104 Since textiles could shape “the immediate visibility of such a regime of recognition,” they opened a Third Space to locate and negotiate the self within this regime’s “rules of recognition.”105 This approach, thus, uncovers the significance of local contexts for the articulation of identity in a world shaped by globalisation. Textiles could transform the claim for identificatory reality into a reality of identification in a period in which textiles materialised global and local in-betweenness. Textiles scaled belonging, solidarity, and resistance. Late sixteenth-century Afro-Amerindian governors of the Esmeraldas coast in Ecuador, for instance, appeared in hybrid clothing in front of the imperial court in Quito when swearing loyalty to the Spanish monarch, the recipient of this portrait (Fig. 1.8).106 The dress comprises Spanish ruffs, Indigenous Andean body adornments, 104 Ibid., 155. 105 Ibid., 157, original in italics. 106 For the following, Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Seville, Quito, 9,R.2,N.15 (12 April 1599); Andrés Gutiérrez Usillos, “Nuevas aportaciones en torno al lienzo titulado Los mulatos de Esmeraldas: Estudio técnico, radiográfico e histórico,” Anales del Museo de América 20 (2012): 7–64; Joanne Pillsbury, Timothy Potts, and Kim N. Richter, eds., Golden Kingdoms: Luxury Arts in the Ancient Americas (Los Angeles: Getty Museum and Research Institute, 2017), 128–29, 272. Cf. Ann Pollard Rowe, ed., Costume and History in Highland Ecuador (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2011); Sherwin K. Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Herman L. Bennett, African Kings and Black Slaves: Sovereignty and Dispossession in the Early Modern Atlantic (Pittsburgh: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018); Rebecca Earle, “Race, Clothing and

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and Asian silks, which points to the self-fashioning of these local rulers of African and Indigenous inheritance towards a globalised imperial world. Textiles helped embody identity effects referencing Indigenous Andean and Iberian notions of African sovereignty, and globally traded imperial riches like Asian fabrics. Commissioned by Spanish imperial agents in Quito, this portrait conveyed the message of a locally well-functioning imperial global apparatus and loyal allegiance to the king, embodied in the ritualised handling of the wide-brimmed Iberian hats. Some of these textiles, it seems, were part of gifts presented to the Esmeraldas visitors in Quito which materialised their vassal status. From the perspective of Don Francisco de Arobe and his two sons, however, the receipt and combination of such treasures, and the combined apparel itself, performed subjectivity and pride, especially at a time when Indigenous groups in Quito faced restrictions in wearing textiles other than cotton, alongside self-sufficient sovereignty. The coastal population of former African slaves, Spaniards reported, “mix” (se mezclaron) with Indigenous coastal populations; as captain Pedro de Arévalo from Quito put it in 1600, these Mulattos were “taking over [Indigenous] rites, ceremonies, costumes, and women.”107 Shimmering surfaces also referenced Andean aesthetics. Hence, these Afro-Amerindians’ conversion to Catholicism and steering to the Spanish king—Spaniards noted that Arobe had “always been a good friend of the Spaniards”—did not manifest obedience or subjugation; the painting’s sitters performed cosmopolitan hybridity as a principle of governmentality, life, and survival.108 Textiles mattered to produce a regime of recognition and governmentality that helped these Afro-Amerindians to carve out the “right to difference in equality.”109 Textiles allowed such individuals to scale themselves towards various local and global platforms of the Spanish imperial world, yet the legibility of such local performances of politics of identification produced ambiguous, slippery identity effects. In this volume, Javier Irigoyen-García examines the extent to which the “game of canes” translated Iberian notions of Moorishness across the Spanish imperial world, and the ambivalent role of Asian textiles in such performances of cultural difference and imperial identity. The use of Asian textiles to stage Iberian concepts Identity: Sumptuary Laws in Colonial Spanish America,” in Riello and Rublack, Right to Dress, 325; Miguel A. Valerio, Sovereign Joy: Afro-Mexican Kings and Queens, 1539–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022). 107 Quoted in Gutiérrez Usillos, “Nuevas aportaciones,” 15. 108 Ibid. On Andean traditions of hybridity, see Cathy L. Costin, “Hybrid Objects, Hybrid Social Identities: Style and Social Structure in the Late Horizon Andes,” in Identity Crisis: Archaeological Perspectives on Social Identity, ed. Lindsay Amundsen-Meyer, Nicole Engel, and Sean Pickering (Calgary: University of Calgary, Chacmool Archaeological Association, 2011), 211–25; Di Hu, The Fabric of Resistance: Textile Workshops and the Rise of Rebellious Landscapes in Colonial Peru (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2022). 109 Bhabha, Location of Culture, xvii, xx, xxv.

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of otherness in American contexts “produced conflicting ‘identity effects’ on a local level. […] When interweaving the Iberian globe […] textiles created spaces of in-betweenness.”110 One such example is discussed in Denise Arnold’s chapter, which shifts traditional interpretations of the shimmering effects of Andean colonial cloth that are widely considered resulting from the introduction of Asian silks to the New World. Such techniques, Arnold argues, “illustrate a much longer-term regional strategy concerned with cultural continuity, subjectivity, and memory, through the material replication of ancestral knowledge.” Early modern shimmering Andean textiles, then, materialised Indigenous cultural memory, persistence, and resistance, and the making of Indigenous communal identities in a changing world. Hence, “the colonial setting opened up a liminal space in which the material articulation of these pre-colonial cultural continuities became a crucial element of identification, memory, and identity.”111 Also, Victoria Ivleva focuses on shimmering textiles, silks in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Russia. During the Petrine reforms, she argues, “silk fabrics became transformed from globally traded artefacts into tokens of local identity politics.”112 Luís Dias Antunes studies the power of textiles to renegotiate local identities and global dependencies in eighteenth-century Mozambique. The plantation of cotton and its manufacturing into textiles, he argues, must be considered a form of resistance against Portuguese colonial rule and Indian traders’ monopoly power. Their aim to foster the consumption of Asian fabrics among residents of the Zambezi River valley fuelled the trade in slaves and ivory, a cycle of dependencies disrupted by native cotton.113 As the chapters of Arnold, Brooks, Dias Antunes, DiPaolo Loren, DuPlessis, and Kraamer illustrate, Bhabha’s theory of in-betweenness helps researchers to uncover the power of textiles as resistance.

Material Translation and Cultural Appropriation The final part of this volume examines the significance of early modern in-between textiles for the translation and transformation of cultural meanings. The global circulation of textiles could turn fabrics into items that provoked and channelled the negotiation of new cultural meanings; in-between textiles “[could] be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew.”114 Cultural translation was deeply connected to processes of material translation of textiles that could “produce new forms of knowledge, new modes of differentiation, new sites of power,” and 110 Javier Irigoyen-García in this volume. 111 Denise Arnold in this volume. 112 Victoria Ivleva in this volume. 113 Luís Dias Antunes in this volume. 114 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 55.

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thus negotiated the material and subjective realm of in-betweenness as cultural practice.115 Headgear, for instance, translated subjectivities across early modern Eurasia. Headgear served as “the most important emblem of identity” detailing rank, gender, status, and religious affiliations in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires.116 In Istanbul, Ottoman subjects and Venetian ambassadors interpreted Ottoman and Safavid headwear to make sense of a wide repertoire of imperial subjectivities.117 This created a Third Space in which the meanings of textiles, performances, and subjectivities could be misread, read anew, experimented with, and adapted; novel practices emerged through in-between material translation. European travellers to seventeenth-century Persia like Jean Chardin (1643–1713) soon realised that the turban “is the finest part of their Dress.” Such appreciation invited Chardin to experiment with wearing a turban himself: The Persian Turban […] is a Piece so heavy that it is a Wonder how they wear it; there are of them so heavy, as to weigh twelve or fifteen Pound; the lightest of them weigh half as much. I had much ado at first to wear this Turban; I sunk under the Weight, and I pull’d it off, in all Places where I durst take that Liberty; for it is look’d upon in Persia to be the same thing as with us in Europe, to pull of one’s Peruke: But by Accustoming my self to it, I came in time to wear it very well.118

Chardin continues to elaborate which fabrics to use, and how; the mastering of Safavid sartorial practices was based on accepting the cultural value of such cloth. To Chardin, wearing a turban had clearly become a source of pride, honour, and style. Near Eastern fabrics “afforded Europeans new cultural possibilities of selfexpression and self-understanding.”119 The arrival of European headwear in Islamic lands fuelled mutually ambivalent processes of material translation. In seventeenth-century Persia, European-style hats with wide brims and panaches materialised stereotypical (mis)behaviours of foreign visitors (Fig. 1.9). Court painter Reza Abbasi (c.1560–1635) drew a young Portuguese man with wide hat with the comment: “Love compels me to run bare-foot 115 Ibid., 171. 116 Madeline C. Zilfi, “Women, Minorities and the Changing Politics of Dress in the Ottoman Empire, 1650–1830,” in Riello and Rublack, Right to Dress, 395 (quote). 117 Walther Björkman, “Tulband,” Encyclopaedia of Islam: Second Edition, accessed 20 June 2021, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_7618; Franz Taeschner, ed., Alt-Stambuler Hof- und Volksleben: Ein türkisches Miniaturenalbum aus dem 17. Jahrhundert (Hanover: Lafaire, 1925), 33. 118 Percy Sykes, ed., Sir John Chardin’s Travels in Persia (London: Argonaut, 1927), 214. 119 Alexander Bevilacqua and Helen Pfeifer, “Turquerie: Culture in Motion, 1650–1750,” Past & Present 221 (2013): 112.

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Figure 1.9 Reza Abbasi, Young Portuguese Man, 1634. Watercolour, ink and gold on paper, 14.6 × 19.1cm. Detroit Institute of Arts, 58.334. © Wikimedia Commons/Detroit Institute of Arts.

and -headed in that alley [of desire], like [those] foreign slaves.”120 Lifting one’s hat to honour those of high esteem and to flatter women, as mentioned in travelogues, was a practice unique to Europeans. Englishman John Fryer (c.1650–1733) was therefore rather confused when observing that Armenian merchants at the Coromandel Coast “move their Turbats as we our Hats.”121 Observing Europeans lifting their hats would have been a similarly disturbing sight for Indian and Safavid subjects, for whom honourable men would cover their heads; slaves, on the contrary, were bareheaded or shorn. Mughal miniaturists, thus, mocked Portuguese men with wide ostentatious caps for searching happiness in taverns (Fig. 1.10). Reza Abbasi, too, mocks Europeans as slaves of material desires. The Portuguese with the lavish hat is shown craving for Persian and Chinese textiles and porcelain, searching for personal amusement through consumption without any understanding of cultural manners: he serves a (tea?) cup filled with wine to a dog at a time when Safavid subjects took pride in 120 “Riza-I ‘Abbasi, Young Portuguese Man, 1634,” Detroit Institute of Arts, accessed 16 July 2021, https:// www.dia.org/art/collection/object/young-portugese-man-58564. 121 John Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia (…) (London: Chiswell, 1698), 31.

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Figure 1.10 Anon., Portrait of a Portuguese Gentleman, c.1600. Ink, watercolour and gold on paper, 14 × 11.5cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 14.661. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

the subtle consumption of wine and tea, mainly imported from China, which had been associated with cultural refinement.122 Another mid-seventeenth-century 122 Rudi Matthee, The Pursuit of Pleasure: Drugs and Stimulants in Iranian History, 1500–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 240–41; Reza Abbasi, Saki, 1619/20. Painting in the Golšan Album. 40.6 × 25.1cm, Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, no. 1663.

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Figure 1.11 Anon., Young Man in Portuguese Dress, Iran, mid-seventeenth century. Ink, watercolour and gold on paper, 31.1 × 18.4cm. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 55.121.23.

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portrait, however, shows a young man with the “facial features […] of the beautiful Iranian court youth,” elegantly taking off his European-style hat and bowing down his head in an elaborated and lavishly expansive gesture (Fig. 1.11). The lightness of these hats invited postures that could be easily associated with gracility. Hats, apparently, also widened the Safavid cultural repertoire of staging the self and the body, alongside civility and courtship.123 In-between such textiles and the self, practices of cultural positioning got translated, appropriated, and adapted anew. This volume maps the material translation of textiles in diverse contexts. In her study of silk embroidery, based on collections research and anthropological fieldwork, Leyla Belkaïd-Neri “present[s] a thus far unknown material and gendered history of vernacular cosmopolitanism and in-between hybridity shaped by the women of early modern Algiers.” She builds on Bhabha’s concept of vernacular cosmopolitanism to argue that the embroidering of textiles in-between a variety of Mediterranean traditions empowered women to shape intersubjective spaces and gendered subjectivities in Algiers.124 Indian fabrics are without doubt among the most traded and appropriated textiles across the early modern globe. Their translation into new local settings has been predominantly studied for European contexts thus far.125 This volume therefore focuses on these fabrics’ East Asian and East African appropriation. Yumiko Kamada argues that “the local cultural translation of such globally circulating Indian textiles and carpets helped negotiating ‘new signs of identity’ in Edo Japan” where Indian carpets “could stage hierarchies, legitimise authority, embody wealth, and materialise Japanese spiritual and symbolic aesthetics.”126 The translation of Indian textiles, as Michael Gervers and Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux argue in their study of tablet-woven sanctuary curtains in eighteenth-century Ethiopia, often relied on the mobility of textile matter and textile experts. In this case, Egyptian weavers processed Indian silk under royal patronage in Ethiopia. Gérentet de Saluneaux’s weave remaking reveals the astonishing degree of innovation and creativity resulting from such transculturally translated textiles.127 In the final chapter, Ana Serrano presents the results of a decade-long 123 Peck, Interwoven Globe, 256. 124 Leyla Belkaïd-Neri in this volume. See also Suraiya Faroqhi, “The Material World of Early Modern Ottoman Women: Ornaments, Robes and Domestic Furnishings in Istanbul and Bursa,” Turkish Historical Review 11 (2021): 199–228 on Ottoman silks, gender, and domestic furnishing. 125 Barbara Karl, Embroidered Histories: Indian Textiles for the Portuguese Market during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Vienna: Böhlau, 2016); Kim Siebenhüner, John Jordan, and Gabi Schopf, eds., Cotton in Context: Manufacturing, Marketing, and Consuming Textiles in the German-Speaking World (1500–1900) (Vienna: Böhlau, 2019). A recent exception is Kazuo Kobayashi, Indian Cotton Textiles in West Africa: African Agency, Consumer Demand and the Making of the Global Economy, 1750–1850 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 126 Yumiko Kamada in this volume. 127 Michael Gervers and Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux in this volume.

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study on the appropriation of American cochineal in early modern European textile industries. Her comparative study is based on in-depth archival research and a new scientific approach that allows, for the first time, for the analysis of cochineal dyes. Revealing the gradual adoption of New World dyestuff, her research shifts established narratives and calls for attention to “the very material composition of in-between textiles.”128 Actual matter inhabited these fabrics’ Third Space, whose material composition changed in response to early modern colonialism and consumerism.129 This volume, in sum, charts the stories of material change by posing the concept of in-between textiles as a novel, cross-disciplinary contribution to critical material culture theory. Contributors foreground the crucial role of textiles in driving the early modern production of global inequalities and troublesome uncertainties of the self—namely their contribution to processes of globalisation, colonialism, migration, and enslavement, as well as their role in the articulation of notions of race and difference. Yet, the authors also recover the significance of early modern textiles in reshaping agency, belonging, communities, and resistance; and their importance as provocative interpretative entry points for recovering the perspectives and strategies of Indigenous, enslaved, and minority protagonists. Spanning five centuries—from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century—and encompassing five continents, this volume aims at inspiring world scholars to think with and in-between material cultures. Five case studies focus on the Asia-Pacific region (Smith, Lemire, Sardar, Irigoyen-García, Kamada); four on the Americas (Loren, DuPlessis, Irigoyen-García, Arnold); another four on Africa (Kraamer, Antunes, Belkaïd-Neri, Gervers and Gérentet de Saluneaux); and three on Europe (Ivleva, Brooks, Serrano). Contributors’ methodologies range from archival studies and object analysis (Lemire, Irigoyen-García, DuPlessis, Antunes, Ivleva, Brooks), to research on museum collections, ethnography, and fieldwork (Arnold, Belkaïd-Neri, Kraamer); a combination of archival data analysis, field methods, and material science (Smith, Loren, Serrano); and historical research, textile expertise, and remaking (Gervers and Gérentet de Saluneaux). In doing so, this collection of essays unbundles the entanglement of power and empowerment linked to early modern textiles, and recharts our understanding of the unsettling material politics of the self.

About the Authors Beatriz Marín-Aguilera is a Derby Fellow at The University of Liverpool working on the archaeology of Indigenous slavery in the early modern Americas, and the 128 Ana Serrano in this volume. 129 Stefan Hanß, “Digital Microscopy and Early Modern Embroidery,” in Writing Material Culture History, ed. Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, 2nd ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 214–21.

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Caribbean and Chile in particular. Until 2022, she has been a Renfrew Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Teaching Associate at the Centre of Latin American Studies at the University of Cambridge (UK). Her research straddles and connects the fields of postcolonial theory, social anthropology, and material culture studies, while contributing to Critical Indigenous and Subaltern Studies. She was trained in textile archaeology in Leiden (Textile Research Centre) and Cambridge. Her research focuses on the archaeology of colonialism and frontiers centring on clothing, body adornment, and body politics, for which she was also awarded a José Amor y Vázquez fellowship at the John Carter Brown Library in 2019. Stefan Hanß is Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at The University of Manchester and the winner of a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award (2019) as well as a Philip Leverhulme Prize in History (2020). Hanß works on cultural encounters and global material culture, currently with a focus on the history of hair, featherwork, and microscopic records. His research has been widely published in, among others, Current Anthropology, History Workshop Journal, Past & Present, Renaissance Quarterly, and The Historical Journal.

Part I Unhomeliness, Mimicry, and Mockery

2.

Māori Textiles and Culture Adaptation, Transformation, and Manifestation in Early Aotearoa Catherine Smith Abstract Māori settled Aotearoa New Zealand from East Polynesia in the early-fourteenth century AD. Polynesian people travelled with a “portable economy,” importing domesticate food sources and textile crops. However, this suite of food and textile crops and animals was only partially successful in New Zealand due to the change from a tropical climate with little seasonality, to one that ranged from sub-tropical to sub-arctic zones across two large islands. Māori textiles thus show little resemblance to Pacific textiles, and provide material evidence of pervasive cultural change upon arrival. The migratory experience of Māori settling in Aotearoa created a sense of dislocation from the Pacific homeland, or, as Bhabha puts it, “unhomeliness.” The “in-between” space occupied by Māori on arrival in Aotearoa required the production of new cultural meanings, and textiles, this chapter argues, were a potent vehicle to do so. Keywords: Māori textiles; migration; unhomeliness; Critical Indigenous Studies

Introduction Māori settled Aotearoa New Zealand from East Polynesia in the early fourteenth century AD.1 This extraordinary feat of navigation resulted in the final landfall in the exploration of the Pacific by Polynesians, and settlement of the last major landmass uninhabited by humans. As they traversed the Pacific over several thousand years, Polynesian people travelled with a “portable economy” which made settlement of successive islands possible, importing domesticate food sources—animals such as chicken, pig, dog; plants such as breadfruit, coconut, banana, taro, yam, 1 Richard Walter et al., “Mass Migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand,” Journal of World Prehistory 30, no. 4 (2017): 355; Thomas Higham and Martin Jones, “Settlement and Chronology,” in Change through Time: 50 Years of New Zealand Archaeology, ed. Louise Furey and Simon Holdaway (Auckland: Publishing Press, 2004), 232.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch02

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Figure 2.1  Example of customary Māori garment. Korowai (cloak). Unknown weaver, 1820–1880, New Zealand. Purchased 2001. Te Papa (ME022703).

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gourd, kumara—and textile crops—Broussonetia papyrifera (paper mulberry), pandanus.2 However, this suite of food and textile crops and animals was only partially successful in New Zealand due to the change from a tropical climate with little seasonality, to one that ranged from sub-tropical to sub-arctic zones across two large islands.3 Tapa, arguably the most ubiquitous Polynesian textile form, was only a marginal aspect of dress in Aotearoa, because the plant used to make it, paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera; aute in Māori) did not thrive despite its cultivation. 4 New plant species and modes of textile production necessary for survival had to be discovered and developed with rapidity. Intuitively it would make sense that the settlers’ new clothes would show clear relationships to Pacific antecedents. However, most of the Māori textile forms now considered “customary” in Aotearoa—such as weft-twined cloaks with surface decoration (Fig. 2.1)—show little resemblance to Pacific textiles, and provide material evidence of rapid and pervasive cultural change upon arrival. The migratory experience of Māori settling in Aotearoa can be framed as creating a sense of dislocation from the Pacific homeland, or, as Homi Bhabha puts it, “unhomeliness” which he links to the notion of being “in-between.”5 This concept can be understood in the sense of inter-est: “human interest, in the sense that Arendt gives to the term: an exploration of what lies in-between (inter-est) these distinct, even disjunct moments that allow them to become affiliated with one another in the spirit of a ‘right to difference in equality.’”6 The “in-between” space occupied by Māori on arrival in Aotearoa required the production of new cultural meanings, and textiles were a potent vehicle to do so. Māori textiles, in their form, materials of construction, and the technology used to make them, are literal manifestations of adaptation to Aotearoa. Both transformative and instrumental, early Māori textiles, in their radical divergence from their customary Polynesian antecedents, represent the emergence of a characteristically Indigenous New Zealand textile culture.

The Earliest Māori Textiles: Kaitorete Spit The earliest textiles discovered in New Zealand date to AD c.1400 and were excavated in 2003 at Kaitorete Spit near Banks Peninsula, Canterbury, in the South Island.7 The 2 Richard Walter and Chris Jacomb, “New Zealand,” in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, ed. D. Pearsall (New York: Academic Press, 2008): 1741. 3 Helen Leach, “Te Whenua, te Iwi – In the Beginning,” AGMANZ Journal 16 (1985): 7–12. 4 Ibid., 8. 5 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004), 13, 19, 56. 6 Ibid., xx. 7 Chris Jacomb et al., “A 15th Century Māori Textile Fragment from Kaitorete Spit, Canterbury, and the Evolution of Māori Weaving,” Journal of the Polynesian Society 113, no. 4 (2004): 294.

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site was likely the burnt remains of a light structure, made of thin wooden stakes and thatched plant material, like a shelter or hut. Cooking fires, stone-working areas, and a thin lens of fish bone were associated with this shelter, as were 153 fragments of textiles, preserved through carbonisation. Not only was this site unusual in its yield of organic material, but unique in New Zealand archaeological history for the volume of woven pre-contact Māori textiles present.8 The Kaitorete textile artefacts can be grouped into three major categories: processed textile materials (34 artefacts), rāranga (64), and whātu aho pātahi (45). All textile forms present provide insight into the importance of textiles in the earliest phases of Māori culture, fast-paced adaptation to the plants of Aotearoa New Zealand, and the resulting development of innovative textile forms. Made within less than a hundred years of New Zealand settlement, the Kaitorete textiles also make apparent social hierarchy, craft specialisation, and technical virtuosity, made more astounding when considering the find location in a non-permanent habitation, in an isolated and harsh environment. Rāranga can be translated from Te Reo Māori (Māori language) as a general term for all weaving, but more commonly is used to refer to a textile woven from strips of leaf, rather than fibre. In the production of rāranga, plant leaf strips are joined together (often braided) to form a commencement edge. Once joined, each alternate piece of plant material is turned in the opposite direction, forming a set of sinistrals (pointed to the left, away from the weaver), and a set of dextrals (pointed to the right, away from the weaver).9 Leaf strips are then woven, in a variety of patterns, to the required form and when completed a finishing edge is constructed, sometimes by tucking the strips back through the kaupapa (fabric).10 Rāranga objects are ubiquitous in Māori culture. Kete (baskets), whāriki or takapau (floor and wall coverings, ceremonial mats), kawe (carrying straps), tātua (belts for men), and platters for food (rourou, raurau, poti, kōnae) are all rāranga.11 Given the importance of rāranga in Māori lifeways, providing both the means to gather and store food and protection from the elements, it is unsurprising that there are so many rāranga artefacts present at Kaitorete. Different weave structures and selvages, as well as measurements of weaving elements, indicate the likely presence of kete (bags), whāriki (floor mats), and architectural elements, as well as the possibility of garments. Three fragments of the rāranga at Kaitorete are highly unusual and resemble a distinctive feature of a rare form of kākahu (cloak), referred to in literature as 8 Ibid., 292. 9 Peter Buck, “Maori Plaited Basketry and Plaitwork. I: Mats, Baskets, and Burden-Carriers,” Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 54 (1923): 713. 10 Ibid., 736. 11 Mick Pendergrast, “The Fibre Arts,” in Maori Art and Culture, ed. D. C. Starzecka (Auckland: David Bateman, 1996), 119–26.

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Figure 2.2 (a) kākahu rāranga from Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand, E109.7; (b) detail of hiki join, Kaitorete assemblage, 2010.64; (c) carbonised rāranga fragment showing possible hiki join, Kaitorete assemblage, 2010.64.

kākahu rāranga, kahu rāranga pūputu (closely plaited cape), or kōnonu (black flax cape, Fig. 2.2).12 Because of their scarcity these cloaks are considered either a regional style, or a now defunct form, and have been speculatively dated as some of the earliest cloaks held in museum collections (early-mid Te Huringa, 1800–1850).13 Kahu rāranga pūputu have the appearance of whāriki (woven mats) consisting of joined panels of rāranga, however with lines of lush external fringing formed by leaf strips hanging at the joins between panels, where extra weaving elements of plant material have been added to complete the kaupapa (body) of the cloak. There are only seven extant kākahu of this type known to exist in museum collections.14 Recent radiocarbon dates gained from three of these garments and the collection of one of them by Sir Joseph Banks (1743–1820) confirms that rāranga cloaks were being made in the eighteenth century.15 However, the Kaitorete frag12 Ibid., 126; Awhina Tamarapa, “Ngā Kākahu o Te Papa: The Cloaks of Te Papa,” in Whatu Kākahu Māori Cloaks, ed. Awhina Tamarapa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011), 156–57. 13 Tamarapa, “Ngā Kākahu,” 156–57. 14 British Museum, London (BM), UK, Q1980.Oc.904 and Oc1921,1014.18; Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Honolulu, Hawai’i, EO1470; National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Wellington, New Zealand, ME001685; Banks Alstromer Collection, Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, Sweden, 1841.1.64; Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK, D1924.87; Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, NZ, E109.7. 15 Unpublished radiocarbon dates, University of Waikato Radiocarbon Laboratory, 2017–2020; Banks collected many kākahu, including a rāranga garment now held in the Banks Alstromer Collection in the

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ments now suggest the production of these garments may have stretched back into the earliest phase of Māori settlement of New Zealand (Fig. 2.2). Processed materials form another large part of the Kaitorete assemblage, and were mostly hanks of processed fibre (probably from New Zealand flax, Phormium tenax or harakeke). A distinctive feature of these fibres were regular “kinks” or “crinkles” along their surfaces. In her book Weaving a Kakahu (1992), Diggeress Te Kanawa describes the steps used to process muka (fibre from harakeke) to make a kākahu.16 The whenu (warps) were distinguished from the shorter aho (wefts) and plied, and then formed into tightly twisted hanks for soaking in water, then beaten to remove all surplus water. Once partially dried, the hanks were undone and the fibres rubbed between the hands in a clockwise direction. At the completion of these steps, the muka “should have a definite wave.”17 Mick Pendergrast too mentions how the repeated beating, soaking, and rubbing of fibres results in muka that is “soft, white, and crinkly.”18 The hanks of processed fibres present at Kaitorete definitely have a distinct wave, and provide evidence of muka processing techniques that are still customary practice for Māori weavers today. Textile materials were time-consuming to procure and produce, consumed more labour than food gathering in subsistence economies, and were in constant demand.19 We know from ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies “the need to have raw materials in a movable condition […] always available will have been an important variable in the lives of mobile prehistoric communities.”20 The amount and volume of the prepared fibre in the Kaitorete assemblage is a vivid reminder of this aspect of life. Contemporary accounts by customary Māori weavers show preparation of muka for weaving is a time-consuming and seasonal activity. Diggeress Te Kanawa, for instance, states to “make an average-sized kakahu, at least 600–700 whenu are needed.”21 Given the necessity of gathering and preparing large amounts of processed fibre prior to the commencement of the making of any garment it is not surprising to see a large amount of this material in the Kaitorete assemblage. The remaining textile structure found at Kaitorete, made up of forty-five fragments, is whatu aho pātahi, or spaced weft twining. Single passive elements in the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, Sweden, Accession Number 1841.1.64, https://collections.smvk.se/ carlotta-em/web/object/1019656. 16 Diggeress Te Kanawa, Weaving a Kakahu (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 1992). 17 Ibid., 17. 18 Pendergrast, “Fibre Arts,” 117. 19 Elizabeth Barber, Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years (New York: Norton & Co, 1991), 31. 20 Karen Hardy, “Prehistoric String Theory: How Twisted Fibres Helped to Shape the World,” Antiquity 82, no. 316 (2008): 277. Cf. Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, “Weaving Rural Economies: Textile Production and Societal Complexity in Iron Age South-Western Iberia,” World Archaeology 51, no. 1 (2019): 226–51. 21 Te Kanawa, Weaving, 14.

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warp direction (whenu) are each enclosed by a pair of threads twined with a half S-twist in the weft (aho) direction, a woven structure commonly referred to in New Zealand as single-pair twine. Spaced two-strand weft twining was known to have been used by Māori for lower body garments like piupiu (kilts) or maro (loin cloths/ belts), short upper body garments like mai, pokeka, or para (capes), as well as rain capes and some finer kākahu.22 To make kākahu using whatu aho pātahi, warps are attached to a line strung between two weaving pegs, and the wefts, consisting of a pair of threads, are worked across the warps by passing one in front and one behind each of them. A space is left before another set of weft threads is worked across the warps. Each horizontal line of twining is repeated at an equal-spaced distance below, hence the name commonly used in New Zealand, spaced single-pair twine. There are several distinctive features on some of the whatu aho pātahi fragments from Kaitorete, including a side edge. As the weaver reaches the end of the warps when weaving with fibre, each pair of wefts was knotted before moving onto the next spaced vertical row.23 Often kākahu made according to customary practice have a two-, or three-ply cord along their side edges called the whenu tapiri, onto which each set of wefts is knotted.24 One Kaitorete fragment has the remains of such a two-ply cord along its edge, and two to three knots can be seen where the wefts have been tied off. A variety of different surface treatments have been recorded in Māori customary weaving practice. Feathers, strips of dog skin, rolled cord (hukahuka), unravelled cords (kārure), pompoms (ngore), leaf strip tags, and bundles of fibre were all added during the process of weaving, rather than being applied to the finished surface later.25 Decorative material was added into the weft pointing upwards, and away, from the weaver so that the next weft could be continued without being obscured. In all types of kākahu that have decorative cords or tags added to the surface—which were then often named for the form of surface treatment—, the commencement edge becomes the bottom edge when worn. The finished cloak is thus reversed so that attachments will then hang down.26 Due to carbonisation of the Kaitorete textiles there is no way of knowing whether any of the whatu aho pātahi fragments were dyed. However, there is one form of surface treatment that survived and provides an indication of the possible function 22 Peter Buck, “The Evolution of Maori Clothing,” Journal of the Polynesian Society 33 (1925): 294; Mick Pendergrast, Ka Tahi Māori Fibre Techniques: A Resource Book for Māori Fibre Arts (Auckland: Reed Publishing, 2005), 71–88. 23 Pendergrast, “Fibre Arts,” 128. 24 Margery Blackman, “Whatu: The Enclosing Threads,” in Whatū Kākahu Maori Cloaks, ed. Awhina Tamarapa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011), 88. 25 Mick Pendergrast, Te Aho Tapu: The Sacred Thread (Auckland: Reed Publishing, 1987), 15. 26 Pendergrast, “Fibre Arts,” 127.

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of the artefact. On the surface of one fragment there are six evenly spaced tags, each consisting of a hank of processed fibre doubled over, inserted in a single weft during manufacture. The ends of the surviving tags reach to the selvage edge, indicating that this piece could be a portion of the bottom edge of a garment. This is also supported by the existence of a whenu tapiri complete with tied-off weft threads as mentioned above. To attempt to understand the relationships among the forty-five fragments of the whatu aho pātahi, a series of measurements of features of the weave structure were taken from each artefact, and statistical analysis of them carried out. Hierarchical cluster analysis enables the relating of similar objects into categories, and quantifies how similar or different two objects might be. These analyses highlighted the probability that all of the whatu aho patāhi fragments belonged to the same garment, or if not, were made by the same hand. Overall, detailed study of weave structure, selvages, and surface treatment of the whatu aho pātahi fragments from Kaitorete revealed a number of features. Distinctive characteristics included a whenu tapiri, fine and accomplished weaving (a high sett), and in several cases, fibre tags. Based on comparison with ethnographic study and examples of customary Māori weaving practice held in museum collections, these fragments are therefore likely to come from a garment(s), representing the earliest Māori clothing. Based on extant artefacts in museum collections, fragments could come from a cloak(s), a short upper body garment such as a mai, pokeka, or para, or a lower body garment such as a maro.27 All of the textile forms present in the Kaitorete assemblage reveal the extent of Māori adaptation to the new environment and plants of Aotearoa, within a hundred years of settlement. The textiles provide evidence of significant prior technological discovery, such as knowledge of fibre-bearing plants, their selection and probable cultivation, use and processing, and then production of innovative textile structures—in most cases unlike their Polynesian predecessors. Implicit in the fineness and accomplishment of the weaving at Kaitorete, and the multiplicity of textile forms found there, is a high level of expertise relating to these new forms of textile production. Additionally, the differences to what is now considered customary Māori practice that can be discerned in these early textile forms testifies to the creative agency of makers and the diverse possibilities in textile production. Other aspects of pre-contact Māori life are also revealed by these textiles. The skill requirements represented by the textiles themselves speak to societal division of labour. It is unlikely that the person who wore or used these textiles could themselves have made them. In Māori culture, textiles provide material evidence of mana (prestige, authority, control, power, influence, and status), and those of 27 Catherine Smith, “Pre-European Māori Textiles from South Island New Zealand” (PhD thesis, University of Otago, 2014), 344.

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high status had garments produced for them to make this power manifest to all. Due to the fineness of weaving and decoration, the whatu-aho pātahi fragments in particular are suggestive of a garment worn by an individual of high status. The find context, at Kaitorete Barrier, in a small hut, centred within a region of seasonal economic exploitation for southern Māori, also speaks of the importance of textiles in early Māori culture. Very quickly after arrival in Aotearoa Polynesian founder settlers would have begun to exploit the landscape to adapt to new conditions, while applying Polynesian economic models—transient villages providing a base for exploitation of close resources; far-flung networks for trade and exchange—and pre-existing knowledge systems—for appropriate plants, food, and fibres. However, the lifestyle of pre-contact southern Māori differed from those elsewhere in New Zealand due to the impossibility of cultivation of traditional Pacific food crops. While having base settlements, Māori in the South Island would have needed to travel widely to pursue food and other economic imperatives.28 Kaitorete Spit lies between Lake Ellesmere (Māori name Waihora, “water spread out”) and the Pacific Ocean. Lake Ellesmere was a place of great importance to South Island Māori in the pre-European period.29 The area provided an abundance of important food (eels, freshwater mussels, fish, waterfowl, and their eggs), and plant resources (ti kouka rhizomes, pingao), including from neighbouring wetlands.30 The subsistence lifestyle of this region revolved around innovative and seasonal responses to a challenging environment,31 yet the diversity and technical virtuosity of the textiles found here speaks of broader social and cultural agendas, rather than simply survival.

Plants, People, and the Puketoi Station Assemblage The two major Polynesian textile plants, pandanus and paper mulberry (aute in Māori; Broussonetia papyrifera), were not viable sources for textile production in New Zealand. Pandanus does not seem to have been brought to New Zealand, or if it was, is not present in the archaeological record.32 Aute was cultivated but did 28 Richard Walter, Ian Smith, and Chris Jacomb, “Sedentism, Subsistence and Socio-Political Organization in Prehistoric New Zealand,” World Archaeology 38, no. 2 (2006): 280. 29 Harry Evison, “Early Maori History,” in Waihora Lake Ellesmere: Past, Present, Future, ed. J. D. G. Davies, L. Galloway, and A. H. C. Nutt (Upper Hutt, New Zealand: Lincoln University Press, 1994), 21. 30 Ibid., 21–22. 31 Aidan J. Challis, Ka Pakahi Whakatekateka O Waitaha: The Archaeology of Canterbury in Maori Times (Wellington: Department of Conservation, 1995), 64–65. 32 Helen Leach and Chris Stowe, “Oceanic Arboriculture at the Margins – the Case of the Karaka (Corynocarpus leavigatus) in Aotearoa,” The Journal of the Polynesian Society 114, no. 1 (2005): 12.

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not thrive; tapa-making techniques were possibly applied to endemic species of lacewood and ribbonbark (Hoheria sp.).33 New sources and technologies for fibre and plant material procurement for cordage, portage, food storage, and dress had to be found. The Tahitian word harakeke means pandanus (hara) and the process of softening (keke).34 If the Hawai’ian word for pandanus lauhalal has its “l” replaced with a Māori “r,” it becomes rauhara, or “leaves of hara.”35 Pandanus, the ubiquitous source of fibre in Polynesia, was replaced with harakeke (Phormium tenax, New Zealand flax) by Māori. William Colenso graphically records the importance of harakeke to Māori, its extensive cultivation and longstanding knowledge of its properties and technology for usage at the time of European contact: First they always had planted near to, if not adjoining, their food cultivations and their towns and villages, the commoner sorts of this useful plant, which was constantly used by them in its green state for the daily making of baskets and dishes for cooked food […] and, also, for common and hasty tying purposes; but these common kinds […] they did not make use for making thread, cord, fishing-lines, nets, and garment-weaving purposes; these superior kinds were cultivated. […] The variety which was suited […] for making fish-lines, would not serve for making nets […] and what was required for the woof of their superior woven flax garments, would not serve for the warp of the same, while another type again was used for their dyed borders.36

While harakeke was cultivated, there is also evidence, from oral traditions and reports to ethnologists, of travel and trade to procure harakeke cultivars prized for specific properties.37 Aside from the ubiquitous harakeke, plant species endemic to New Zealand used for textiles include tī kouka (cabbage tree), kiekie, tōī (mountain cabbage tree), pīngao (golden sand sedge), neinei (grass tree), waewaekoukou (climbing club moss), tīkumu (mountain daisy, Celmisia sp.), kuta or paopao (water sedge), and grasses such as wīwī (rush), pātāti (tussock grass), and wī (silver tussock). These textile resources 33 Roger Neich, “New Zealand Maori Barkcloth and Barkcloth Beaters,” Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum 33 (1996): 111. 34 Maihi, “Ngā aho Threads That Join,” in Whatu Kākahu Māori Cloaks, ed. Awhina Tamarapa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011), 35. 35 Ibid. 36 William Colenso, “On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient New Zealanders before Cook’s Visit,” Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 13 (1880): 18–19. 37 Patricia Wallace, “Kō te Putaiao, te Ao o ngā Tūpuna,” in Whatu Kākahu Māori Cloaks, ed. Awhina Tamarapa (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2011), 47.

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would have been gathered as part of seasonal resource procurement rounds, when food—plant and animal—and lithic resources were also gathered, traded, and exchanged. In fact, we have longstanding direct evidence of precisely this kind of mobility in prehistoric Māori lifeways, however, on the basis of the circulation of more durable, inorganic artefact forms.38 Important industrial stone resources—obsidians, nephrite, cherts, basalt, and argilllites—spanning both islands of New Zealand were located, and in widespread use within a couple of generations of arrival.39 Richard Walter, Chris Jacomb, and Sreymony Bowron-Muth use the relative abundance of Major Island Obsidian to elucidate social mobility and exchange processes. They perceived a rapid, crossisland transfer of this desired lithic source in the few generations immediately post-settlement, as evidence of a “colonisation” period. 40 While obsidian itself is undoubtedly an important commodity, archaeologists argued that its undoubted utility as a tool may have been ancillary to the interaction that exchange required.41 In small founder settlements of New Zealand, people lived geographically dispersed in isolated communities along the coastline. During the initial period of settlement, it was imperative to maintain links among these communities for reproduction and consequent demographic stability but just as importantly for the purpose of the maintenance and reinforcement of culture, in New Zealand long-distance communication systems developed […] with the role of linking small, scattered settler communities into a viable social network that would provide […] the mechanisms for social reproduction. 42

As textiles were cross-cultural markers of identity, expressing both personal and cultural belonging, stage in life, status, and relationships, it is easy to imagine the centrality of textiles also in this process of cultural affirmation. As stated by Bhabha, objects like textiles can be used “to stage the drama of identity” in a changing world, where there is a “desire to see, to fix cultural difference in a containable, visible object.”43 This process of reinforcing culture, making identity visible and tangible, made textiles a potent force for community making. 44

38 Walter and Jacomb, “New Zealand,” 1743. 39 Ibid. 40 Richard Walter, Chris Jacomb, and Sreymony Bowron-Muth, “Colonisation, Mobility and Exchange in New Zealand Prehistory,” Antiquity 84 (2010): 509. 41 Ibid., 510. 42 Ibid., 511. 43 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 72, 89. 44 Ibid., 4.

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Evidence gained from identifying the plants used to make artefacts in early Māori textile assemblages actually manifests these long-distance trade and cultural relationships, as well as the plant-based technological revolution that enabled the first people of New Zealand to adapt, survive, and prosper. Polarised light microscopy methods have been developed to identify the range of plants used by Māori, uncovering the extent and the diversity of adaptation to New Zealand plants.45 Through identifying the plants in the Puketoi Station textile assemblage we see direct evidence of the importance of plant and textile resources to early Māori. In 1895 a cache of predominantly textile and textile-related artefacts were found in a cave on Puketoi Station, in Central Otago, a semi-arid area in the interior of the southern South Island of New Zealand (Fig. 2.3).46 A sample of fibre from the assemblage was radiocarbon dated and returned a calibrated date of AD 1680–1740 at 1 s.d.47 This extraordinary assemblage consisted of twenty-four textiles, including a large woven kete (bag) containing the other artefacts. These included smaller bags, a whitebait net, incomplete pieces of fine weaving constructed from dyed and non-dyed muka, and large hanks of prepared and processed plant materials.48 When published in 1896, the assemblage was interpreted by Augustus Hamilton as the bag of a weaver, containing materials necessary for the production of a high-status garment, such as a cloak.49 While some of the woven materials undoubtedly attest to the skill of an accomplished weaver, in its entirety this assemblage also presents important information about the economy and technology of Māori prior to systematic European contact. A wide variety of plant materials was used in the construction of the Puketoi Station textiles. The majority of the artefacts were constructed from the ubiquitous Māori textile plant, harakeke, both from strips of leaf material and fibre. Tī kōuka leaf was also present, used to make two pairs of pāraerae (sandals). Tī kōuka is a tree endemic to New Zealand that grows from 12m to 20m tall; it is widespread and grows from sea level to 600m, with sword-shaped leaves (0.3–1m long; 30–60mm wide).50 Tī kōuka was a source of leaf material and f ibre for the production of dress, cordage, hunting equipment—snares, fish nets, and traps—and portage, and was also a valued medicinal and food resource.51 The rhizomes of tī kōuka 45 Rachel Paterson et al., “Polarised Light Microscopy: An Old Technique Casts New Light on Māori Textile Plants,” Archaeometry 59, no. 5 (2017): 979. 46 Augustus Hamilton, “Discovery of a Maori Kete at Upper Taieri,” Transactions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute 29 (1896): 174. 47 Moira White, Catherine Smith, and Kahutoi Te Kanawa, “Māori Textiles from Puketoi Station, Otago, New Zealand,” Textile History 46, no. 2 (2015): 215. 48 Hamilton, “Discovery,” 174–75. 49 Ibid., 175. 50 White, Smith, and Te Kanawa. “Māori Textiles,” 222. 51 Philip Simpson, Dancing Leaves: The Story of New Zealand’s Cabbage Tree, Ti Kouka (Christchurch: Canterbury University Press, 2000), 143–68.

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Figure 2.3  Maps of the geographic distribution of Celmisia semicordata and Freycinetia banksii, and Puketoi Station artefacts made from them: bundle of wharawhara. Copyright Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, D24.577B; Pukoro, Tūhura Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand, D24.589.

also provided an important food source for pre-European contact Māori.52 Leaf material and fibre from tī kōuka were valued for water resistance and for durability; documented uses aside from hardy pāraerae included pakipaki (waist garments), f ishing materials, and kete (for immersion in water) while f ibre was used for cordage.53 Both harakeke and tī kōuka were readily available across the region where the textiles were found. However, two other plant species identified in the textiles were not so readily available and testify to wide-ranging travel and trade for textile resources, not just lithics, in early Māori culture. One small kete, called a pukoro, is extremely finely woven, with a complex weave structure of balanced 3/3 twill, in a pattern of torua whakatakoto (lying down; horizontal rows) and torua whakatutu (standing up; vertical rows). The intricate construction and extremely fine wefts (c. 2mm) of the kete clearly represent the work of an accomplished weaver. Pukoro are kete used to strain juice from tutu berries. Tutu (Coriaria arborea) is an endemic New Zealand shrub which grows up to 8m in height, and is found nationwide, particularly at bush margins and beside streams.54 All parts of the tutu are poisonous except for 52 Ibid., 153. 53 Ibid., 160. 54 Alec Poole, “Tutu,” in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, ed. A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966. Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, accessed 13 May 2021, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/ en/1966/tutu.

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the petals surrounding the seeds.55 Despite this, juice extracted from the tutu berry was highly valued by pre-contact Māori as a rare source of carbohydrate.56 Tutu was one of many “bitter, fibrous, tooth-breaking and toxic plants” comprising part of the Māori diet that required complicated procedures to make them edible.57 The pukoro is made from kiekie (Freycinetia banksii) a multi-branched vine with leaves that grow up to a metre in length, which is harvested January to early March, or late August to October.58 Customary preparation of kiekie for weaving involves removing leaf strips from either side of the midrib, which can also be used for weaving, boiling, sun-drying, and bleaching, which results in leaf strips with a highly valued, off-white colour.59 Peter Buck noted that the fine roots of kiekie were used for twining and strips of leaf material for fine whāriki, kete, and belts, and also for “rough rain-cloaks.”60 Kiekie is distributed in North Island lowland forests and along the West Coast and upper East Coast of the South Island, particularly in areas of moderate to high rainfall.61 Consequently, the closest source of kiekie to the find location in Central Otago is the West Coast of the South Island, some 350–400km distant. Another plant found in the assemblage are four large bundles of wharawhara, or tomentum of tikumu. Tikumu is the Māori name of the leaves from the New Zealand daisy genus Celmisia, from which three different textile materials were derived: whole leaf, wharawhara, and green leaf.62 Wharawhara, or tomentum, is a layer of matted hairs that can be removed from the lower surface of leaves of some Celmisia species, leaving green leaf behind.63 When removed from the whole leaf, wharawhara is a creamy white colour, pliable and strong, and has been compared to kid leather in regard to its appearance and tactile qualities. 55 John Malcolm, “On the Toxicity of Tutu Fruit and Seed,” Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand 51 (1919): 1–5. 56 Leach, “Te whenua,” 10. 57 Ibid. 58 Debra Carr and Natasha Cruthers, “He Rārangi Whakaaturanga O Nga Taonga Rākau: Atlas of Plant Materials and Fibres from New Zealand and the Pacific,” University of Otago, 2007, accessed 25 April 2021, https://www.otago.ac.nz/materials/about/otago057695.html. 59 Elsdon Best, “The Art of the Whare Pora: Notes on the Clothing of the Ancient Maori, Their Knowledge of Preparing, Dyeing, and Weaving Various Fibres, Together with Some Account of Dress and Ornaments, and the Ancient Ceremonies and Superstititions of the Whare Pora,” Transactions of the New Zealand Institute 31 (1899): 655. 60 Buck, “Maori Plaited Basketry,” 707. 61 Sue Scheele, “Kiekie Information Sheet,” Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research, 1996, accessed 25 April 2021, https://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/tools-and-resources/collections/new-zealand-flaxcollections/weaving-plants/kiekie/. 62 Janice Lord et al., “Use and Identification of Tikumu (Celmisia Species, Asteraceae) in Artifacts of New Zealand Origin,” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation 49 (2010): 73. 63 Ibid.

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Tikumu appears to have been more prevalent in the South than in the North Island, and was particularly available near Aoraki Mount Cook.64 Atholl Anderson (1998) describes kākahu tikumu as a trade commodity;65 Hamilton (1896) reports Sidney Parkinson (1773) seeing “teegoomme” worn by Māori as far away as Mount Egmont (Fig. 2.3).66 Ngāi Tahu, a Māori tribal affiliation whose boundary, or rohe, covers much of the South Island, list it as a taonga species—a highly valued tribal commodity.67 The “big, white leaves” are recorded as useful to make pokeka (raincoats), poho-taupa (chest protectors), taupa (leggings), and tahua-taupa (shin protectors).68 Kākahu tikumu is a cloak made of the “soft white down” from the mountain daisy.69 Extant examples of artefacts made from Celmisia sp. are extremely rare. A rain cloak donated in 1858 by Walter Mantell (1820–1895) to the Economic Botany collection of Kew Gardens, UK, has warps made of wharawhara and wefts made of muka, and extravagant surface tags of wharawhara.70 Waiata (traditional Māori songs) and pictorial evidence also suggest Celmisia leaves were worn in the hair,71 while James Beattie states leaves were woven into hats worn by women in mourning (wahine potae).72 Despite the existence of a variety of Celmisia species, wharawhara can only be removed from some. Measurements taken of the Celmisia species which have wharawhara that can be removed from leaf indicated that the Puketoi Station tomentum was most likely Celmisia semicordata.73 The closest sources of this species are the mountainous regions of the South Island, or limited areas in coastal Westland and Marlborough,74 all areas which involve travel from the find location at Puketoi Station (Fig. 2.3). In the Puketoi Station assemblage there are approximately one thousand leaves in bundles: a considerable amount of plant material of value for both consumption and trade, testifying to its value as a textile commodity. 64 Ibid. 65 Atholl Anderson, The Welcome of Strangers: An Ethnohistory of Southern Maori A.D. 1650–1850 (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 1998). 66 Hamilton, “Discovery.” 67 Rob Tipa, “Tikumu – Fine and Fair,” Te Karaka 42 (2009): 44. 68 James H. Beattie, Traditional Lifeways of the Southern Maori (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 1994), 233. 69 Ibid., 47. 70 Kew Gardens, UK, 51440, Kakahu tikumu; anonymous, “Kakahu Tikumu-Mountain-Daisy Cloak,” Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, accessed 29 March 2021, https://collections.tepapa.govt. nz/topic/3756. 71 Patricia Wallace, “Traditional Māori Dress: Rediscovering Forgotten Elements of Pre-1820 Practice” (PhD thesis, University of Canterbury, 2002), 138. 72 Beattie, Traditional Lifeways, 90. 73 Lord et al., “Use,” 78. 74 Ibid.

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The discussion of the identification of the plant materials in the artefacts from Puketoi Station illustrated two insights. Firstly, evidence is shown of the wide range of plant resources endemic to New Zealand that Māori adopted with alacrity and creativity, transforming their textiles culture from its Polynesian roots into its Indigenous New Zealand form. Secondly, the identification of different plant resources also provides evidence of social mobility, trade networks, and the importance of textile plant procurement in early Māori lifeways. While lithic resources have often been used to illustrate the importance of long-distance relationships for early human settlements in New Zealand, I argue for the recognition of textiles in this model. Isolated and geographically dispersed founder settlements required contact among them for trade and procurement of not only desirable industrial resources and food, but valued plants and textiles made from them, crucial for socio-cultural definition and affirmation.

Conclusion Ultimately early Māori textiles show diversity and innovation, evidence of seasonal rounds for procurement of both textiles and foods, and that textiles were valued not only for utilitarian reasons, but for a broader social and aesthetic agenda shown in decoration, patterns, surface treatments, dyed materials, none of which are required for functionality. Perhaps most fundamentally, these textiles provide first-hand evidence of the level of expertise reached in procurement and processing of endemic textile plants fairly soon after arrival in Aotearoa. The earliest textiles known, those from Kaitorete Spit, were not first primers, rather sophisticated and complex textiles showing substantial antecedent knowledge. The proficiency of their production was evidence of advanced adaptation to the ecology of New Zealand, acquaintance with the properties of New Zealand plants, and aptitude in textile production on arrival. Clearly Eastern Polynesian settlers came with a storehouse of expertise for adaptation to local plants, and longstanding knowledge of plants for textile production. Pre-existing knowledge was applied to problem-solve the unavailability of common Pacific sources for cordage and cloth. Early Māori textiles were vital agents for social reproduction—as markers of both individual and cultural identity, for making status and inequality, for manifesting and marking genealogical relationships, as objects for exchange and economic resource, as affirmation of political status, in religious ritual and practice, and within the domestic sphere. The experience of Māori, in migrating to Aotearoa, created what Bhabha calls “unhomeliness” and a state of “in-between”: “The transnational [or, in this particular case, trans-oceanic] dimension of cultural transformation—migration, diaspora, displacement, relocation—makes the process of cultural translation

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a complex form of signification.”75 In-betweenness requires identity work, and early Māori textiles were a potent force in the materialisation of new identities in a new land. As textiles are both instruments and instrumental in culture, they are catalysts for deeper understanding of how Polynesian people changed as a result of living in Aotearoa.

About the Author Catherine Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the Archaeology Programme, an Associate Investigator in the Dodd-Walls Centre for Photonic and Quantum Technologies, and a member of the Indigenous Science Research Theme at the University of Otago, New Zealand. Her work centres on the analysis of pre-contact Māori textiles and developing innovation in provenancing, materials investigation, and textiles conservation. Through exploring textiles, Catherine aims to illuminate the relationships between people, plants, and culture in New Zealand.

75 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 14–15, 181, 247.

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Contesting Images The Archaeology of Early Modern Textiles, Clothing, and Closures from Puritan New England Diana DiPaolo Loren Abstract This chapter explores textile mimicry in contexts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, highlighting the material creativity enacted in hybrid colonial settings which resulted in and got enacted through in-between textiles. At Harvard College, in Praying Towns, in Indigenous communities, and in elite merchant homes, the English and Indigenous individuals living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony negotiated Puritan laws that dictated who they were and what they wore by wearing textiles in combinations far more nuanced than images would suggest. Keywords: textile mimicry; Indigenous agency; colonial America; Massachusetts Bay Colony; colonialism

Introduction In 1634, the Massachusetts Bay Court put forth its first sumptuary law: The Court, takeing into consideracon the greate, sup[er]fluous, & unneccs-sary expences occasioned by reason of some newe & immodest fashions, as also the ordinary weareing of silver, golde, & silke laces, girdles, hatbands, hath therefore ordered that no p[er]son, either man or woman, shall hereafter make or buy any apparel, either wollen, silke, or lynnen, with any lace on it, silver, golde, silke, or threed, under the penalty of forfecture of such cloathes.1

For the members of this newly established colony, the message imparted in the law was clear: one’s identity as a Puritan was tied to modest dress, without excess, tied to one’s 1

Nathaniel Shurtleff, Records of the General Court, 1628 to 1641 (Boston: White, 1835), vol. 1, 126.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch03

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religion, status, and wealth. Modest dress according to these guidelines was intended for all members, including English and Indigenous men and women who had adopted or were forced to adopt the new religion. To dress outside of the manner dictated by the Bay Colony laws meant that one lived outside of Puritan ideologies—such as Indigenous peoples who were not converted—and outside of social order expected in the early colony where dress identified who you were. Yet colonial order rarely matches colonial reality, where people often lived in between imperial ideologies. That aspect of lived colonialism is found in the material record of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and elsewhere in other settler colonial contexts, in the entanglement of different peoples, objects, and ideologies.2 Homi Bhabha reminds us of two aspects of lived colonialisms that threaten imperial order: hybridity and mimicry. Notably, hybridities of materiality, identity, ideology, and practice that diverge from imperial expectations, and semblances of mimicry that are a form of mockery and menace.3 Colonial imagery, however, has left a legacy that has fixed contemporary visions of colony inhabitants and their dress in accordance with seventeenth-century Puritan ideals. A close reading of archaeological and archival accounts, I argue, contest these images offering insight into the “in-betweenness” of lived colonialisms. Three images from Massachusetts Bay Company have been instrumental in creating fixed, popular visions of residents of the seventeenth-century colony: Increase Mather (1639–1723), Mrs Elizabeth Freake (1642–1713) and daughter Mary (1674–1752), and the 1629 Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. John van der Spriett’s (1660–1690) portrait of Increase Mather depicts the infamous Puritan minister and Harvard College president in his library wearing a white linen collar and cuffs, a plain buttoned black coat, and a skull cap (Fig. 3.1). Elizabeth Freake, wife of a wealthy merchant, is adorned with lace and ribbons, speaking to the status of the family in the colony (Fig. 3.2), while in the Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639, an Indigenous man is depicted undressed except for a covering over his genitals accompanied by the words “Come Over and Help Us” (Fig. 3.3). These iconic images resonate in different ways in past and contemporary interpretations, impacting how we interpret the individuals and material culture of the past, and, in particular, how dress was tied to the politics of identity. In the seventeenth century, these images had different audiences. Mather’s portrait documented a prominent religious leader for the colony; the portrait of the Freake family was commissioned by them and for them; while the depiction of an Indigenous man on the Massachusetts Bay Colony seal sought to legitimise English 2 Craig Cipolla, ed., Foreign Objects: Rethinking Indigenous Consumption in American Archaeology (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2017); Neal Ferris, Michael V. Wilcox, and Rodney Harrison, eds., Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 3 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Abingdon: Routledge, 1994), 123.

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Figure 3.1 John van der Spriett, Increase Mather, 1688. © Massachusetts Historical Society, Artwork 01.175.

Figure 3.3  1629 Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Public Domain.

imperial goals in colonising this portion of the New World. The image of the seal was the one most widely available to members of the colony and was found in books printed in the Colony’s first press at Harvard College and other printed materials. As colonial documents, these images reflect how colonisers imagined themselves and others, how they saw and attempted to maintain boundaries between self and other on colonial landscapes, rather than providing a realistic rendering of the different people who occupied the Massachusetts Bay Colony and how they dressed.4 Taking time to reflect on the ways that people and their dress are depicted in these images is important. Images—such as paintings and photographs—fix a certain vision of the past and the impact of those visions in contemporary interpretation cannot be overlooked. As Christopher Pinney notes, colonial images were produced in specific historical and cultural moments and, as such, gave importance to colonial imagination.5 They furthered colonial discourses to a 4 Diana DiPaolo Loren, “The Illusion of Imperium: Visual and Material Perspectives of Colonial Louisiana,” World Art: Art Makes Society 3, no. 1 (2013): 83–99; Diana DiPaolo Loren, “Casting Identity: Sumptuous Action and Colonized Bodies in Seventeenth-Century New England,” in Ferris, Wilcox, and Harrison, Rethinking Colonial Pasts, 251–67. 5 Christopher Pinney, Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997); Rachel Winchcombe, Encountering Early America (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021).

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Figure 3.2 Anonymous, Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary, late seventeenth century. Image © Worcester Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Albert W. Rice, 1963.135.

specific audience (usually elite) rather than to those who were the subject of the image (those being colonised). In this way colonial images served as an archive of the quest for difference—rather than the depiction of difference—that emerged from colonial discourse. In colonial images we are not seeing life as it was, but rather life as it was imagined; an important distinction to note when using colonial images in interpretations of historical textiles.6 6 Elizabeth Edwards, Anthropology and Photography, 1860–1920 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); Elizabeth Edwards, Raw Histories: Photographs, Anthropology, and Museums (Oxford: Berg, 2001); Pinney, Camera Indica.

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Archaeologists have used colonial images to help interpret archaeological assemblages; to look for material analogies and space and to consider how objects were used in context, such as how different people were clothed.7 Interpretations of archaeological material that rely too closely on images, especially when used uncritically, can replicate colonial imaginations. Colonial artists worked within a framework of imperial sponsorship; they were representations that were ordered to shape a particular vision of colonial reality (such as the unclothed Indigenous man). In contrast, the archaeological record suggests a different reality. By no means do I suggest that the archaeological record represents a “truth,” but rather that archaeological and visual records reveal important aspects of how colonial life was imagined, lived, and embodied in the intersection, entanglement, and creative recontextualisation of social and material ideologies.8 One further point to make with reference to the impact of these seventeenthcentury images of people in the Massachusetts Bay Colony is that these iconic images are so different that they can seem to fix individuals in different worlds, rather than sharing the same space and time. Religious leaders, merchant elite, and Indigenous people appear in discrete spaces. The lack of connection between these iconic images in the colonial past have left a legacy that impacts contemporary interpretations: that they dressed differently and lived in different spaces. The result is allochronic discourse that denies shared time.9 Modern critiques of historical and contemporary interpretations of seventeenth-century New England provide important insight to counter allochronic discourse by giving voice to Indigenous actors.10 Through these critiques, it is clear that colonial spaces in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were not as discrete as imagined and people did not necessarily dress in ways that were depicted. Here, I consider the intersection of different archaeological collections and contexts of entanglement, bringing forth a more holistic understanding of clothing and bodily experience in the seventeenth-century Massachusetts Bay 7 J. Januarius and Nelleke Teughels, “History Meets Archaeology: The Historical Use of Images,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 87, no. 3 (2010): 667–83; Diana DiPaolo Loren, “Corporeal Concerns: Eighteenth-Century Casta Paintings and Colonial Bodies in Spanish Texas,” Historical Archaeology 41, no. 1 (2007): 23–36; Diana DiPaolo Loren, The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2010); Loren, “Illusion of Imperium”; Rob B. Mann, “‘True Portraitures of the Indians, and of Their Own Peculiar Conceits of Dress’: Discourses of Dress and Identity in the Great Lakes, 1830–1850,” Historical Archaeology 41, no. 1 (2007): 37–52; Barbara L. Voss, “From Casta to Californio: Social Identity and the Archaeology of Culture Contact,” American Anthropologist 107, no. 3 (2005): 461–74. 8 Cipolla, Foreign Objects; Ferris, Harrison, and Wilcox, Rethinking Colonial Pasts. 9 Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 123. 10 Lisa M. Brooks, Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018); Christine M. DeLucia, Memory Lands: King Philip’s War and the Place of Violence in the Northeast (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018).

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Colony. In particular, my goal is to investigate dress and the colonial body in the colony: at Harvard College and beyond. How was dress—in particular, forms of dress in-between imperial imaginings—used to embody identity in Puritan New England?

Theorising In-Betweenness In The Location of Culture, Bhabha defined hybridity as “new forms of knowledge, new modes of differentiation, new sites of power” produced through colonisation that cannot be neatly categorised.11 Models of hybridity that followed within academic discourse often call for the reevaluation of subaltern histories, the hybrid and fluid nature of social practice and material expression, and the possibility that something new can emerge from encounter. As many have argued, hybridity in social and material colonial identities is created through the process of lived colonialisms.12 It represents ambivalence present in past negotiations between imperial imagining and lived experience. These hybrid creations may have been subtle in light of colonial rule, and in some circumstances represented no challenge to colonial authority. Linked to hybridity, however, is its destabilising nature: mimicry. Building on Jacques Lacan’s discussion of mimicry as camouflage (referring to the natural world), Bhabha describes mimicry as an aspect of colonial entanglements: mirroring the coloniser in dress, action, and/or speech “to be almost the same, but not quite.”13 When colonial discourse encourages the colonial subject to “mimic” the coloniser—to dress as a Puritan, for example—the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits but a blurred copy of the coloniser. As Bhabha notes, “between the Western sign and its colonial signification there emerges a map of misreading that embarrasses the righteousness of recordation and its certainty of good government. It opens up a space of interpretation and misappropriation that inscribes an ambivalence at the very origins of colonial authority.”14 Mimicry that communicates irony is subversive. The desire for the colonised to imitate the coloniser simultaneously erodes colonial order and mocks colonial authority. Mimicry probes at power imbalances that were at the heart of many colonial 11 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 171. 12 For some examples, Jeb Card, ed., The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013); Matthew J. Liebmann, “Parsing Hybridity: Archaeologies of Amalgamation in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico,” in Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, 25–48; Stephan Palmié, “Mixed Blessings and Sorrowful Mysteries: Second Thoughts about Hybridity,” Current Anthropology 54, no. 4 (2013): 463–82. 13 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 121–22. 14 Ibid., 135.

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interactions, moving beyond the notion of simple entanglements of people and culture to acknowledge purposeful and laden acts of subversion. Bhabha notes that the discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence, perhaps threatening to the coloniser but created in the negotiation of colonial boundaries that often only existed in communities as abstract concepts.15 Imperial concerns of shaping, defining, and maintaining colonial boundaries were not only meant to distinguish colonised from coloniser, but status, gender, and race among and between different groups.16 This is a more complicated system of boundaries than just the binary distinction that has been commonly used in studies of the colonial world. As Michael Dietler notes, “[t]he boundaries in such processes are always subject to definition within specific contexts and they are always an evolving relational phenomenon.”17 While the coloniser often saw such boundaries as clear, fixed and distinct, or wished to understand them as such, these boundaries were also rapidly changing, being shaped and blurred by social relations in everyday lived experiences of colonialism.18 Manipulation of these structural categories in everyday life implicates ambivalence: how daily practices diverged from imperial visions, the limits of colonial rule, and how colonial individuals fashioned and constituted self with material culture. Regarding the use of textiles in Puritan colonial contexts in New England, while historical images replicated an imperial vision of different groups of people dressing in ways that communicated who they were, archives and material culture suggest something different. They suggest the in-betweenness of lived colonialisms. In some cases, visual distinctions were maintained, while in others, they were blurred or similar to negotiate colonial authority or communicate mockery or ambivalence.19 At Harvard College, in Praying Towns, in Indigenous communities and in elite merchant homes, the English and Indigenous individuals living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony negotiated Puritan laws that dictated who they were and what they wore by wearing textiles in combinations far more nuanced than images would suggest. 15 Ibid., 85–86. 16 Eleanor Casella and Barbara L. Voss, eds., The Archaeology of Colonialism: Intimate Encounters and Sexual Effects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Michael Dietler, Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement, and Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); Loren, “Illusion of Imperium”; Barbara L. Voss, The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis: Race and Sexuality in Colonial San Francisco (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008). 17 Dietler, Archaeologies of Colonialism, 66. 18 Ferris, Harrison, and Wilcox, Rethinking Colonial Pasts; Kurt A. Jordan, “Pruning Colonialism: Vantage Point, Local Political Economy, and Cultural Entanglement in the Archaeology of Post-1415 Indigenous People,” in Ferris, Wilcox, and Harrison, Rethinking Colonial Pasts, 103–22; Voss, Archaeology of Ethnogenesis. 19 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 169–70.

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Seventeenth-Century Dress at Harvard and in the Massachusetts Bay Colony through Archives In 1636, Harvard College was founded in Newtown, present-day Cambridge, as the first place of learning in the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony.20 Since 1620, Puritan immigrants from England had settled amongst longstanding Indigenous communities. Massachusett and Nausett communities were located in present-day Boston and Cambridge and Wampanoag people occupied Cape Cod and the Islands. Although Puritans were victims of religious persecution, they were intolerant of religious views that differed from their own. Successful colonisation—to fully control land, people, and resources—hinged on conversion of the local Indigenous communities to Christianity. Puritan missionary efforts to convert Indigenous peoples included the development of Praying Towns: communities for Christianised Indigenous people who were to live, pray, dress, and comport themselves as Puritans. Reverend John Eliot (c.1604–1690), who was primarily responsible for this effort, constructed fourteen Praying Towns throughout New England in the 1640s.21 At Harvard, the College was to be a bastion of Puritan ideology where English and students could be trained to become ministers for the growing colony, lead congregations and be instrumental in the conversion of Indigenous people.22 By 1641, financial troubles led the president to request funds from the English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. The funds were granted through the help of Eliot with the caveat that the College also would educate Indigenous students.23 The Harvard charter of 1650 manifested this promise and dedicated the College “to the education of the English and Indian Youth of this Country in knowledge and godlines[s].”24 In 1655 the Indian College—the first brick building on the College’s campus—was built just west of the 1639 Old College building and two other existing residences, forming a small quad between the closely spaced buildings (an area of about 1.5 acres). The Old College building included student chambers, lecture halls, the kitchen, buttery, and commons. The Indian College included student chambers for both Indigenous and English students as well as the first printing press in the British colonies that was used to print religious and 20 Samuel E. Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936), 4–8. 21 Christine Rex, “Indians and Images: The Massachusetts Bay Colony Seal, James Printer, and the Anxiety of Colonial Identity,” American Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2011): 61–93. 22 Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 21–24. 23 Ibid., 23–24; John Stubbs, “Underground Harvard: The Archaeology of College Life” (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1992). 24 Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA, Charters and legislative acts relating to the governance of Harvard, UAI 15.100, Charter of 1650.

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instructional texts in English and Algonquian.25 Some more famous seventeenthcentury graduates included Reverend Increase Mather (class of 1656) (Fig. 3.1), Samuel Sewell (class of 1671), and Reverend Cotton Mather, son of Increase (class of 1681), all of whom would later have leading roles in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, as well as Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (class of 1665), who was the first Wampanoag graduate of the College.26 Early Harvard was dedicated to the mission of training English and Indigenous students to become ministers. After leaving Harvard their mission was to proselytise in Indigenous communities and then encourage the converted to move from home communities to Praying Towns to complete their transformation. Seventeenth-century Harvard, and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in general were multiethnic communities: occupied by settlers, servants, merchants (such as the Freakes), religious officials (including the Mathers), as well as converted and unconverted Indigenous people (including those living outside of Praying Towns and the Indian College). In this context, clothing spoke volumes: the robes of the scholar, the thread covered buttons on a great coat of a settler, the silk ribbons attached to a wealthy woman’s sleeve, and the use of deerskin and plain woollen cloth to cover one’s body. Dressing was far from simple as clothing and adorning one’s body was personal, social, political in response to Puritan colonisation.27 Dress was powerful in this context. It signalled knowledge of and allegiance to Puritan ideologies, especially when one dressed according to colonial hierarchies. To return again to Bhabha, what this represents is a common understanding of cultural boundaries.28 When manipulated, these common understandings—in this case dictated by the English Crown—are disavowed. Thus, dressing outside one’s station, while allowing for the movement between social realms, represents ambivalence to imperial power.29 Dress and the body were in fact so important to Puritan ideology and colonisation efforts that they were policed at the College and in the Colony. For Puritans at Harvard and throughout New England, sensual excess—in food, drinking, smoking, dress—was to be avoided at all cost. College and Bay 25 Brooks, Our Beloved Kin; Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 38–39. 26 Morison, Three Centuries of Harvard, 38. 27 Mary C. Beaudry, Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006); Carolyn L. White and Mary C. Beaudry, “Artifacts and Personal Identity,” in The International Handbook of Historical Archaeology, ed. Teresita Majewski and David Gaimster (New York: Springer, 2009), 209–25. 28 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 49–50. 29 Loren, “Illusion of Imperium”; Loren, Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment; Diana DiPaolo Loren, “Bodily Protection: Dress, Health, and Anxiety in Colonial New England,” in The Archaeology of Anxiety: The Materiality of Anxiousness, Worry, and Fear, ed. Jeffrey Fleisher and Neil Norman (New York: Springer, 2016), 141–56.

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Colony laws were meant to police colonists and to help guard them from sinful temptations deemed dangerous in the newly formed colony, particularly from witchcraft, overt sumptuous behaviour and sensual pleasures that would lead, in the minds of colonial officials, to a breakdown of colonial order.30 Additionally, the moral soul and physical body were inseparable.31 Uncleanness threatened the health of the body, allowing it to become vulnerable to Satan and sickness.32 Cotton Mather (1663–1728) wrote in his popular 1693 sermon entitled Warnings from the Dead, “[a]ll our Sinfulness, is call’d, A Filthiness of Flesh & Spirit. When a Child of God ha’s asked, for a Deliverance from Sin, he so Expresses it, Wash me thoroughly from my Iniquity, and Cleanse me from my Sin. And a man that Lives in Sin against the God that made him, is denominated in Job 15.16. An Abominable and Filthy man.”33 To be clean and well-kempt was a common theme in sermons throughout the Massachusetts Bay Colony, reinforced not only in lectures on the physick and theology but also in Harvard College Laws regarding appearance. To forestall any confusion to people dressing outside of their station, the Bay Colony government was quick to set into motion sumptuary laws for its various inhabitants. In 1651, Massachusetts Bay Colony sumptuary legislation warned against sumptuary excess and prohibited certain clothes to those not earning more than £100 per year.34 At Harvard, College Laws followed suit, requiring students to wear a plain style of dress that included a cloak or gown and stipulating that they should not wear “any Gold or Silver Lace, Cord, or Edging upon their Hats, Jackets or any other Parts of their Clothing, nor any Gold or Silver Brocades in The College or Town of Cambridge.”35 Similarly, in Praying Towns, Christianised Indigenous people were encouraged to forsake “nakedness” (or a mix of Indigenous- and English-style clothing) for English apparel. In 1674, Daniel Gookin (1612–1687), Superintendent of the Indians of Massachusetts Bay Colony, asserted that Christianised Indigenous people were easily identified “by their short hair, and wearing English fashioned 30 Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus: or, Full and Plain Evidence Concerning Witches and Apparitions (London: Newcomb, 1681); Kathleen M. Brown, Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); Robert B. St. George, Conversing by Signs: Poetics of Implication in Colonial New England Culture (Winston-Salem: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Richard Godbeer, The Devil’s Dominion: Magic and Religion in Early New England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Loren, “Bodily Protection.” 31 Godbeer, Devil’s Dominion. 32 Brown, Foul Bodies. 33 Cotton Mather, Warnings from the Dead: Or Solemn Admonitions unto all People; but especially unto Young Persons to beware of such Evils as would bring them to the Dead […] (Boston: Green, 1693). 34 Martha L. Finch, “‘Civilized’ Bodies and the ‘Savage’ Environment of Early New Plymouth,” in A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America, ed. Jane Moore Lindman and Michelle Lise Tarter (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 43–59. 35 Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA, UAI 5.5 Box 1, College Book 1, 1639–1795.

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apparel,” such as cloth suits, linen shirts, breeches, stockings, shifts, and cobbled shoes.36 Other historical accounts also indicated that unconverted Indigenous people also wore English fashions in specific ways to embody identity. For example, in her 1682 autobiographical account of captivity during Metacom’s War, Mary Rowlandson described the dress of Weetamoo (1635–1676), a female Wampanoag sachem and sister-in-law of Metacom (1638–1676), who wore an English-style coat, linen shirt, along with numerous strands of glass and shell beads and body paint.37 In this overview, archives provide a more complex understanding of seventeenthcentury dress than available through image analysis alone. Archival records also suggest that the appropriation and use of textiles were a means by which to destabilise Puritan settler colonialism. Scholars at Harvard, both Indigenous and English, dressed in English fashions rather than mostly unclothed or in unmodified cloth as suggested by the Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. While Gookin would have suggested that unconverted Indigenous people were routinely described as naked, or haphazardly dressed in cloth and clothing, without the religion that would make them cognisant of their improper state of dress, Weetamoo wore an English-style coat to embody her status and identity. For Puritan scholars, such as Increase Mather and English and Indigenous students at Harvard, sober and plain dress and adornment materialised one’s relationship with God and bodily health, while affluent Puritans, such as the Freakes, wore their wealth. Seventeenth-century archaeological and ethnographic examples provide insight that further complicates historical images. They suggest spaces “of interpretation and misappropriation that inscribes an ambivalence at the very origins of colonial authority.”38 Moreover, they highlight material creativity that was enacted in colonial settings that created hybridity and a new norm of in-betweenness, that rewrote lived colonialisms in the Puritan colony.

Archaeological and Ethnographic Items of Seventeenth-Century Dress at Harvard and in the Colony Cloth and pieces of fashioned clothing are rare in the archaeological record of New England. What is usually found are the buttons from a coat, bits of cloth, beads that were once embroidered on clothing or worn as a necklace. For example, at the 36 Daniel J. Gookin, Historical Collections of the Indians in New England; of Their Several Nations, Numbers, Customs, Manners, Religion, and Government before the English Planted There (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1674), 25. 37 Mary Rowlandson, Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (Cambridge, MA: Green, 1682), 28–29. 38 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 135.

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project I currently co-direct in Harvard Yard (the oldest part of Harvard College), artefacts related to seventeenth-century dress and cloth are few and far between.39 Due to soil conditions in the Yard, the only remnants of early modern clothing are buttons and lead bale seals. Yet a review of the seventeenth-century Indigenous and English textiles ethnographic and archaeological collections in local museums and repositories provides a broader understanding of what a simple button can impart regarding the language and politics of clothing and the embodiment of identity in Puritan New England. In what follows, I discuss different kinds of clothing-related artefacts and textiles recovered from seventeenth-century New England contexts, including archaeological material from the Nanny Naylor site in Boston, the house of a wealthy Puritan widow; buttons and lead bale seals recovered from early Harvard and a woven bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (1644–1666), the first Wampanoag graduate of Harvard in 1665; and clothing attributed to Wampanoag leader Metacom and archaeological material from a Massachusett community. Katherine Nanny Naylor Residence In 1992, archaeologists with the city of Boston found a privy associated with the Katherine Nanny Naylor residence in Boston’s North End.40 Born in 1630, Katherine arrived in Boston in 1636 and in 1650, married her first husband, Robert Nanny, a prosperous merchant. Robert Nanny died in 1663 and Katherine soon married Edward Naylor, another wealthy merchant. In 1671, Katherine successfully sued for divorce from Edward on the grounds of domestic abuse including physical abuse, adultery, and an apparent poisoning attempt. In 1716, Katherine died at her home at the age of 85. The archaeology of the privy associated with Katherine and her family suggest the material culture of this well-to-do, yet admittedly troubled, family. The archaeological assemblage recovered from the site is stunningly diverse, suggesting the global nature of consumerism at the time, including: Venetian glassware, German ceramics used at the table, Dutch architectural tiles, and over 150 silk and wool textile fragments. 41 Remnants of tailored clothing, such as a sleeve from a woman’s garment, were recovered as well as fragments from silk fabrics and ribbons, and silk lace edging 39 Loren, “Bodily Protection”; Stubbs, “Underground Harvard”; John Stubbs, et al., “Campus Archaeology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts,” in Beneath the Ivory Tower: The Archaeology of Academia, ed. Russell Skowronek and Kenneth Lewis (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2008), 99–120. 40 Joseph M. Bagley, A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2016); Lauren J. Cook, “‘Katherine Nanny, Alias Naylor’: A Life in Puritan Boston,” Historical Archaeology 32, no. 1 (1998): 15–19. 41 Margaret T. Ordoñez and Linda Welters, “Textiles from the Seventeenth-Century Privy at the Cross Street Back Lot Site,” Historical Archaeology 32, no. 3 (1998): 81–90.

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Figure 3.4  Tatted silk lace recovered from the Katherine Nanny Naylor residence. Image courtesy of Joseph Bagley.

used to adorn a cloak or piece of clothing (Fig. 3.4). The 1651 Massachusetts Bay Colony sumptuary laws distinguished between people of low estate (worth less than £200) and people of higher (those with worth more than £200). People of high estate were allowed to trim their garments in lace and f ine silk and threads. 42 Having married two wealthy merchants, Katherine and her family certainly had the means to dress well and fashionably. Additionally, a wide variety of buttons were recovered from the site, including fanciful glass and silver-covered shank buttons used as fasteners for more elaborate clothing. Unlike plain bone or pewter buttons, these were buttons that were meant to be seen as visible indicators of style and wealth in the fledgling colony. Bone buttons were also present in the assemblage, however, used for underlayers such as shifts, petticoats, and drawers. The textiles and buttons recovered from the site suggest an extravagant wardrobe that included silk gowns, sleeves, and garters trimmed with multicoloured ribbons, stockings, as well as sheer silk called “tiffany” that was used for hoods. 43 Such luxuries, forbidden to common people but available to merchant families like the Nanny Naylors and their neighbours, the lushly dressed Freake family (Fig. 3.2). At this site, image and artefact seem aligned, suggesting how some members of the colony dressed. The Katherine Nanny Naylor site, however, is an anomaly in amongst clothing and clothing-related artefacts recovered from archaeological sites in the Boston metro area, including excavations in Harvard Yard. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid.

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Harvard Yard and Peabody Museum Collections At Harvard College, artefacts related to clothing were much more modest than those recovered from the Nanny Naylor site. While four buildings comprised the seventeenth-century Harvard campus, archaeological excavations have been focused near the locations of just two buildings that have long since been demolished: the 1639 Old College building and the 1655 brick Indian College building.44 Excavations at Harvard Yard yielded different, yet in some ways similar, seventeenth-century material when compared to those from Cross Street Backlot. Both assemblages include German and English ceramics, latten spoons used for dining, but a much smaller number of clothing-related artefacts. No seventeenth-century textiles have been recovered from excavations in Harvard Yard, however, the presence of numerous buttons used for closures for coats and other garments suggest how students clothed themselves. College Laws would seem to suggest that students dressed in a similar, sober fashion, such as exemplified by Reverend Increase Mather (Fig. 3.1), president of the College at the end of the seventeenth century. Buttons recovered from excavations, however, are more varied than would be expected based on College Laws, including pewter, bone, and even silver buttons. While pewter and silver were allowed for those individuals worth more than £200, both English and Indigenous students were to abide by College Laws. Students were to “weare modest and somber habit, without strange ruffianlike or Newfangled fashions, without all lavishe dress, or excesse of Apparell whatsoever.”45 At this Puritan institution, order was maintained through adherence to the College Laws. Deviations from institutional regulations indicated transgressions of the body and soul and reflected disorder in one’s personal relationship with God. Silver and pewter buttons suggest these transgressions occurred, and that some of the students (studying to become Puritan ministers) were attired with a bit more f inery similar to the Freakes and Nanny Naylors in ways that College Laws prohibited. In the ethnographic collection at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, there is a small woven bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck (Fig. 3.5). While the attribution of this bag to Caleb can be questioned, the bag is made from tannin-dyed dark brown plant fibre in a manner similar to Wampanoag textiles. Unlike the buttons that indicate that Indigenous and English students wore the same style of English clothing, this one object suggests a memory of home brought to a Puritan institution. Perhaps something worn close to the body, under the robes of a scholar. 44 Stubbs, “Underground Harvard”; Stubbs et al., “Campus Archaeology.” 45 Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA, UAI 5.5 Box 1, College Book 1, 1639–1795.

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Figure 3.5  Woven bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 90-17-50/49302.

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Textiles and Clothing in Indigenous Contexts In 1675, Wampanoag sachem Metacom used tribal alliances to coordinate efforts to push European colonists out of New England. The war was in some ways based on the dissolution of boundaries and the fear of hybridity. Puritans were worried that they were losing their piety and becoming Indigenous; while many Indigenous people had come to suspect the reverse, worrying that they themselves had become too much like their new English neighbours in religion, desire, and comportment. 46 More than 3,000 Indigenous and English people were killed in the war. After the war, the Indian College at Harvard ceased to have Indigenous students and those Indigenous people living in Praying Towns were under suspicion and were forcibly moved to Deer Island in Boston Harbor until after the war ended in 1676. 47 The collection at the Peabody Museum includes a wool sash attributed to Metacom (Fig. 3.6). Analysis of the sash indicated that the wool was dyed with madder (possibly Rubia tinctorum) with wax resist on the selvedge.48 After woven, indigo-dyed wool was attached to the edges along with approximately 2,000 white glass beads sewn onto the sash using hemp twine. While similar kinds of wool have been recovered archaeologically in New England sites, including at the Nanny Naylor site, the form and design of the sash is unique. Seventeenth-century images of Indigenous people from the area are few and far between and archival accounts lack detail needed to state how the sash was worn. In the Seal (Fig. 3.3), no cloth is shown but on the 1675 Mapp of New England, cartographer John Sellar (1632–1697) illustrated an Indigenous man and woman wearing unmodif ied red and blue around their bodies. Both images belie the complexity and labour invested in the sash, which was likely worn by a prominent Indigenous leader. Seventeenth-century textiles recovered from burial contexts in eastern Massachusetts suggest that Indigenous people used a wide variety of textiles to create cloth and clothing. The bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck used plant fibres and archaeological material recovered from Indigenous burial contexts but also included woven milkweed textiles as well as remnants from plain weave wool cloth. 49 Additionally, the presence of stone buttons and button moulds used 46 Brooks, Our Beloved Kin; Delucia, Memory Lands. 47 Delucia, Memory Lands. 48 T. Rose Holdcraft et al. “A Rare Native American Sash and Its Paper Label ‘Belt of the Indian King Phillip. From Col. Keyes.’ A Collaborative Study,” European Review of Native American Studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 1–8. 49 Charles C. Willoughby, Antiquities of the New England Indians with Notes on the Ancient Cultures of the Adjacent Territory (Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1935).

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Figure 3.6  Wool sash attributed to Metacom. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 90-17-10/49333.

Figure 3.7  Stone button mould. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, PM# 24-7-10/94279.

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to cast lead and pewter buttons suggest that Indigenous people made buttons to use for fashioned clothing (Fig. 3.7). Coats were often given to Indigenous leaders as items of diplomacy. For example, in 1621, when Pilgrim leaders Stephen Hopkins (1581–1644) and Edward Winslow (1595–1655) visited Wampanoag sachem Massasoit (Ousamequin, 1590–1661), they brought him a coat adorned with cotton lace.50 And in 1655, a coat was presented to Masconomet (d.1658), the sagamore of Agawam, in order to “encourage hime to know God and excite other Indians to do the like.”51 The recovery of button moulds then speak to utility and practicality, rather than ethnicity or religious affiliation. Buttons could be made locally, to be used by a variety of individuals, and perhaps to manipulate and fashion self in unexpected ways. This assemblage of milkweed, wool, buttons, and button moulds suggests a sophisticated manipulation of the language of clothing in Indigenous contexts in Puritan New England. I want to return again to the account of Weetamoo, Metacom’s sister-in-law, who wore an English-style coat, linen shirt, along with numerous strands of glass and shell beads.52 Rowlandson’s description of an Indigenous leader—a woman no less—wearing a symbol of civilisation was meant to frighten and shock the reader. These practices of dress were confusing and threatening to Puritans—as the trapping of the civilised became a mockery. The way in which Weetamoo challenged colonial authority by wearing a coat during war suggests not only a sophisticated knowledge of the language of clothing in Puritan New England but also the recognition that her use of a coat, worn in combination with shell and glass beads, would then create a new form of textile use in-between Puritan categories. From an Indigenous perspective, the varied and diverse clothing and adornment worn by Weetamoo embodied her status and power, distinguishing her from the converted using the trappings of the colonisers.

Discussion and Conclusion This discussion into early modern textiles in New England suggests diversity in the use of cloth and clothing in numerous contexts: in the lives of English and Indigenous students at Harvard, at widow Katherine Nanny Naylor’s home, and by Indigenous communities. This chapter highlights the material creativity enacted in hybrid 50 Dwight B. Heath, ed., A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Mourt’s Relation (New York: Corinth Books, 1963), 60. 51 David Pulsifer, ed., Records of the Colony of New Plymouth in New England: Acts of the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, 1643–1678/9 (Boston: The Press of William White, Printer to the Commonwealth, 1859), vol. 10, 140. 52 Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity, 48–49.

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colonial settings; this, in turn, resulted in and got enacted through in-between textiles. These assemblages and archival sources provide a point of departure for understanding seventeenth-century textiles, clothing, and closures and their use by people living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony beyond what was depicted in the iconic images of a Puritan minister, the wife of a wealthy merchant, and Indigenous. In some ways, our expectations are met. The Nanny Naylor family dressed in splendorous fashions similar to those depicted in the portrait of Elizabeth Freake and her daughter. Buttons and textiles in the assemblage suggest a level of sartorial finery that befit the status of the family. The portrait of Increase Mather suggests that he and the students under his tutelage at Harvard College strove towards sober attire, without the excess and luxury found at the Nanny Naylor residence. Yet finer items shine within that assemblage, suggesting that some students sought to define themselves through their clothing in ways that went against institutional ideals. The small bag attributed to Caleb Cheeshahteaumuck suggests further negotiations with College Laws meant to shape the look and behaviour of a new generation of Puritan ministers in the Colony. The small bag, hand-woven from local plants, was perhaps worn close to the body as a practical and powerful reminder of home. The most sophisticated and nuanced use of seventeenth-century cloth and clothing emerges from Indigenous contents. Archaeological, ethnographic, and archival evidence suggests that Indigenous people in the Colony dressed in diverse, specific, meaningful ways indicative of their lived experiences. Dress was used strategically and carefully to embody identity. Some Indigenous people wore English clothing as a mark of conversion or perhaps in mockery of expectations of English Puritans. Other Indigenous people, and some Puritans, wore European clothing to embody community status and allegiance, to indicate identity in a dynamic and varied colonial landscape. In these cases, dressing “in-between” fashions was effective in creating new hybrid fashions that continued to fissure the language of clothing that the English Crown attempted to inscribe in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. What is clear is that the image of an Indigenous man found in the Seal of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the 1675 map by Sellar cannot be taken at face value. As Christine Rex notes, The importance for them lay in the agency provided by these Indian constructions, which they could mold to certain expectations and use to confirm their own interpretation of the New World American identity that they wished to foreground, to fix. The “real Indians” existed only to serve as templates for the construction of a New World English identity, an identity that constantly needed to re-vision itself in order to maintain its tenuous grasp of stability and authority.53 53 Rex, “Indians and Images,” 89.

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In fact, in light of archaeological, ethnographic, and archival evidence those images appear completely fictitious, created by Colony leaders to justify their colonisation of New England. These enduring images were representations commissioned, designed, and displayed in order to deny—and discipline—the reality of in-between textiles and cultural hybridity; justifications that led to practices of assimilation found in Praying Towns, and to some extent Harvard College, where Indigenous identity was erased to conform to Puritan ideals, and perhaps more tragically to justify the loss of Indigenous lives during Metacom’s War. As a final note about the enduring, negative impact of colonial images, the current seal of Massachusetts was based on the 1629 Massachusetts Bay Colony seal, which depicts an Indigenous man holding a bow. Local tribal leaders have pushed for decades to replace the state seal, warning that the individual pictured reinforces stereotypes against Indigenous people.54 On 28 July 2020, Massachusetts State Senate passed legislation that would establish a commission to study and redesign the Massachusetts state seal and motto to make it more inclusive and historically representational.

About the Author Diana DiPaolo Loren (PhD, SUNY Binghamton) is Senior Curator at the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. Loren specialises in the colonial north-eastern United States, with a focus on the body, health, dress, and adornment. She co-directs the Archaeology of Harvard Yard Project, which examines the English and Indigenous student experiences at seventeenth-century Harvard. Loren is the author of The Archaeology of Clothing and Bodily Adornment in Colonial America (2010).

54 “Resolve S.2848, 191st (2019–2020), Resolve providing for the Creation of a Special Commission relative to the Seal and Motto of the Commonwealth, July 28, 2020,” The 192nd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, accessed 26 April 2021, https://malegislature.gov/Bills/191/S2848.

4. “A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” Enslaved Textile-Makings in Colonial Brazil and the Caribbean1 Robert S. DuPlessis

Abstract In Brazil and the Caribbean, this chapter demonstrates, the multiple material practices deployed in enslaved textile-making moulded identities of both free and captive colonists. The enslaved occupied a singular position in what Homi Bhabha has termed “in-between” space, the liminal location of diasporic cultural innovation and subjectivity formation. Theories of hybridisation, which foreground subaltern strategies in contexts of grossly disparate power and resources, decode how enslaved people exploited f issures, inconsistencies, and distractions in hegemonic policies and procedures to adapt, resist, mimic, and mock dominant groups’ sartorial authority while establishing their own. Keywords: slavery; textile-making; diaspora; mimicry; colonial Americas

Introduction Analysing cloth and clothing experiences of enslaved people seems an unpromising approach to understanding early modern materialised identities. Studies of the era’s textile and garment production, commerce, and consumption emphasise novel fabrics, dyes, and styles; chart a growing taste for luxury and semi-luxury items; highlight innovations by manufacturers, merchants and customers alike.2 1 [Jean-Barthélemy Maximilien Nicolson], Essai sur l’histoire naturelle de l’isle de Saint-Domingue (Paris: Gobreau, 1776), 54; William Beckford, A Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica […] (London: T & J Egerton, 1790), vol. 2, 386. 2 Robert S. DuPlessis, “Textile Cultures in the Early Modern World,” in A Companion to Textile Culture, ed. Jennifer Harris (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2020), 27–43, gives a brief overview with bibliography.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch04

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Research on constructing subjectivity foregrounds conscious choice, deliberate strategies, and self-defined individuality.3 Scholarship on enslavement, in contrast, underlines the violence, oppression, exploitation, and impoverishment visited upon bondspeople—circumstances that would apparently negate autonomous assertion of preference, participation in costly modishness, the blossoming of selfhood. Law and practice defined slaves as property; constraint shaped their lived experience; and their cloth and clothing are typically assumed to have been commanded, conventional, and cheap.4 In these representations, enslaved women and men seem malleable objects, not self-making subjects. Epitomising slaves’ ostensive textile passivity and privation is the paucity, in Brazil and the Caribbean, of key types of documentation that historians quarry for insight into identity-moulding material practices. First-person accounts like letters and diaries are entirely lacking. So is trial testimony (like that of enslaved Louisianans charged with clothing theft) and detailed fabric and garment listings, as often found in free colonists’ probate inventories. Even advertisements that describe fugitive slaves’ dress, a staple of continental North American newspapers, are sparse.5 A good deal of evidence on bondspeople’s textile-making and identity formation nevertheless survives. Admittedly, it was almost always created externally to the individuals represented, and it is permeated with agendas hidden and overt of the planters, administrators, missionaries, travellers, abolitionists, and artists who produced it. It is encountered on the literal margins of picturesque views of estates and markets, renderings of plantation machinery, directives to overseers, or it is obliquely, incidentally, perfunctorily expressed in statutes, account books, reports. Archaeological excavations sometimes uncover remnants of enslaved sartorial activity—albeit usually garment fasteners or sewing implements rather 3 Explications and evaluations of an ample scholarship in Luis Orrieta and George W. Noblit, eds., Cultural Constructions of Identity: Meta-Ethnography and Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Anthony Elliott, ed., Routledge Handbook of Identity Studies, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2021); Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity,’” Theory and Society 29 (2000): 1–47. 4 Often using dress to epitomise the disparities, modern studies have long argued that in explicit juxtaposition to their owners’ luxurious self-fashioning, maltreatment, constraint, and privation defined enslaved people’s material and psychological circumstances. A classic statement is Richard S. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves: The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (New York: Norton, 1972), esp. 283–86; a modern reiteration is Trevor Burnard and John Garrigus, The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), esp. 45. 5 For enslaved trial transcripts, Sophie White, Voices of the Enslaved: Love, Labor, and Longing in French Louisiana (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2019); for probate inventories and fugitive advertisements, Robert S. DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

“A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” 

than textiles or items of clothing themselves—that add nuance to written and visual sources.6 Still, despite manifest defects and silences, such evidentiary traces enable retrieval of vestimentary projects by which the subjectivities of African and Amerindian slaves were to be moulded, even transformed; of methods and resources by which bondswomen and men sought to control their own material embodiment and identity-making; and of these sundry efforts’ effects on enslaved and free settler selfhood. Slave apparelling turns out to have been as consequential to fabricating materialised identities in Brazil and Caribbean colonies as slaves’ labour was to imperial economies. The enslaved occupied a singular position in what Homi Bhabha has termed “in-between” space, the liminal location of diasporic cultural innovation and subjectivity formation.7 Though subordinated and coerced, enslaved men and women did not comprise homogeneous, settled, indigenous colonised populations with static, unified, traditional cultures destined to be remade or obliterated by dynamic settlers. Rather, they were, if involuntarily, colonisers as mobile as the free migrants who trafficked them—even Native American bondspeople were typically transported long distances—drawn from multiple geographic, linguistic, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Textile contact and exchange between enslaved and enslavers thus entailed two groups simultaneously and interactively engaging in horizontal as well as vertical mixing of manifold material objects, practices, and discourses; the distinctive dress regimes that they fashioned signified identifications situational to time, place, and occasion.8 Processes of enslaved apparelling evoke familiar postulates about colonial cultural production: the improvisatory “making-do” of bricolage, creolisation’s recombining Old World materials into New World inventions, syncretism’s active, creative, transgressive intentionality.9 Theories of hybridisation, which foreground subaltern strategies in contexts of grossly disparate power and resources, decode how 6 Isabela C. Suguimatsu, “Arquelogía de la esclavitud y vestimenta en una hacienda azucarera del Brasil colonial,” in Repensar el colonialismo: Iberia, de colonia a potencia colonial, ed. Beatriz Marín-Aguilera (Madrid: JAS Arqueología, 2018), 269–302, esp. 284–96; Jerome S. Handler, Frederick W. Lange, and Robert V. Riordan, Plantation Slavery in Barbados: An Archaeological and Historical Investigation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978). 7 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), esp. 1–27. 8 DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 19 and passim, for dress regimes. 9 For Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage, see La pensée sauvage (Paris: Plon, 1962); for colonial bricolage, Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance (Chicago: University of Chicago, Press, 1985). In Sidney Mintz and Richard Price, The Birth of African American Culture (Boston: Beacon, 1992) creolisation interprets African American culture; see also Stephan Palmié, “Creolization and Its Discontents,” Annual Review of Anthropology 35 (2006): 433–56. On syncretism, see Charles Stewart, “Syncretism and Its Synonyms: Reflections on Cultural Mixture,” Diacritics 29, no. 3 (1999): 40–62; Aisha Khan, “Good to Think? Creolization, Optimism, and Agency,” Current Anthropology 48 (2007): 653–73.

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enslaved people exploited fissures, inconsistencies, and distractions in hegemonic policies and procedures to adapt, resist, mimic, and mock dominant groups’ sartorial authority while establishing their own.10

“Almost Destitute of Clothing” or “Distinguished by Better Dress”11 Enslaved men and women’s dress experiences began with undressing. Being stripped naked—often multiple times—marked captives’ entry into, transit through and exit from Atlantic slaving networks. Beyond prophylactic and security justifications, compulsory disrobing meant to sunder bondspeople materially and psychologically from originary kin, communities, and cultures and usher them into a present and future defined by constraint, commodification, and violence. Subsequently, imposed reclothings—initially when the enslaved were exhibited in American slave marts and again when owners distributed attire—sought to reinscribe those harsh initial lessons by transferring sartorial rights over their own bodies from captives to their captors. Reattirings also had the at least implicit purposes of inculcating a subordinated subjectivity as not simply chattel but as reliant on the slaveholder for the basics of existence, and of literally as well as symbolically incorporating slaves into a domain of decency presumed absent in their previous lives. Correlatively, the act of clothing bondspeople influenced owners’ subjectivity. A tangible and visually unmistakeable sign of their identity as possessors of valuable property that they could mark and refashion, even rudimentary outf its likewise attested, by their stark difference from masters’ own sartorial regime, to slaveholders’ superior socio-juridical rank, not to mention wealth.12 Little is known about the origins and initial development of slave material provisioning in the Americas. As early as 1528, however, Santo Domingo’s administrative and judicial authority (Audiencia) commanded planters to dress enslaved people “at least” in breeches and tunics. Over time, clothing rations emerged in 10 Bhabha, Location of Culture, is the locus classicus for colonial hybridisation; John Hutnyk, “Hybridity,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 28 (2005): 79–102, elaborates. Matthew Liebmann, “Parsing Hybridity: Archaeologies of Amalgamation in Seventeenth-Century New Mexico,” in The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, ed. Jeb J. Card (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013), 25–49, subtly reviews competing theories through analysis of specific colonial material culture objects. 11 John Luffman, A Brief Account of the Island of Antigua […] (London: The Author, 1789), 52; G[abriel] Debien, Plantations et esclaves à Saint-Domingue (Dakar: Université de Dakar, 1962), 120, quoting the late eighteenth-century merchant-planter Stanislas Foäche. 12 DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 128–31; for incorporation, Suguimatsu, “Arquelogía de la esclavitud y vestimenta,” 280.

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nearly all plantation colonies, whether by government or slaveowner initiative.13 Allotments—virtual work uniforms—generally involved one or a pair of two-piece outfits, or fabric for slaves to make them; when toiling, however, men often and women occasionally wore just a single garment (Figs. 4.1, 4.4).14 What a resident of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil, reported in the 1790s as “the ordinary clothing, given to each laboring slave, […] a pair of shirts, and skirts, or trousers,” largely held true throughout the tropical Americas.15 Items were usually summarily sewn from a limited range of cheap, coarse imported European linens, woollens, and mixed cotton-linens; pure cottons (predominantly Indian, exceptionally West African) were rare, save in Brazil, where local production swelled during the eighteenth century.16 Most cloth was unbleached or whitish, though blues and blue and white checks became more common over the eighteenth century (Fig. 4.2). The penurious similarity of enslaved labourers’ uniforms materialised masters’ and officials’ ambition to recast heterogeneous captives into homogeneous, interchangeable, dependent, inferior “slave” units stripped of corporeal and psychological 13 Manuel Lucena Salmoral, “Leyes para esclavos: El ordenamiento jurídico sobre la condición, tratamiento, defensa y represión de los esclavos en las colonias de la América española,” in Nuevas aportaciones a la historia jurídica de Iberoamérica, ed. José Andrés-Gallego (Madrid: Tavera, 2001), 591. For “translation” of custom into law on smaller British Caribbean islands as abolitionist agitation mounted in the 1790s, see Elsa Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1965), 191–93. Neither a 1755 slave code with clothing rations enacted in the metropole nor a proposed 1783 ordinance was published in the Danish Virgin Islands; Neville Hall, Slave Society in the Danish Virgin Islands, ed. B. W. Higman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 59–62, 80, 94; Karen F. Olwig, “Slaves and Slave Masters on Eighteenth-Century St. John,” in Plantation Societies in the Era of European Expansion, ed. Judy Bieber (Aldershot: Variorum, 1997), 256–57. Brazil likewise had no explicit clothing directive; for an implicit one see Silvia H. Lara, “Legislação sobre escravos africanos na América portuguesa,” in Nuevas Aportaciones a la Historia Jurídica de Iberoamérica, 28–29, 216, 224. Clerics urged Brazilian planters to clothe their bondspeople; André João Antonil, Cultura e poulência do Brasil por suas drogas e minas (1711), in Robert Edgar Conrad, Children of God’s Fire: A Documentary History of Black Slavery in Brazil (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 58; Rafael de Bivar Marquese, Administração & escravidão: Idéias sobre a gestão da agricultura escravista brasileira (São Paulo: Editora Hucitec, 1998), 81. 14 Women and (if infrequently) men might instead wear a sack-like gown; see, e.g., Fig. 2, #5. 15 Luís dos Santos Vilhena, A Bahia no século xviii (Bahia: Editôra Itapuã, 1969 [1802]), vol. 1, 186. Despite the absence of specific laws, the “uniform” was the norm in Brazil and the Danish Caribbean, too. Cf. DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 137–45. 16 For evidence of more generous allotments and a wider variety of textiles, notably in British colonies in the decades around 1800 in response to rising anti-slavery sentiment, see Roderick A. McDonald, The Economy and Material Culture of Slaves: Goods and Chattels on the Sugar Plantations of Jamaica and Louisiana (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1993), 113; J. Harry Bennett, Bondsmen and Bishops: Slavery and Apprenticeship on the Codrington Plantations of Barbados, 1710–1838 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1958), 104. Other sources, however, indicate little change; see Luffman, Brief Account of the Island of Antigua, 52–53, 95; Peter Marsden, An Account of the Island of Jamaica (Newcastle: Hodgson, 1788), 20–21; Bennett, Bondsmen and Bishops, 36–37. See Justin Girod de Chantrans, Voyage d’un Suisse dans les colonies d’Amérique, ed. Pierre Pluchon (Paris: Tallendier, 1980 [1786]), 131, for the French Caribbean.

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Figure 4.1  In this stylised view from the French West Indies, the men and woman preparing tobacco for drying wear the stripped-down version of the enslaved work uniform. Tobacco processing, from Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amérique […] (Paris: Cavelier, 1722), vol. 4, 496. Courtesy of the John Carter Brown Library.

individuality and autonomy and readily legible by free populations. Concurrently, a subgroup was demarcated by the distinctive servant uniform known as livery, equally owner-imposed but comprising more numerous, more varied, better quality and more colourful garments. Slave codes and contemporary observers generally regarded well-dressed slaves as threats to social, public, and moral order that should be sharply limited if not outright banned. Yet strictures against slave sartorial “extravagance,” and the motile slaves attired in it, exempted livery.17 Signifying the master’s identity as rich and powerful, the enforced costume was—no less than 17 For livery’s special legal treatment, see [William Wood and Francis Hanson], The Laws of Jamaica, Pass’d by the Governours, Council and Assembly in that Island, and confirm’d by the Crown (London: Wilkins,

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Figure 4.2  These untitled sketches and watercolours by William Berryman depicting sixteen Jamaicans, drawn between 1808 and 1816, show the limited palette of colours and garments worn by enslaved vendors and porters. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

a labourer’s uniform—understood to erase rather than represent the subjectivity of the enslaved individual enveloped in it.18 Though based on European prototypes, both labourers’ outfits and livery diverged in critical respects. Some differences were blatant—no shoes and stockings and, among workers, no shaped hats—, others subtle: much reduced or even no adornment and accessories, shorter trousers for labourers, smaller and simpler cocked hats for liverymen (Figs. 4.1, 4.4). These deliberate deficiencies divulge that owners and officials aimed not to acculturate the enslaved by subsuming them into dominant material (or broader) colonial cultures but to recreate them as intelligible but not equal to free settlers. The result was what Bhabha calls mimicry, a representation that was “almost the same but not quite” like its original, a figure displaying its maker’s “ambivalence” grounded in attempting simultaneously 1716), 226: slaves so clad were excused from carrying the ticket required of all other bondspeople when off their home plantations. Cf. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish Virgin Islands, 94. 18 Jean Baptiste Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amerique […] (Paris: Guillaume Cavelier, 1722), vol. 4, 180, describes the livery of “proper lackeys” in the 1690s French Antilles. Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 282: a planter could “further magnify his public image” by dressing his slaves in “gorgeous livery.”

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to remake the enslaved as reassuringly recognisable and to establish them as repulsively dissimilar.19 Apparelling edicts insinuated that provisioning positively directed attitudes and comportment—Santo Domingo’s decree insisted that “how slaves are dealt with is one of the main reasons why they are trustworthy and peaceful”—though all threatened brutal punishment should milder means not suffice. Some slaveholders elaborated policies with bolder claims. Differentiated grants of attire, they held, would more powerfully incentivise and reward slave mentalities and behaviour; the consequent hierarchy of appearances (and the disparate favour that structured it) would also divide bondspeople, facilitating control over them. Thus besides equal annual garment allotments given all captives, the prominent Barbados sugar planter Henry Drax (1641–1683) instructed his manager, the enslaved head overseer should receive “a new Sarge Suit Every year and A Hatt” as an “allowance upon Incoradgment,” while enslaved domestic servants were to have “Cloths as oftn as the white Servants,” that is, three times a year.20 Similarly, Pierre Joseph Laborie (1743–1800), a Saint-Domingue coffee planter, advocated emphasising the primacy of drivers and “other chief negroes”—and their dependence on the master’s goodwill—by gifting them hats along with the lengths of cloth, needles and thread, and jackets distributed to all slaves.21 The Saint-Domingue merchant, notary, and estate owner Stanislas Foäche (1737–1806) outlined a more detailed programme for shaping slave subjectivities with dress. To make commandeurs (enslaved drivers) “more respectable” to fellow bondspeople and “bind them to do their duty well,” they should be conspicuously singled out by a set of garments (rechange) made of higher quality linen than that in their fellow slaves’ attire. Additionally, drivers should be accorded grey frockcoats, and the head driver receive yet “better dress,” including a blue frockcoat. To underscore the intended lesson, the head driver was to be told bluntly that “all these advantages come from his master” alone. Enslaved domestic servants and skilled artisans were likewise to be set apart with cloaks (casaques), coachmen with cloaks, jackets, and hats, and “if they perform well during harvest,” indigo workers with a fine rechange.22 19 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 121–31, quotes from 95, 127. For livery lacks, DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 151. 20 Quoted sic in Peter Thompson, “Henry Drax’s Instructions on the Management of a SeventeenthCentury Barbadian Sugar Plantation,” William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 3 (2009): 600. 21 Pierre Joseph Laborie, The Coffee Planter of Saint Domingo; with an Appendix […] (London: Cadell and Davies, 1798), 162–84, sic. 22 Debien, Plantations et esclaves à Saint-Domingue, 120, 122, 125, 124. For other examples, Handler, Lange, and Riordan, Plantation Slavery in Barbados, 93–94; Jacques Cauna, Au temps des isles à sucre. Histoire d’une plantation de Saint-Domingue au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Karthala, 1987), 118. Cf. McDonald, Economy

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How often and to what extent sophisticated schemes like these were implemented is unknown, though they seem thought experiments compounded by wishful thinking rather than reality in the field or the big house. In the event, fulfilling even the minimal mandates of statutory clothing requirements proved beyond many owners’ willingness or ability. Maliciousness, doubts about dressing policies’ efficacy, need (real or perceived) to limit costs, or self-serving beliefs that due to tropical heat or lack of shame slaves preferred wearing little clothing—all of these may explain masters’ negligence. Yet contemporaries—including vociferous plantation managers—pointed out that allotments were inadequate even when fully implemented.23 Authorities were keenly aware that unsatisfactory dress provisioning could provoke discontent, turning their dream of placid servile incorporation into the nightmare of violent slave revolt. Jamaica’s 1696 act for “better order and government of slaves” acknowledged that bondspeople raised a “Complaint” when “Owners or others who have the Care of Slaves” failed to distribute yearly “Cloths” allowances. To forestall “such Default” from provoking “Insurrections and Rebellions” of the kind that already “within this Island hath proved the ruin and destruction of several Families,” enslaved men and women were (in an extraordinary departure from their usual position before the law) allowed to petition constables for redress when allocations were not forthcoming, and constables were enjoined to investigate.24 Yet apparelling laws remained, Elsa Goveia demonstrated, “dead letters” that officials showed little interest in enforcing.25 The gaps, contradictions, and dereliction in owners’ and officials’ provisioning policies and their application left space for bondspeople to act—indeed, made it incumbent upon them. From the earliest days of colonial slavery in the Americas, therefore, many enslaved women and men self-supplied dress, enacting bricolage to complement their enforced outfits—or wholly to furnish them. As Patrick Browne observed after visiting Jamaica in 1756, even when slaves received “a few yards” of and Material Culture of Slaves, 120–26: as inducement and recompense, occupants of upper tiers in the slave hierarchy disproportionately received readymade clothing rather than lengths of fabric. 23 For slaves’ purported disinterest in clothes, Richard Ligon, A True & Exact History of the Island of Barbadoes (London: Parker and Guy, 1673), 54; Hans Sloane, A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, S Christophers and Jamaica (London: B. M., 1707, 1725), vol. 1, xlvii; Charles Leslie, A New and Exact Account of Jamaica (Edinburgh: Fleming, 1739), 35–36. Cf. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish Virgin Islands, 80; Olwig, “Slaves and Slave Masters on Eighteenth-Century St. John,” 251. For additional analysis and documentation, DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 132–35; Handler, Lange, and Riordan, Plantation Slavery in Barbados, 91–93; expert testimony in Anonymous, An Abstract of the Evidence Delivered before a select Committee of the House of Commons in the Years 1790 and 1791; on the Part of the Petitioners for the Abolition of the Slave Trade (London: n.p., 1791), 59. 24 [Wood and Hanson], Laws of Jamaica, 225, 227, 225. 25 Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands, 48.

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fabric, they had to buy for themselves “some decent as well as necessary cloaths.”26 But the lash of necessity was not the only force impelling captives’ auto-apparelling. Rather than wear the mainly rough, dull, poor-quality garb handed out to them,27 they sought by self-attiring to express what Bhabha, citing Frantz Fanon, termed their “desire for recognition” and consideration as self-fashioning subjects.28 To do so, many figured out how to make their own outfits and identities.

“All Slaves Love to Appear & Be Well Dressed”29 Bondspeople assembled self-dressing resources in many ways, and despite laws forbidding them to hold property, they typically won tacit permission from their masters (who pocketed the rest) to keep some portion of their gains and subsequent purchases.30 The provisioning grounds where many if not most West Indian and Brazilian slaves raised much of their colonies’ food are well known, as are the bustling Sunday markets in which they sold their produce, chickens, pigs, goats, eggs, and other farm goods.31 Bondsmen and women also traded straw hats and baskets, pottery and wooden implements they crafted, and grass and firewood they gathered, and besides market retailing they peddled from plantation to plantation (Fig. 4.2). That regulations designed to restrict their huckstering in the name of good policing or protecting free producers proved little hindrance shows how vital their role was.32 Enslaved artisans and service providers like barbers, cooks, hunters, fishers, porters, and messengers were also numerous. While most individuals’ earnings were doubtless limited, there is evidence of some meaningful accumulations.33 Colony-wide totals may have been impressive. 26 Patrick Browne, The Civil and Natural History of Jamaica (London: White, 1789), vol. 1, 25. 27 Cf. McDonald, Economy and Material Culture of Slaves, 113, 119–20. 28 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 12. 29 Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 160. 30 Hilary McD. Beckles, “An Economic Life of Their Own: Slaves as Commodity Producers and Distributors in Barbados,” in The Slaves’ Economy: Independent Production by Slaves in the Americas, ed. Ira Berlin and Philip D. Morgan (London: Cass, 1991), 31–47; Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands, 135–37, 140–41; Trevor Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire: Thomas Thistlewood and His Slaves in the Anglo-Jamaican World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 16, 153, 225, 236; Perdigão Malheiro, A escravidão no Brasil: Ensaio histórico, jurídico, social, 3rd ed. (Petrópolis: Editora Vozes, 1976 [1866]), vol. 1, 53–55; Suguimatsu, “Arquelogía de la esclavitud y vestimenta,” 283–84. 31 Sidney W. Mintz, Caribbean Transformations (Chicago: Aldine, 1974), 180–231; Luffman, Brief Account of the Island of Antigua, 94–95; DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 136–37. 32 Labat, Nouveau voyage aux isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 171, acknowledged ruefully that “well made” restrictive laws were “badly enforced.” 33 For example, Phibbah, enslaved mistress—in fact, virtual common-law wife—of the Jamaican estate agent and eventual plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood, hawked produce and clothes she tailored from

“A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” 

Though the estimate cannot be verified, in the 1770s a well-informed planter and barrister calculated that slaves held some 20 per cent of Jamaica’s circulating currency (not all, of course, would have been destined for clothing acquisition).34 Beyond the cash economy, moreover, some slaves received garments or fabric in return for (often forced) sex, while others acquired them by gifting or theft.35 Not all slaves could or wanted to engage in additional labour or barter, and not all benefited equally when they did.36 Nevertheless, the range of enterprising activities reported, and the abundance of observations, indicate the existence of a substantial group of resourceful, provident, hard-working enslaved people far different from the stereotypes of laziness, fecklessness, and dependence that informed many free colonists’ self-perceptions of innate, deserved superiority and undergirded their disdainful and discriminatory discourse, attitudes, and behaviour. As the French cleric and traveller Jean Baptiste Labat (1663–1738) averred, slaves “work even more & save all that they can” so that they can “appear & be well dressed.”37 A few contemporaries approved of slave self-attiring. One veteran Barbados planter suggested that to “enlarge the motive to labor,” bondspeople’s “strong desire to dress themselves in finery” deserved nurturing.38 To observers like him, thanks to slaves’ drive for consideration, even auto-apparelling would shape their subjectivities to masters’ advantage, engineering the beneficial payoff that Drax, Foäche, and their ilk posited. Most commentators, however, fretted about the repercussions of slave dress initiative. Labat considered it an “abuse” that French, English, and Dutch cloth that Thistlewood furnished, earning enough to buy land and livestock and dress herself; Burnard, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire, 236. 34 Mintz, Caribbean Transformations, 199. At the time, slaves comprised more than 90 per cent of Jamaica’s population; Trevor Burnard, Planters, Merchants, and Slaves: Plantation Societies in British America, 1650–1820 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 161. 35 DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 135–36; Olwig, “Slaves and Slave Masters on Eighteenth-Century St. John,” 259; Handler, Lange, and Riordan, Plantation Slavery in Barbados, 94–95. For a Brazilian missionary’s denunciation of costly fabrics given to sexual partners, see Conrad, Children of God’s Fire, 58; for admiring acknowledgement of fine garments bestowed on Jamaican planters’ enslaved mistresses, Marsden, Account of the Island of Jamaica, 39. 36 Michael Mullin, “Slave Economic Strategies: Food, Markets and Property,” in From Chattel Slaves to Wage Slaves: The Dynamics of Labour Bargaining in the Americas, ed. Mary Turner (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 75: “status differentials” resulted from slaves’ disparate activities and opportunities. Slavery defenders depicted a rosy captive earning situation. Edward Long, The History of Jamaica (London: Lowndes, 1774), vol. 2, 426, claimed that “there are few of them [‘labouring Negroes’] who do not acquire sufficient profit, by their huckstering traffic, to furnish themselves with a wardrobe of better cloaths.” His Saint-Domingue contemporary Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle de Saint-Domingue, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: l’Auteur, 1797), vol. 1, 60, agreed. 37 Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 160. 38 Quoted from Handler, Lange, and Riordan, Plantation Slavery in Barbados, 95.

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planters unfortunately borrowed from their Spanish and Portuguese counterparts, none of whom “understand their true interests.” So consequential were “the work and gain that [bondspeople] garner,” he warned, that they could endanger the slave mentality that law and practice were designed to foster. Instead of seeing themselves as planters’ “children,” enslaved men and women might come to believe that they “could support themselves if they worked for themselves.”39 Such misgivings were common. Reminiscing in exile in 1798, the one-time SaintDomingue planter Laborie claimed that a new consciousness had indeed developed among the enslaved, and to him it had culminated in calamity. Slaves’ marketing activities had allowed them to become “rich,” develop a taste for “luxury,” and yield to “corruption,” and the clothing that they acquired signalled their dangerously altered subjectivities and subsequent actions. “[T]he revolt [Haitian Revolution] was hatched and did actually make its f irst appearance among” bondspeople on a plantation where Laborie had seen, “on a Sunday evening, three hundred fellows as gaudily dressed as the most elegant servant in town.” Little wonder that Laborie advocated a repressive if paternalistic plantation order with virtually no opportunities for slaves to earn their own money and independently decide how to spend it. 40 Officials feared that owners’ inconstant and inattentive supply of basic clothing forced the enslaved to act, even rebel. The dismay of masters like Labat and Laborie, in contrast, arose from a sense that owners had insufficiently curbed slave demand for attire, thereby licensing captives’ seizure of colonial apparelling authority. The same dread of yielding cultural hegemony animated denunciations of Brazilian masters whose “whims and lecherous pleasures” led them to dress enslaved servants sumptuously, which not just diverted them from useful labour but empowered them to behave sartorially just like “us Europeans” (Portuguese-origin settlers) by wearing equally luxurious clothing. 41 Slaves’ fancy dress—special-occasion garments—garnered most attention and evoked most anxiety among free colonists, variously expressed in sneers, sneaking admiration, and sumptuary laws. 42 Critics noted remarkable displays of personal 39 Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 160; vol. 3, 442–43 (passages dated 1696). 40 Laborie, Coffee Planter of Saint Domingo, 180. 41 Cited in Wanderley Pinho, História de um engenho do Recôncavo: Matoim-Novo Caboto-Frequezia (1552–1944) (Rio de Janeiro: Editora Zélio Valverde, 1946), 319. 42 John Stewart, An Account of Jamaica and Its Inhabitants (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme, 1808), 264; Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 2, 426; Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 181; Lara, “Legislação sobre escravos africanos,” 208, 221–22, 313; Silvia Hunold Lara, “Sedas, panos e balangandãs: O traje de senhoras e escravas nas cidades do Rio de Janeiro e de Salvador (século XVIII),” in Brasil: colonização e escravidão, ed. Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, 2000), 177–83; Robert S. DuPlessis, “Sartorial Sorting in the Colonial Caribbean and North America,” in The

“A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” 

dignity and respect among bondspeople, who shed the appearance and comportment of their daily routinised toil. It was nothing less than a “metamorphosis,” opined the lawyer, planter, and politician Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry (1750–1819), which so remade virtually every enslaved person that “one is hard pressed to recognize under the fine garments” the man “who all week wielded hoe or tools,” much less the woman whose transformation “is still greater.”43 The former planter William Beckford (1744–1799) recalled that enslaved “women take a pride in the number of their [petti]coats, and are not contented with any but what are made from the best materials,” as were “likewise their hats and handkerchiefs.”44 Proud self-expression sometimes conjoined impressive sartorial manifestations of group identification. “One of their great pleasures,” wrote Moreau de Saint-Méry about enslaved women of Saint-Domingue, “is assembling what they call the matched set [assortiment]; that is, on certain solemn festivals, many of the women dress precisely the same, to go strolling or dancing.” Best friends so garbed themselves yet more often. 45 In Jamaica, On new year’s day it was customary for the negro girls of the towns […] to exhibit themselves in all the pride of gaudy splendor, under the denomination of blues and reds—parties in rivalship and opposition to each other, and distinguished by these colours. 46

The most attractive, and those with the best voices, “paraded through the streets, two and two, in the most exact order, uniform in their dress, and nearly of the same stature and age,” singing to instrumental accompaniment. 47 Beyond such holiday performances—principally on Christmas and New Year’s Day—numerous other events witnessed impressive, if often worrying, representations of insistent enslaved recognition by resplendent self-apparelling. 48 On St Kitts, its legislature announced, “fine clothes” were the hallmark of weekly “Balls, Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c. 1200–1800, ed. Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 346–71; DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 155–56. 43 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description […] de Saint-Domingue, vol. 1, 60–61. 44 Beckford, Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, vol. 2, 386. 45 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description […] de Saint-Domingue, vol. 1, 60. 46 Stewart, Account of Jamaica, 264 (sic). 47 Stewart, Account of Jamaica, 264 (sic). Like Beckford and Moreau de Saint-Méry a defender of (his term) a “now-reformed and easy” slavery, Stewart exaggerated slave finery’s costliness and ubiquity. Cf. DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 154. 48 For other holiday special garb, Beckford, Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, vol. 2, 385–86; Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 179–81; Marsden, Account of the Island of Jamaica, 33; Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description […] de Saint-Domingue, vol. 1, 59; Long, History of Jamaica, vol. 2, 426.

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Figure 4.3  In this watercolour of a Twelfth Night (Day of the Kings) procession, the rich costumes of the queen and accompanying musicians and dancers illustrate black Brazilians’ striking festive dress. “Cortejo da Rainha Negra na festa de Reis,” from Carlos Julião, Riscos Illuminados de Figurinhos de Brancos e Negros dos Usos do Rio de Janeiro e Serro do Frio, last quarter of the eighteenth century. © Fundação Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro.

Assemblies, and Coffee Treats” where, the authorities grumbled, some slaves sported garb “finer and better than what their Masters generally wear.”49 Magnificent slave self-attiring was also a celebrated feature of “Congo” dances and the processions held by Black associations (irmandades) in Brazil, memorably captured by the Italo-Portuguese engineer-artist Carlos Julião (1740–1811) (Fig. 4.3).50 Observers found slave dress at Sunday markets, and the roads leading to them, equally striking. On Antigua, trumpeted the British traveller Janet Schaw (c.1731–c.1801), bondsmen and women “universally clad in white Muslin” strode “in joyful troops on the way to town with their Merchandize,” producing “one of the most beautiful sights I ever saw.”51 The Italo-English Agostino Brunias’s (c.1730–1796) paintings (and the 49 Quoted in Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands, 139. 50 Lara, “Sedas, panos e balangandãs,” 185. For images by Julião, Biblioteca Digital, accessed 27 April 2021, bd.camara.gov.br/bd/handle/bdcamara/22620. 51 [Janet Schaw], Journal of a Lady of Quality; Being the Narrative of a Journey from Scotland to the West Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the Years 1774 to 1776, ed. Evangeline Walker Andrews, 3rd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1939), 107–8.

“A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” 

Figure 4.4  This composite sugar plantation scene was sketched by a British Royal Navy surgeon and onetime Barbados resident circa 1807. In the right foreground enslaved field labourers wear the minimal slave outfit, while the couple in the cross-sectioned hut in the centre are dressed in the complete version; the left foreground portrays smartly attired bondspeople at a village dance. “Slaves in Barbados,” from John A. Waller, A Voyage in the West Indies […] (London: Phillips and Co., 1820), vol. 2. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library.

many prints made from them) vividly render such instances of slave finery at West Indian markets and less public gatherings like parties in slave quarters.52 Recall, too, Laborie’s scandalised description of fancy dress on a plantation Sunday evening. None of these renditions, which airbrushed slavery’s harshness to soothe free people’s consciences, need be taken at face value. Together, however, they render slaves’ sartorial and psychological achievements—their taking command of colonial material and discursive space—and the ambivalence those gestures summoned among free colonists (Fig. 4.4). Uniforming sought to identify slaves as (and make them identify with) dominated, homogeneous labour power. Bondspeople resisted with bricolage. Dressing 52 Many images by Brunias are at the Yale Center for British Art, accessed 27 April 2021, https://collections. britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Search/Results?join=AND&lookfor0%5B%5D=&type0%5B%5D=allfields&b ool0%5B%5D=AND&lookfor1%5B%5D=&type1%5B%5D=title&bool1%5B%5D=AND&lookfor2%5B% 5D=agostino+brunias&type2%5B%5D=auth_author&bool2%5B%5D=AND&lookfor3%5B%5D=&type 3%5B%5D=earliestDate&bool3%5B%5D=AND&lookfor4%5B%5D=&type4%5B%5D=topic&bool4%5B %5D=AND&lookfor5%5B%5D=&type5%5B%5D=geographic&bool5%5B%5D=AND.

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themselves up was a yet more assertive escape from visible signs of that intended mentality, behaviour meant to flow from it, owners’ control over their embodied representation to themselves and to the world. Beyond refusing and disrupting, however, special attiring coupled psychological and material self-constructing. It claimed public and private places as legitimate sites for enslaved sociability and for instantiating both desire for recognition and power to articulate subjectivities overtly in colonial space. To some free colonists, bondspeople exhibiting their hybrid styles likely seemed a mimicry of white dress—“almost the same, but not quite”—and to others blatant and dangerous mockery.53 But as the most astute observers uneasily perceived, slave fancy attiring was both more and other: as good as (if not better than) free dress regimes, and grandly different. The dissimilarity arose partly from conventions violated—dressed-up slaves wore stockings, shoes, fitted coats, long pants, and many other items typically denied them—and partly from conventions contrived: magnificent headwraps, men’s multiple kerchiefs, specially folded brims of both genders’ hats, and yet more. It resulted most of all from dynamic, transgressive syncretisms, dramatic performances of “cultural presence” that were “in excess” of their constitutive elements: hybridisations of materials, qualities, colours, garments and practices of wearing them while dancing, singing, laughing, walking, and at rest—living, in short, as self-fashioning subjects.54

Production, Consumption, Subjectivity Bondspeople’s labour in the Caribbean and Brazil provided the raw material of the classic first Industrial Revolution: cotton from the West Indies (1760s–c.1800) and Brazil (1780s–1820s) was central to Europe’s initial factory organisation and mechanisation.55 Slaves likewise cultivated indigo—notably on Saint-Domingue, briefly and marginally elsewhere in the Caribbean and Brazil—which across the eighteenth century came to colour newer “semi-luxury” fabrics in the bright and light tones contemporaries preferred.56 Some Brazilian slaves spun and wove coarse 53 Quotation from Bhabha, Location of Culture, 12. 54 Details and references in DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic, 152–57; quotations from Bhabha, Location of Culture, 2. 55 Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric That Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 198–203, 251–59; Thales A. Zamberlan Pereira, “The Rise of the Brazilian Cotton Trade in Britain during the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of Latin American Studies 50 (2018): 919–49. 56 Marguerite Martin, “Les marchés de l’indigo en France: Flux, acteurs, produits (XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles),” 2 vols. (PhD diss., Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2016); David Geggus, “Indigo and Slavery in Saint Domingue,” in Slavery without Sugar: Diversity in Caribbean Society since the Seventeenth Century, ed. Verene Shepherd (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2002), 19–35; Dunn, Sugar and Slaves, 168–70;

“A Few Shreds of Rough Linen” and “a Certain Degree of Elegance” 

cotton cloth for their own garb; indeed, plantation cottons were considered so vital as to be exempt from a 1785 decree forbidding textile manufacture in the colony.57 And, as throughout the Americas, enslaved seamstresses and tailors created many of the plain and fancy garments that all colonists wore.58 Enslaved men and women could take pride in the skills they deployed when producing raw materials, fabrics, and garments. But of all the textile-making activities in which they engaged, apparelling most significantly moulded subjectivities—of free and enslaved colonists alike. By dressing bondspeople, slaveholders intended to stage their position, power, and paternalism on othered bodies and, some proposed, to mould subordinated identifications. Yet hegemonic dress practices were too often scanty or, paradoxically, lenient, and both these failings enabled slaves to take charge of their sartorial selfhood and its material representations. Perhaps any imposed attiring was unlikely to succeed. That many enslaved people had to self-provision surely cut against self-identifying as indolent, dependent, and therefore properly subordinate, even if it did not end in overt resistance. Moreover, as Matthew Liebmann has observed, “a change in material culture does not necessarily equate a change in cultural orientation or ideology.”59 Even materially advantaging select bondspeople did not surely render them docile and devoted. “Skilled and privileged slaves,” notes Trevor Burnard, “tended to lead revolts.”60 When they took control, bondspeople’s self-dressing assumed myriad forms to send multiple messages. Adding a head-tie to a uniform could declare one’s sense of unique self-worth. Creating a personal fancy outfit or, collectively, an assortiment, staked a far bigger and bolder claim about individual and group identities and cultural authority. The enslaved could fashion not just, as some contemporaries declared, dress that was “splendid, elegant, and tasteful.”61 More than that, in the Dauril Alden, “The Growth and Decline of Indigo Production in Colonial Brazil: A Study in Comparative Economic History,” Journal of Economic History 25 (1965): 35–60. 57 Roberta Marx Delson, “Brazil: The Origin of the Textile Industry,” in The Ashgate Companion to the History of Textile Workers, 1650–2000, ed. Els Hiemstra-Kuperus and Lex Heerma van Voss (London: Routledge, 2010), 78–79, 90–91; Vilhena, A Bahia no século xviii, vol. 1, 186–87. Mercantilist prohibitions, plentiful supplies of inexpensive imported textiles and selected garments, and plantations’ focus on export agriculture, thwarted similar enterprises elsewhere. Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 3, 489–93, argued that cotton growing and weaving could flourish in the West Indies, replacing supplies from the Levant, citing (ibid., vol. 4, 414) slaves spinning cotton and weaving hammocks he saw during a 1700 visit to Barbados. His was a solitary voice. 58 Suguimatsu, “Arquelogía de la esclavitud y vestimenta,” 288–96. 59 Liebmann, “Parsing Hybridity,” 38. 60 Burnard, Planters, Merchants, and Slaves, 59–61. 61 Stewart, Account of Jamaica, 264. Cf. Beckford, Descriptive Account of the Island of Jamaica, vol. 2, 386: slave fancy dress had “a certain degree of elegance.” Labat, Nouveau voyage aux Isles de l’Amerique, vol. 4, 181: it endowed its wearers with “a very good appearance.” Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description […] de Saint-Domingue, vol. 1, 59: it helped bondspeople “appear more elegant.”

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face of a ruthlessly objectifying, darkly brutal system, bondspeople’s auto-costuming forged not imitations of slaveholder styles or identities but their own hybrid sartorial cultures and subjectivities.

About the Author Robert DuPlessis, Emeritus Professor of History, Swarthmore College, studies early modern histories of consumption, material culture, trade, and Atlantic economies. Recent publications include Transitions to Capitalism in Early Modern Europe: Economies in the Era of Early Globalization, c. 1450–c. 1820; The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonialism in the Atlantic World, 1650–1800; “Sartorial Sorting in the Colonial Caribbean and North America,” in Giorgio Riello and Ulinka Rublack, eds., The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Legislation in a Comparative and Global Perspective.

Part II The Material Enunciation of Difference

5.

Textiles, Fashion, and Questions of Whiteness Racial Politics and Material Culture in the British World, c.1660–1820 Beverly Lemire

Abstract This chapter investigates the links between textile politics and emergent race thinking, charting the material landscapes that global commerce unsettled in the British world during the long eighteenth century. Textiles absorbed, reflected, and enacted “differentiations” in this period of imperial expansion. The layered anxieties around new commodities, this chapter argues, were routinely infused with racial thinking; and the negotiation of these anxieties tracks the creation of imperial culture in the British Isles and beyond. During this period, a once foreign textile, cotton, became domesticated and fashion priorities emerged that canonised hierarchies of race. Keywords: British colonialism; Critical Race Studies; global consumerism; identity politics; cultural anxieties

Introduction Textile trades were foundational in early modern Europe, with imperial states working to protect and advance established cloth industries at the core of their economies and cultures. Global commerce unsettled these material landscapes and its established interregional competition, with cultural and political tensions erupting and nations jostling for ascendency. Policing the dress of residents became a pressing imperative. Apparel and its components could bolster state authority, or generate anxieties and rejoinders, while, in Britain, imperial priorities ignited new material discourse. As global trade grew, the impact of foreign subaltern goods

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch05

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sparked discomfort for some. Cloth and clothing, in particular, were intended to strengthen national and imperial purpose, but: “Wearing foreign clothes disrupted the way of knowing one’s country of origin and, perhaps more upsetting, where one’s loyalty lay.”1 Textile politics involved more than nationalist sentiment, however, with racialism figuring in response to global commodities. In the long eighteenth century, commodities acquired from global and colonial settings carried complex meanings: potential profit for the metropole, offset by perceived risks of pollution and disruption. These seeming threats differed fundamentally from the antagonism towards competing European wares, as evolving precepts around race strengthened beyond established xenophobic paradigms. New imports were often aligned with populations of colour and figured as part of imperial agendas. For instance, over the 1600s, English authorities grappled with the perceived threat of “Indianization” through the growing use of tobacco from the Americas. The disquiet surrounding this substance stubbornly persisted through the century, even as this leaf became culturally infused with acceptable (racialised) connotations of empire. Elsewhere in Europe, Spanish authorities argued about the dangers of “Indian” chocolate, a subject that perturbed Spanish writers fearing its Native American lineage and its power as a “vector for spreading Indian culture.”2 Homi Bhabha observes astutely that “the attempt to dominate in the name of a cultural supremacy […] is itself produced only in the moment of differentiation.”3 “Differentiation” of various sorts recurred over the early modern period, often sparked by new cargoes, including cargoes of the enslaved. Material culture, and textiles in particular, absorbed, reflected, and enacted “differentiations” in this period of imperial expansion. Moments of inflection were repeated across generations as new colonial materials rolled ashore in European ports to be accepted, rejected, or re-envisioned entirely. The layered anxieties around new commodities were routinely infused with racial thinking; and the negotiation of these anxieties tracks the creation of imperial culture in the British Isles and beyond. Reflecting on the nineteenth century, Anne McClintock observes that “imperialism is not something that happened elsewhere […]. Rather, imperialism and the invention of race were fundamental aspects of Western, industrial modernity.”4 These politics 1 Roze Hentschell, “Treasonous Textiles: Foreign Cloth and the Construction of Englishness,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 32, no. 3 (2002): 544. 2 For tobacco see, Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 233–47; for chocolate, Marcy Norton, “Tasting Empire: Chocolate and the European Internalization of Mesoamerican Aesthetics,” American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2002): 690. 3 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Abingdon: Routledge, 1994), 51. Original italics. 4 Anne McClintock, Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest (New York: Routledge, 1995), 5.

Textiles, Fashion, and Questions of Whiteness 

permeated public and domestic spaces, enacted in multiple materialities. I explore the workings of this process in a foundational era, investigating the links between textile politics and emergent race thinking. I address two periods in the long eighteenth century: first, from 1690 to 1730, during the fierce opposition to imported Indian cottons in Britain. Intense debates, mercantilist activism and vicious riots erupted from the 1690s, flaring intermittently until the 1730s, as the craze for Indian cottons met a sustained opposition. The cycles of gendered public violence that ensued must be re-examined for the emergent racialised traits that they contained. My second focus, from the 1770s to the 1820s, manifests different material politics, as British industrialisation of cotton prevailed. A once foreign textile, cotton, became domesticated—a critical re-inscription—and fashion priorities emerged that canonised hierarchies of race. Britain claimed the apogee of cotton manufacturing and women’s fashions reflected a preoccupation with whiteness, climaxing in neoclassical dress that showcased the finest British-made muslins. These two events, bookending this era, share an entangled history, best illuminated from imperial perspectives. This stance acknowledges the transformative connections forged between Britain and the Indian subcontinent, as well as the profound alterations inscribed onto Western culture and economy as African enslavement shaped political and cultural norms, before and during the colonisation of India. Fashion figured in both histories, crazes charged with gendered and racialised politics, including the evolving priorities of whiteness. The framework I employ brings the metropole into sharper focus, including shifts in material culture and racialist discourse that defined imperial purpose. Focusing on the eighteenth-century racialised politics of fashion, I discuss Bhabha’s observations that “cultural difference is a process of signification through which statements of culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate and authorize the production of fields of force, reference, applicability and capacity.”5 The textiles parsed in this chapter wove webs of imperial geography in between their production, circulation and consumption, thereby posing the broader question of cultural “betweenness.” Sustained European encounters with dark-skinned populations were centuries old by the early modern era, for Iberian and Italian polities profited from slave trading for generations, including from the African continent. The African presence in Europe went far beyond the occasional black youth in a royal household, dressed as a living imperial emblem for powerful owners. The presence of Africans in European urban centres included established communities, a history that also shaped European perspectives. Kate Lowe observes that “the traces of these fifteenth- and sixteenth-century black Africans can be found in almost every type 5 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 50.

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of record: documentary, textual and visual; secular and ecclesiastical; Northern and Southern European; factual and fictional.”6 Little wonder, then, that questions surrounding peoples of colour preoccupied political and philosophical thinkers, as well as less august populations immersed in new materials, colonial situations, and discursive stereotypes.7 In this context, textiles, in the form of clothing, the “social skin,”8 were perhaps more resonant than other commodities in producing “the enunciation of cultural difference.”9 Clothing was a focus of intense study by literati in early modern Europe. Writers and artists responded to the difference observed among world peoples and published studies from illustrated travelogues to costume books, the numbers of which multiplied from the 1500s.10 Differences were parsed by European authors and readers through a complex of motivations, including potential commercial and colonial gain, evolving racialised thinking or ethnocentric bias. These interwoven forces shaped critical fashion moments. Imperial priorities took on discrete textile form and it is not by chance that cotton instigated a racialised discourse. Cotton fabrics were among the most disruptive and unruly of this era, injecting Asian excellence throughout Europe’s terrain and the offshore markets it claimed. Indian cottons likewise upended hierarchies of dress and ultimately became a new means to articulate race and rank. At the same time, the profits from the enslavement of Africans remade Western finance 6 Kate Lowe, “Introduction: The Black African Presence in Renaissance Europe,” in Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, ed. T. F. Earle and K. J. P. Lowe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 3. See also, Hannah Barker, The Most Precious Merchandise: The Mediterranean Trade in Black Sea Slaves, 1260–1500 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), 1–3. 7 For theorising of the short-lived policy (1596–1601) of Elizabeth I to deport specified people of colour see Emily C. Bartels, “Too Many Blackamoors: Deportation, Discrimination, and Elizabeth I,” Studies in English Literature 46, no. 2 (2006): 305–22. For enlightenment thinkers, Michel-Rolph Troulliot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Books, 1995), 75–78; Lemire, Global Trade, 233–47. 8 Terence S. Turner, “The Social Skin,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2, no. (2012): 486 observes that: “The surface of the body, as the common frontier of society, the social self, and the psychobiological individual; becomes the symbolic stage upon which the drama of socialization is enacted, and bodily adornment (in all its culturally multifarious forms, from body-painting to clothing and from feather head-dresses to cosmetics) becomes the language through which it is expressed. The adornment and public presentation of the body, however inconsequential or even frivolous a business it may appear to individuals, is for cultures a serious matter: de la vie sérieuse, as Durkheim said of religion.” 9 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 51. 10 Margaret F. Rosenthal and Ann R. Jones, eds., The Clothing of the Renaissance World: Europe, Asia, Africa, the Americas: Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti Antichi et Moderni (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008); Susanna Burghartz, “The Fabric of Early Globalization: Skin, Fur and Cloth in de Bry’s Travel Accounts, 1590–1630,” in Dressing Global Bodies: The Power of Dress in World History, ed. Beverly Lemire and Giorgio Riello (London: Routledge, 2019), 15–40; Jennifer L. Morgan, “‘Some Could Suckle over Their Shoulder’: Male Travelers, Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology,” William and Mary Quarterly 54, no. 1 (1997): 167–92.

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and culture. In this context, colour, materiality, and ethnicity took on heightened meanings, as the politics of textiles and dress roiled the long eighteenth century. The authority of cloth and clothing is a shared feature of these studies.

Embodied Fashions? Indianised Britons? The potency of early modern dress shaped life cycles, events, and transitions of rank, as these punctuated calendars. This force was understood as more than symbolic or simply stylistic. Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass invite us to acknowledge the power of investiture: “For it was investiture, the putting on of clothes, that quite literally constituted a person as a monarch or a freeman of a guild or a household servant. Investiture was, in other words, the means by which a person was given a form, a shape, a social function, a ‘depth.’” Early modern Europeans recognised this potency, including the “animatedness of clothes” that designated categories of people and circumstance.11 Grappling with this concept is vital to understand the deep-seated response to foreign imports, reactions that extended far beyond dry national policy or political theorising. This visceral, cultural understanding of apparel likewise illuminates the agency of things.12 The study of historical material culture enables us to acknowledge this object power for: “objects not only are the product of history, they are also active agents in history. […] [I]nnovations in goods, their design, or their aesthetic also structure people’s perceptions of the world, thereby changing that world.”13 Foreign imports upset the notional reliance on local stuffs, cloth that reliably defined Englishmen and Englishwomen. Numerous early modern writers—satirists and political commentators—cautioned against the bodily enfeeblement that foreign attire would bring, through the wearing of goods from Spain and France, Italy and the Low Countries. Was it treasonous to enrobe an English body with foreign cloth? Playwrights and rhetoricians argued that Englishness was best constituted through garments of native wool, wool being a synonym for the body politic: from the wool sack in the House of Lords, the duffle, frieze, and kersey shielding manly English backs, the landlords enriched from the wool clip, and the legions employed transforming fleece to cloth. Close attention to the materials worn within a nation equated to sharp consideration of that political community, 11 Ann R. Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 2. 12 Chris Gosden, “What Do Objects Want?,” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12, no. 3 (2005): 193–211. 13 Leora Auslander, “Beyond Words,” American Historical Review 110, no. 4 (2005): 1017, 1018.

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“at once a vision and a project.”14 Debates raged before and after 1600, addressing the consequences of material infidelity, the fatal seduction begun by fabrics from proximate competitors and sometimes enemies. “[H]onest kersie” was the antithesis of foreign cloth and championed by Phillip Stubbes (c.1555–c.1610) in his reflection on the corruption of late Elizabethan England. In earlier times men “went clothed in black or white Frieze coats” and, unhappily, their heirs were now “transnatured” through the wearing of suspect foreign garb, a corruption that infused their person.15 The playwright, Thomas Dekker (c.1572–1632), crafted a trenchant attack in The Seven Deadly Sins of London (1606), emphasising the degeneracy of Englishmen bedecked in European finery rather than native cloth. Indeed, “a [material] ‘touch’ of these nations is likened to being physiologically contaminated.”16 The advancing globalisation of the seventeenth century only accelerated apprehensions, as geographies, ethnicities, and commodities intermingled—and as imperial ambitions took clearer forms. The campaign against East India trade and the visible wearing of painted and printed calico must be set amidst this long-run understanding of dress, the perceived corrupting power of alien textiles and the charged culture from which they emerged. The anti-calico campaign of the late 1600s was preceded by an extraordinary imperial activism in the East and West Indies from the mid-1600s during the Interregnum (1649–1660). In the East Indies, independent English merchants drove up Indian imports in the 1650s, with the monopoly of the English East India Company (EIC) in abeyance for a time. The restoration of the monarchy, in 1660, brought a rapid return to EIC shipments whose textile cargoes soared.17 As well, during the Interregnum, Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) initiated an imperial design that enlarged the English colonial presence in the West Indies with the yearly value of Barbados’ crops reaching £3 million: described “as the richest spot in the New World.”18 The commitment to slave labour intensified with the commoditisation of African bodies from Barbados to the Chesapeake region, a system reified in Western policy, thoughts, and habits.19 Slave ships that sustained this bloody commerce shaped the perceptions of sailors, investors, and provisioners in Atlantic ports dedicated to this traffic, reinforced by the links between plantation owners 14 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 4. 15 Phillip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses […] (London: Johnes, 1595), 28. 16 Hentschell, “Treasonous Textiles,” 549. 17 Beverly Lemire, Cotton (Oxford: Berg, 2011), 33–64; Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 17–84. 18 Hilary M. Beckles, “The ‘Hub of Empire’: The Caribbean and Britain in the Seventeenth Century,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, ed. Nicholas Canny, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 223–24. 19 Lemire, Global Trade, 233–47.

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and their metropolitan agents.20 Such influences spread widely as this Atlantic traffic was at the epicentre of English commercial expansion, with economic, social, and cultural affects of enormous consequence.21 Within this commercial nexus, Africans—as a source of profit—were increasingly depicted as other than human, traits recorded in travellers’ accounts, percolating through literate European culture.22 Enlightenment texts absorbed and reflected these imperial priorities, as Michel-Rolph Trouillot recounts: the more European merchants and mercenaries bought and conquered other men and women, the more European philosophers wrote and talked about Man [or an essentialized idea of (white) man]. […] Colonization provided the most potent impetus for the transformation of European ethnocentrism into scientific racism.23

Emerging racial principles were not confined to one ocean system or region but became generalised throughout imperial spaces—metropole and colonies, trading forts and shipping routes—articulated in different ways at different times and places. It is noteworthy that the English mariner, Edward Barlow, a seaman during the burgeoning imperial seafaring era, recorded his disdain for the common people of Calcutta in 1670, particularly noting their dark skin. This mirrors the emerging racialised environment premised on colouration even among common folk. He observed, as well, in 1697 the purchase by an East India Company captain of “a pretty boy for twenty-five shillings” in what is now Indonesia.24 The enslavement of peoples of colour in the Indian Ocean world by East India Company employees was routine, reinforcing racialised attitudes from one world region to another.25 These entanglements of practices and politics touched noble and commoner, the 20 Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Viking, 2007); Christine Walker, Jamaican Ladies: Female Slaveholders and the Creation of Britain’s Atlantic Empire (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020). 21 Nuala Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies: London and the Atlantic Economy 1660–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 22 Jennifer L. Morgan, Laboring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), esp. 12–49; David Bindman, Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the 18th Century (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 61–67. 23 Troulliot, Silencing the Past, 75, 77. 24 Basil Lubbock, Barlow’s Journal of His Life at Sea in King’s Ships, East & West Indiamen & Other Merchantmen from 1659 to 1703 (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1934), vol. 1, 192; vol. 2, 468; Margot Finn, “Slaves out of Context: Domestic Slavery and the Anglo-Indian Family, c. 1780–1830,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 19 (2009): 181–203. 25 In the 1725 will of a wealthy mariner formerly resident of Bombay, the testator bequeathed an enslaved boy from Borneo and manumitted a “Slave Wench Maria.” The National Archives Kew, UK (TNA), Prob 11/614.

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great and the small, weaving together a tapestry of imperial sentiment where wealth and race intermingled.26 Material culture was steeped in these complex meanings, as new categories of things landed onshore, re-orientating commerce in the kingdom that would become Britain.27 The adaptations that ensued generally followed a two-step process, for as some welcomed new commodities others were critical or fearful of the subversive potency of subaltern things.28 The extent and duration of these disputes—push and pull scenarios—varied in length and intensity, until such time as goods were translated and domesticated, becoming British and aligned to imperial purpose.29 The heated argumentation in the early 1600s about imported European textiles sets the scene to reconsider the anti-calico campaign against Indian fabrics, keeping in mind the prevalent understanding of embodied investiture in this era. The mass importation of Asian fabrics instigated passionate public responses, raising the question: did racial precepts infect the oppositional chorus against these fabrics? This is a question that should be asked. Given the characterisation of people of colour throughout the British imperial world, did emerging racial antagonism play a role in their reception? Did opponents of calico fear a specific “denaturing” of their citizenry—patterned calico being the most distinctive Indian fabric? Evidence suggests racialised concerns amidst the oppositional stew. Tons of Indian chintz, calicoes, and muslins flooded into harbours, providing new arrays of cloth that altered the look and feel of popular dress.30 As commerce with India grew under the aegis of the EIC, complaints multiplied under various headings: mercantilists lamented the export of specie to pay for these cargoes; champions of the wool trade decried the loss of home markets; and critics pointed to the visible corruption of women seduced by visually striking cottons. Male scribblers and tavern pundits raged against the “Indianizing” of their women through the wearing of printed, painted Indian cotton. Denunciations such as these reveal the 26 Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994 [1944]), 47–48, 92–95. For the development of racialised consumption see Lemire, Global, 233–45. See also George Berkeley, first earl of Berkeley (1627–1698), founding member of the Royal Africa Company, a director of the Levant Company and deeply invested in the East India Company: Andrew Warmington, “Berkeley, George, First Earl of Berkeley (1626/7–1698), Politician,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 20 March 2020, https://www.oxforddnb.com/. 27 Nuala Zahedieh, “Overseas Expansion and Trade in the Seventeenth Century,” in Canny, Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 1, 398–402. 28 Marcy Norton, “Subaltern Technologies and Early Modernity in the Atlantic World,” Colonial Latin American Review 26, no. 1 (2017): 18–38. 29 Lemire, Global Trade, 202–47, 248–88. 30 Lemire, Cotton; Beverly Lemire, “Revising the Historical Narrative: India, Europe and the Cotton Trade, c. 1300–1800,” in The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850, ed. Giorgio Riello and Prasannan Parthasarathi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 205–26; Riello, Cotton.

Textiles, Fashion, and Questions of Whiteness 

Figure 5.1  Chintz fragment, c.1600–1800, dyed in two shades of red and two shades of blue and painted in yellow and green for the European market. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RMA), BK-1998-63. Public Domain.

visceral disquiet that followed the draping of Englishwomen’s bodies in Indian cloth and the possible “transnaturing” this might bring; imperial trade was not intended to threaten the essential nature of the imperial centre. Textiles, thus, were at the heart of what Bhabha calls the “ambivalence of mimicry as a problematic of colonial subjection,” which “turns from mimicry […] to menace.”31 That women might be the source of this taint was especially galling, demanding firmer control of female bodies.32 Figure 5.1 is a fragment of chintz dyed and painted in myriad shades, a bouquet of delight and one of countless floral prints from inventive Indian makers. The qualities of these fabrics—relatively low cost and rapidly adopted—upset the material balance, with broadsides condemning the Indian trade in its totality. Robust action from Parliament was demanded, including to 31 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 129–31. 32 On female bodies, whiteness, and “racist fantasy,” see Bhabha, Location of Culture, 238.

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“redeem our Female-Sex from the Government of the Indians.”33 The dangerous primacy of Indians in this relationship is explicit in this ultimatum. The charge laid out was that Englishwomen consorted with men of colour and their works. Was this sartorial mixing seen as a type of miscegenation? Certainly, Englishwomen chose Indian arts made by Indian hands. Anti-miscegenation laws were now commonplace in British colonies from the late 1600s, enacted in Virginia in 1682, for example, denouncing the “abominable” mixture of “white men and women” with people of colour.34 There were few more explosive charges against white women, whether in colonial or metropolitan settings.35 Women’s widely bruited moral weakness was a trope throughout the Christian west, with the female sex derided for its ready beguilement. The suggested cultural miscegenation is implicit in the citation above, with miscegenation itself punished in the harshest terms in countless colonies.36 Now, sexual relations between black and white were tolerated by imperial authorities if based on forced or informal sexual encounters by white males with women of colour in colonial territories—commonplace events throughout the history of empire.37 Equivalent relations were fraught if white women were involved, including those in the metropole seduced by the makings of Indian men. In this case, the enticement of women affronted imperial purpose. Literary scholar Ania Loomba explains that: “Analogies between sexual and colonial contact worked to define both in terms of [white] male possession […]. [C]olonial spaces were sexualized, and women’s [coloured] bodies figured as colonies.”38 Particularly from the 1700s, depictions of the continents of America, Asia, and Africa were shown as women of colour, presenting the wealth of their lands to a white imperial agent.39 A putative reversal of this gendered and racialised equation profoundly affronted the status quo. 33 John Blanch, An Abstract of the Grievances of Trade Which Oppress Our Poor: Humbly Offered to the Parliament (London: n.p., 1694), 13. Original italics. 34 General Assembly of Virginia, An Act to repeale a former law making Indians and others ffree (Jamestown: General Assembly, 1682), section XIX. 35 Sally Haden, “The Fragmented Laws of Slavery in the Colonial and Revolutionary Eras,” in The Cambridge History of Law in America, ed. Michael Grossberg and Christopher Tomlins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 266. 36 Haden, “Fragmented Laws of Slavery,” 266–67. 37 Sophie White, Wild Frenchmen and Frenchified Indians: Material Culture and Race in Colonial Louisiana (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), esp. 176–207; Deirdre Coleman, “Janet Schaw and the Complexions of Empire,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 36, no. 2 (2003): 172–73; Durba Ghosh, “National Narratives and the Politics of Miscegenation: Britain and India,” in Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions and the Writing of History, ed. Antoinette M. Burton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005), 27–44; Jane Samson, Race and Empire (London: Routledge, 2005), 22–25. 38 Ania Loomba, Shakespeare, Race, and Colonialism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 30. 39 For example, Matthäus Seutter, Atlas Novus sive Tabulae Geographicae […] (Augsburg: Seutter, 1730), title page; Carl Linnaeus, Hortus Cliffortianus (Amsterdam: n.p., 1738), frontispiece; Derby Porcelain

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By the late 1600s, England wrestled with the flow of global commodities that disrupted norms, processes that provide a vital backdrop against which to assess the reception of other non-European goods.40 The craze for Native American tobacco, as I noted, ignited recurring debates premised on racial anxiety, as tobacco was said by some to threaten smokers with “Indianness.”41 One sceptic equated tobacco ingestion with the prospect of being “Indianized with the intoxicating filthie fumes of Tobacco.”42 Another accounted tobacco to come from “rich America, [i]n India, and blacke Barbaria,” equating the herb with blackness. 43 Tobacco opponents argued it transformed the white body black (inside and out) “with a blacke, filthie, and smokie colour” and was “a mortall enemie to the nature of man.”44 James I (r.1603–1625) famously concurred with these notions, tobacco “tending to the general and new corruption both of mens bodies and maners.”45 Fears about the denaturing of Europeans and their becoming “indianized,” circulated throughout the Atlantic world. 46 Thus, the “Indian weed” was derided as well as beloved. 47 Global commodities should not just be assessed along the narrow lines of warehouse entries, but in a more holistic manner, recognising the shared contexts of dissimilar commodities that ignited comparable debates. By taking this tack, we “produce histories that recognize ‘entanglements.’”48 This perspective illuminates the circumstance in which dissimilar goods were received in Europe, including Manufactory’s ceramic f igurines of the four continents, c.1780, Victoria and Albert Museum London (V&A), C.18-1985; C.19-1985; C.20-1985; C.21-1985. Bindman, Ape to Apollo, 26–27. 40 Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasure: A History of Tobacco and Chocolate in the Atlantic World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008); Norton, “Subaltern Technologies.” 41 Lemire, Global Trade, 190–247. 42 John Deacon, Tobacco Tortured, or, The Filthie Fume of Tobacco Refined (London: Field, 1616) quoted in Sabine Schülting, “‘Indianized with the Intoxicating Filthy Fumes of Tobacco’: English Encounters with the ‘Indian Weed,’” Hungarian Journal for English and American Studies 11, no. 1 (2005): 110. 43 John Taylor, “Plutoes Proclamation concerning his Infernall Pleasure for the Propagation of Tobacco,” in The Nipping and Sipping of Abuses: Or The woolgathering of Witt […], ed. John Taylor (London: Griffin, 1614), n.p. 44 Deacon, Tobacco Tortured, 41, 43. 45 James I, A Proclamation for Restraint of the Disordered Trading for Tobacco (London: Barker and Bill, 1620). 46 Rebecca Earle, The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and Colonial Experience in Spanish America, 1492–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 11, 156–86. Also, White, Wild Frenchmen, 209–10. For archaeologists’ contributions to this discussion, see Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría, “Eating Like an Indian: Negotiating Social Relations in the Spanish Colonies,” Current Anthropology 46, no. 4 (2005): 551–73; Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, Leonor Adán Alfaro, and Simón Urbina Araya, “Challenging Colonial Discourses: The Spanish Imperial Borderland in Chile from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century,” in Transnational Perspectives on the Conquest and Colonization of Latin America, ed. Jenny Mander, David Midgley, and Christine Beaule (New York: Routledge, 2019), 85–97. 47 Richard Ames, Fatal Friendship, or The Drunkards misery being a satyr […] (London: Taylor, 1693), 3. 48 Norton, “Subaltern Technologies,” 18.

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those with links to communities of colour. This debate framed the reception of Indian cottons. The rhetoric employed in discussions of Indian calicoes, as when MP John Basset (1683–1721) described the calico makers as “such slaves, as to work for less than a Penny a Day,” is to be taken seriously. 49 The denigration of Indians as “slaves” was more than verbiage and conjured the expansive enslavement of Africans and other peoples of colour and the widening institution of slavery.50 In the metropole, the most visible consumers of these fabrics—white women, many of low rank—received the harshest insults, with scurrilous ballads sung in the street and vituperative pamphlets circulated in coffeehouses, terming calico women: “Patched, painted power’d Drury Whores” and promising to “pay your Backs.”51 Their allegiance to “fancies” of “Indians making” was their crime.52 Intersecting (material) politics of race and gender drove this public campaign. I will not rehearse the well-known Acts aiming to ban Indian cottons from Britain issued in 1700 and 1720.53 Parliamentarians addressed policy, while an active coterie vilified females dressed in chintz, both in print and in the streets. Daniel Defoe termed such women “[a]n Enemy to her Country,” a remark that joined the misogynistic torrent.54 The power of calico gowns was linked to its Indian site of production and the hands that made it. The extraordinary response to this flowered fabric was fired by the fear and fury that this distant ethnic community could so undo a material status quo. Geography and ethnicity heightened material politics; the British metropole was not safe from the existential threat of material corruption. Targeted mass violence raged for months from 1719 to 1721, and revived again in 1730, with untold numbers of women attacked in major cities.55 Gender figured in these onslaughts, justified as rightful male discipline within a discourse of female dishonour—ripped garments, hard beatings, and acid throwing were warranted. The nitric acid hurled at women was an ingredient in dyeing English wool in London dyehouses, now turned to gendered policing.56 The “Indianness” of the fabrics 49 John Smith, ed., Chronicum Rusticum Commerciale: or, Memoirs of Wool […], vol. 1 (London: Osborne, 1747), 351. 50 Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empire: An Eighteenth-Century History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 3, 60; Finn, “Slaves out of Context.” 51 R. L., Pride’s Exchange Broke Up: or Indian Calicoes and Silks Expos’d (London: n.p., 1703) in The British Cotton Trade, ed. Beverly Lemire (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2009), vol. 2, 37. 52 James Butler, Prince Butler’s Tale: Representing the State of the Wool-Case […] (London: Baldwin, 1699), n.p. Original italics. 53 Lemire, British Cotton Trade, vol. 2, 9–15, 299–305. 54 Chloe W. Smith, “‘Calico Madams’: Servants, Consumption, and the Calico Crisis,” Eighteenth-Century Life 31, no. 2 (2007): 32. 55 Lemire, Cotton, 33–64. 56 Laura Gowing, “Women, Status and the Popular Culture of Dishonour,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6 (1996): 225; Laura Gowing, Gender Relations in Early Modern England (London: Routledge,

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worn by British women was a key point at issue. One scribbler wished that all calico-wearing women should die “after a certain Day […] in the Year 1720” if their misdeeds continued.57 The virulent antipathy that echoed throughout Britain was far harsher than discourse previously directed at male tobacco-smokers. Men who wore calico dressing gowns in private—and thousands did—were not bothered.58 Race and gender formed an explosive mixture that erupted into sanctioned savagery. Calico politics were infused with the racialist precepts swirling through Western polities and cultures. Yet, this political element has been too often overlooked in the vast historiography of this topic, only revealed when examined through a global lens focusing on such textiles’ in-betweenness. Without this framework, the acknowledgement of racism in material politics is erased from everyday metropolitan life. However, by putting concepts of race with gender in conversation with the anti-calico campaign in Britain, this violent eruption assumes a greater clarity. As well, we engage with another critical element—racism—in the geopolitics of this globalising era, a force largely driven by textile exchange.59

Neoclassical Style and White Fashions Amidst the emerging calico crisis John Cary—pamphleteer, slave trader and Bristol Merchant Venturer—mused on the need to usurp India’s textile dominance by all means possible: “if a Manufacture of [British] Wool will not please, why not one of [British] Cotton?”60 Cary further reflected on the value of “Arts, and Mills, and Engines, which save the Labour of Hands.”61 This thinking bore fruit after many decades as the quest for fabrics comparable to Indian archetypes drove invention. Giorgio Riello terms this Britain’s “Indian apprenticeship,” a push to equal the quality of Indian cottons with which Britain competed globally.62 By the 1770s, British manufacturers had wholly domesticated the once-foreign calico, now part of the national emporium, a celebrated commodity prompting the rescinding of the ban on cottons in 1774. Figure 5.2 exemplifies these works: flowered British cotton made 2014), 37–38; Anita Quye, Dominque Cardon, and Jenny Balfour Paul, “The Crutchely Archive: Red Colours on Wool Fabric from Master Dyers, London 1716–1744,” Textile History 51, no. 2 (2020): 132, 149. 57 Anonymous, “Callicoe-Hater,” Weekly Journal or Saturday’s Post, 22 August 1719. 58 Lemire, Cotton, 33–64. 59 Lemire, Global Trade, 30–86; Amelia Peck, ed., Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013). 60 Beverly Lemire, Fashion’s Favourite: The Cotton Trade and the Consumer in Britain, 1660–1800 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 30. Cf. Kenneth Morgan, “Cary, John (1649–1719x22), merchant and writer,” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 1 April 2020, https://www.oxforddnb.com/. 61 Smith, Chronicum Rusticum Commerciale, vol. 1, 419. 62 Riello, Cotton, 87–109.

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Figure 5.2  Dress (England), manufactured by Bromley Hall (United Kingdom). Cotton; H × W (height of centre back; shoulder width; waist circumference): 142.2 × 30.5 × 71.1cm (56 × 12 × 28in.). Cooper Hewitt. Museum purchase from Au Panier Fleuri Fund, 1960-72-2. http://cprhw.tt/o/2CtTi/. Public Domain.

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into a stylish gown, printed at Bromley Hall, a firm based near London.63 British facsimiles of fine Indian muslin were also hailed about this time for their lightness and whiteness.64 Fashions for both women and men had employed fabrics of this type for decades, a system of dress dependent on technologies of manufacturing and laundering to achieve whiteness, part of what Daniel Roche described as the “invention of linen.”65 The prioritising of white fabrics redefined ideals in dress in Western Europe, their colonies and military; the absences of whiteness also being a marker of status.66 At the same time the labour assigned to systematic washing increased dramatically, a definitive means of framing rank and race, although the former is emphasised to date more that the latter.67 Gendered and racialised labour materialised key aesthetic traits. Technologies of washing and whitening evolved, with added attention given the best and fastest means of achieving the desired ends, a material priority directing households and industry. White washing was never a random choice, but a focused concern that carried enormous cultural weight in metropolitan and imperial settings—recall, enslaved Africans were given never-white fabrics.68 Skin and linen became expressive entanglements within imperial systems.69 Cultural media reflected these priorities, as in the recurring racialised trope from the 1600s depicting an African washed of his skin colour, seated in a laundry tub with a laundress at hand, a scene reiterated in the centuries to follow in visual and staged productions.70 Whiteness mattered, becoming a prioritised element of material 63 Peck, Interwoven Globe, 56. 64 Riello, Cotton, 212–56. 65 Daniel Roche, The Culture of Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the “Ancien Régime” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 151–83. “Linen” was a shorthand term for lighter, whiter fabrics. 66 Beverly Lemire, “Shirts and Snowshoes: Imperial Agendas and Indigenous Agency in Globalizing North America, c. 1660–1800,” in Lemire and Riello, Dressing Global Bodies, 65–84; Kathleen M. Brown, Foul Bodies: Cleanliness in Early America (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). 67 Susan North, Sweet and Clean? Bodies and Clothes in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). 68 Robert DuPlessis, The Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 65, Table 2.2; Brown, Foul Bodies; Beverly Lemire, “‘The Whitest of All … for Washing’: Linens, Race and the Politics of Whiteness in Atlantic World Fashions, c. 1680–1820,” unpublished paper presented at the symposium “Ordinary Blues and Uniform Reds: Color and Clothes in Circulation, c. 1650–1900,” University of Warwick, 23 November 2018. 69 Felicity A. Nussbaum, “The Theatre of Empire: Racial Counterfeit, Racial Realism,” in A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1815, ed. Kathleen Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 80. 70 Thomas Bewick, Fable of the Blackamoor, c.1776–1777, print, The British Museum London (BM), Print and Drawings, 1882,0311.4584 and the same scene in a classical setting, 1811–1823, after Thomas Bewick, BM, Print and Drawings, 1882,0311.2499. Marilyn M. Mehaffy, “Advertising Race/Raceing Advertising: The Feminine Consumer(-Nation), 1876–1900,” Signs 23, no. 1 (1997): 131–74; McClintock, Imperial Leather, 213.

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culture and fashion. The esteem accorded white shirts, cravats, aprons, caps, and gowns reflects the potency of these things, intersecting with imperial principles. Recollect that things seen, felt and touched “carry special weight in essentially all societies […] used in everyday, repetitive embodied activities, such as eating or grooming […] [these] are not simply functional; they are always also modes of communication.”71 The apogee of white textile fashion arrived in the late eighteenth-century neoclassical style, an aesthetic craze inspired by the study of classical arts and archaeology over the long eighteenth century. Fascination with the classical past was a centrepiece of the Enlightenment among scholar and statesman alike. However, ambiguities abounded within Enlightenment thought, including the core influence of race and slavery, as Trouillot noted. “If the philosophers did reformulate some of the answers inherited from the Renaissance, the question ‘What is Man?’ kept stumbling against the practices of domination and of merchant accumulation.”72 The formalising of philosophy, along with science, constructed an intellectual edifice of race, colour, and ethnicity, with thinkers like Carl Linnaeus building “an aesthetic hierarchy of skin colour.”73 The neoclassical construct emerged from this milieu, the culmination of long-term European passion for selectively interpreted classical elements: archaeological, textual, and artistic. The classical scholarship established in this era—and its popularised neoclassical forms—incorporated racialised precepts in its foundations, buttressing dominant early modern polities.74 Elites celebrated ancient Greece, as they understood it, and a singular whiteness was reinforced.75 The fact of slavery in both ancient and early modern societies mediated artistic hierarchies including fashion; for fashion was also part of the Western aesthetic movement and, as Charmaine Nelson states: “the practice of western art generally was colonial.”76 Definitions of beauty were canonised in 71 Leora Auslander, “Beyond Words,” The American Historical Review 110, no. 4 (2005): 1016. 72 Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 78. 73 Bindman, Ape to Apollo, 62. 74 This legacy of racialised thinking in classic studies is challenged by present-day scholars. See the article on Princeton classicist, Dan-el Padilla Peralta, “He Wants to Save Classics from Whiteness: Can the Field Survive?,” New York Times, 12 February 2021, accessed 27 February 2021, https://www.nytimes. com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-rome-whiteness.html. The power of neoclassical thought is also illustrated by the work of an enslaved Black woman poet, Phillis Wheatley, 1773, among the Blacks who disputed the alignment of freedom with whiteness, using Roman rhetorical precepts. Eric T. Slauter, “Neoclassical Culture in a Society with Slaves: Race and Rights in the Age of Wheatley,” Early American Studies 2, no. 1 (2004): 81–122. 75 Paige duBois, Slaves and Other Objects (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 112. 76 Charmaine Nelson, “White Marble, Black Bodies and the Fear of the Invisible Negro: Signifying Blackness in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Neoclassical Sculpture,” RACAR: Revue d’art canadienne/ Canadian Art Review 27, no. 1 (2000): 88.

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the nascent discipline of art history, premised on erroneously conceived classical models, a history currently being thoroughly reassessed. Polychrome in statuary or architecture, for example, was anathema to neoclassicists and traces of paint were scrubbed from recovered artefacts with all the vigour of determined washerwomen. Europeans’ erasure of colour on classical sculptures erased, as well, any possible understanding of diversity in classical antiquity, all to fit the principles of racial essentialism that underpinned European thought: another “enunciation of cultural difference.”77 The expunging of colour from classical histories and classical arts set up singular binaries.78 Nelson explains that “[t]he visual processes of representing the body are acts of differentiation which delineate the surfaces and boundaries of the body through acts of selective inclusion and exclusion.”79 An essentialised whiteness infused the aesthetics that emerged.80 The German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) set art historical paradigms founded on his understanding of classical arts, a subject that was seminally important in the intellectual construction of “Europeanness.” In his catalogue of beauty, for example, human forms were denigrated that showed “deviation from the [European] norm,” for as Winckelmann himself wrote: “a beautiful body will be all the more beautiful the whiter it is.”81 Protocols of whiteness were consolidated, fixing priorities of beauty and style. Recent studies explore this racialised history, when “the term classical was not neutral,” as Nelson explains, “but a racialized term which activated the marginalization of blackness as its antithesis.”82 However, the resistance of men and women of African heritage challenged hegemonic claims.83 Elite fascination with the imagined classical roots of Europe found various expressions from Grand Tours to the classical heartland by elite males, to the

77 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 51. 78 Vinzenz Brinkmann et al., The Color of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Roberta Panzanelli (Los Angeles: The Getty Museum, 2008); Vinzenz Brinkmann et al., Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World (San Francisco: San Francisco Fine Arts Museum, 2017). 79 Nelson, “White Marble, Black Bodies,” 88. 80 Roberta Panzanelli, “Beyond the Pale: Polychromy and Western Art,” in The Colour of Life: Polychromy in Sculpture from Antiquity to the Present, ed. Vinzenz Brinkmann et al. (Los Angeles: The Getty Museum, 2008), 2–18; Brinkmann et al., Gods in Color. 81 Johann J. Winckelmann, History of the Art of Antiquity, ed. Harry F. Mallgrave (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2006), 194–95; Nell I. Painter, The History of White People (New York: Norton, 2010), 59–63. 82 Nelson, “White Marble, Black Bodies,” 88. 83 Resistance is a vital part of this history, from rebellion and sabotage to the poetics of African American poet Phillis Wheatley (1753–1784), plus the material resistances of dress. Karol K. Weaver, “Fashioning Freedom: Slave Seamstresses in the Atlantic World,” Journal of Women’s History 24, no. 1 (2012): 44–59; Steeve O. Buckridge, The Language of Dress: Resistance and Accommodation in Jamaica, 1760–1890 (Kingston: University of the West Indies Press, 2004).

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patronage of neoclassical art and architecture.84 Some devotees also encouraged new dress fashions. Thomas Hope exemplified such enthusiasts, studying classical architecture during years immersed in Mediterranean locales, bankrolled by family banking wealth.85 In the early 1800s, Hope’s London mansion was a focal point for neoclassicists and Hope, along with contemporary artists, encouraged the shift of neoclassical draperies from portrait costume to popular dress, refocusing existing textile modes.86 Copious swags of the finest white cotton materialised this aesthetic, now made by celebrated British manufacturers, fabrics that enabled elite women to literally dress like imagined Greek goddesses.87 The 1795 portrait of the Scottish Lady Margaret Callander and son celebrates this style (Fig. 5.3), a vogue that spread throughout the Atlantic world among all those keen to claim antique lineage to bolster their provenance. At French grand balls, debutantes modelled their attire on specific statues, down to the waves of the marble hair. The most distinctive elements were their flowing white garments, sometimes with embroidered edging in the Greek key style. One ensemble worn at a 1797 ball elicited a scornful appraisal of the gold embroidery—“She is not white enough for gold: it browns” opined the critic.88 Whiteness in all things was the acme of elegance. We must consider the fever for this neoclassical form within a broad background, recognising implicit and explicit evocations of race at its core, a fashion that left extensive material legacies in the portraits and wardrobes held in museums and galleries. A 1798 portrait stands in tacit opposition to the mainstream neoclassical ethos, depicting two seamstresses of colour from the British Caribbean island of St Kitts (Fig. 5.4). This image captures the determined resistance of women of African ancestry, whose skills elevated their status to that of fashion stylists. This watercolour was painted at the apogee of the neoclassical turn; and the dress of the seamstresses themselves rejects the embedded claims of this mode in both the fabrics and dress they chose. The thousands of neoclassical garments in museum storage, and portraits

84 T. A. Singleton, “Nineteenth-Century Built Landscapes of Plantation Slavery in Comparative Perspective,” in The Archaeology of Slavery: A Comparative Approach to Captivity and Coercion, ed. Lydia Wilson Marshall (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2015), 96–97; L. Harris, Robert Adam and Kedleston: The Making of a Neo-Classical Masterpiece (London: National Trust, 1987). 85 John Orbell, “Hope, Thomas (1769–1831),” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 25 March 2020, https://www.oxforddnb.com/. 86 Mireille M. Lee, “Antiquity and Modernity in Neoclassical Dress: The Confluence of Ancient Greece and Colonial India,” Classical World, 112, no. 2 (2019): 72–78. 87 B. Kiilerich, “Towards a ‘Polychrome History’ of Greek and Roman Sculpture,” Journal of Art Historiography 15 (2016): 1–18; Amelia Rauser, The Age of Undress: Art, Fashion and the Classical Ideal in the 1790s (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2020), 133–64. 88 E. Claire Cage, “The Sartorial Self: Neoclassical Fashion and Gender Identity in France, 1797–1804,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 42, no. 2 (2009): 193, 196.

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Figure 5.3 Jean Laurent Mosnier, Margaret Callander and Her Son, James Karney, 1795. Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Lowell Libson and Spink-Leger Pictures in honour of Brian & Katina Allen, B2001.6. Public Domain.

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Figure 5.4  William Kay (active from 1795), Seamstresses, St Kitts, Caribbean. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, B1981.25.2639. Public Domain.

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Figure 5.5  Muslin dress, c.1800, woven in a geometric design in white cotton by Brown, Sharp & Co. of Paisley, Scotland. © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection, E.2013.7.

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in the neoclassical mode, enact racial politics of the highest order, upholding or defying racialised ideals of beauty. This beauty was also premised on endless laundering, starching, and titivating to sustain the physical elements of these norms. Gauze and muslin gowns aimed for a “natural” classical look, though “naturalism” required meticulous curation. Plain washing would not suffice. Techniques were well documented and might include three “Lathers […] in good blue Water” followed by dipping in “thick starch” and then “clapping” the textiles “till they are dry enough for the irons.”89 But, not all who laundered were thought successful, including the enslaved Mary Prince (1788–1833?). Her labours encompassed the Caribbean and the London metropole where she faced the shifting standards of her querulous mistress, such that she “could give no satisfaction” despite her toil.90 The neoclassical turn demanded painstaking, unstinting interventions to provide modish wearers with textiles manipulated for the purpose; stiffened and smoothed, pleated and draped—customised white fabrics were central to the naturalist ensemble.91 A gown of Scottish-made muslin in a Glasgow collection is one of many such garments that showcase this vogue, made at a turning point in manufacturing when British producers were lauded for the fine muslin they produced, an explicit derogation of the Indian precursors (Fig. 5.5).92 Its white-on-white geometric woven design mimics the more costly white-on-white embroidered muslin, made in India.93 Can curators and historians engage with these garments in terms that consider the foundational political issues that framed the rage for this apparel? The materiality of these items demands critical analysis; such scrutiny would recognise Europe’s seminal role in geopolitics, including the links between Indian fabrics and American cotton plantations, sustained by slave labour, as well as British industrialisation and the politics of neoclassical modes. These entanglements mediated aesthetic systems. Thus, the seeming simplicity of a white gown from this era actually holds a complex history in its fibres, its cut and its intent. Racism figures in this attention to material whiteness, the fixation with an imagined white classical past reconstructed at the apogee of empire, with a naturalised cotton cloth now celebrated for its Britishness. 89 Hannah Glasse, The Servant’s Directory, or House-Keeper’s Companion (London: Johnston, 1760), 9; Hannah Robertson, The Young Ladies School of Arts […], 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: Ruddinan, 1767), 59. 90 Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, ed. Thomas Pringle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017 [1831]), 29. 91 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (MET), French muslin evening dress, 1804–1805, 1983.6.1; American muslin evening dress, c.1810, 2009.300.2776. 92 Glasgow Museums, E.2013.7. Protectionist tariffs were key to nurturing British-made muslins. Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 130–31, 145. 93 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 47.1281, a woman’s gown in cream-coloured cotton gauze with open-work embroidered pattern, c.1800, belonging to Mrs. Moses Levy (Mary Pearce) of Baltimore, 1762–1850.

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Conclusion The increased focus on white apparel over the long eighteenth century cannot be detached from paradigms of the age, including the widespread enslavement of Africans at the core of European policy, economy, and culture.94 The nexus of black and white sharpened across Europe and its colonies, as abolitionism and the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) unsettled all assumptions. Western material culture (including fashionable dress) was active in these events, buttressing economic and political systems. As Catherine Hall observes of African enslavement: “This was a global business, never confined to the triangle of the New World, Britain and France and Africa […] [and] the forgetting of these connections […] has been both a conscious and an unconscious process.”95 Sectors of the academy actively engage with this painful legacy;96 but the subject is also overlooked in other scholarly arenas. There is a vast literature on the shifting fashions of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with light, white fabrics acknowledged as the zeitgeist of the age. Curators and historians of fashion document this trajectory in stylistic terms, with celebratory nods to neoclassicism and too few questions posed on the broader context of Atlantic world racial politics and its many material legacies, including the neoclassical turn. Economic historians emphasise the long-term trend for lighter, whiter textiles, the craze for Indian and then British cottons and linens, plus the distinctive British industrialisation that ensued, emphasising a sometimes teleological process of British economic growth and technological change. Too little attention has been given to the “why” of textile whiteness, which paralleled the centuries of mass enslavement. Why did the importance of white fabrics intensify over the same period as racial hierarchies hardened and vast profits accrued from enslaved labour? Even as more historians address related issues, more needs to be 94 Eric Nellis, Shaping the New World: African Slavery in the Americas 1500–1888 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 82–83, 134. Scholars have debated the relationship between the profits of slavery and British industrialisation. In 1944, Eric Williams proposed a causal effect between the two in Capitalism and Slavery. Quantitative historians disputed his claims. More recently the weight of argument has shifted noting the ways European powers profited from mass African enslavement. See Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies, 1–5; Joseph E. Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution in England: A Study in International Trade and Economic Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Walker, Jamaican Ladies. 95 Catherine Hall, “Afterword,” in Slavery Hinterland: Transatlantic Slavery and Continental Europe, 1680–1850, ed. F. Brahm and E. Rosenhalt (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016), 213–14. 96 T. M. Devine, “Lost of History,” in Recovering Scotland’s Slavery Past: The Caribbean Connection, ed. T. M. Devine (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2015), 21–40; Geoffrey Cubitt, “Displacement and Hidden Histories: Museums, Locality and the British Memory of the Transatlantic Slave Trade,” in Local Memories in a Nationalizing and Globalizing World, ed. M. Beyen et al. (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015), 139–61; and the project “The Matter of Slavery in Scotland,” National Museums Scotland, 2018–2019.

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done.97 The concept of in-between textiles empowers researchers to recover such stories about how textiles shaped the intersectionality of gender and race in the eighteenth-century British Empire, and beyond. Fashionable cottons electrified the beginning and end of the eighteenth century in Britain and more widely, the textiles imbued with shifting political meanings. This chapter addresses the dynamics as Indian textiles upset the status quo, including the ways gender and race figured in perceptions of these goods and the narratives that emerged. Can we advance these issues further and better understand the “‘transnaturing’ power of clothes” as the concepts of race and beauty evolved?98 Industrialised cottons reset the stage. Can we engage with the lovely white neoclassical gowns in museum storage, and the myriad portraits of the same, with broader geopolitical and racial histories in mind? Fraught issues of race pervaded Western material culture, histories that require full illumination to comprehend this era and its materiality. Nell Irvin Painter observes that “[r]ather than a single, enduring definition of whiteness, we find multiple enlargements occurring against a backdrop of the black/white dichotomy.”99 The advent of calico in Britain elicited singular racial anxieties as the century began; later neoclassical iterations of whiteness intersected with the systems of textiles, fashion, and black enslavement. A closer survey of these materialities will illuminate histories vital to the understanding of our past and present.

About the Author Beverly Lemire is Professor and Henry Marshall Tory Chair in the Department of History & Classics, University of Alberta. She examines intersecting areas of material culture, gender, race, and fashion from c.1600–1900 in British, imperial, and comparative projects, including: Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (2018). A collaborative interdisciplinary project (2014–2018): www.objectlives.com, resulted in the collection: Object Lives and Global Histories of Northern North America: Material Culture in Motion, c. 1780–1980 (2021).

97 For example, Jan N. Pieterse, White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); McClintock, Imperial Leather; Beth F. Tobin, Picturing Imperial Power: Colonial Subjects in Eighteenth-Century British Painting (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), 139–73; Inikori, Africans and the Industrial Revolution; Anka Steffen and Klaus Weber, “Spinning and Weaving for the Slave Trade: Proto-Industry in Eighteenth-Century Silesia,” in Slavery Hinterland, 87–108; Rauser, Age of Undress, 128–29. 98 Jones and Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing, 4. 99 Painter, History of White People, 201.

6. Abolitionism and Kente Cloth Early Modern West African Textiles in Thomas Clarkson’s Chest*1 Malika Kraamer Abstract This chapter examines hand-woven eighteenth-century textiles from West Africa, including the oldest dated extant kente cloth from Ghana and Togo, formerly owned by the English abolitionist Thomas Clarkson. This chapter argues that such textiles had the power to question racial regimes. As in-between cloth, these textiles shaped the agenda of abolitionist discourses in Britain in the two decades leading up to the 1807 Abolition Act. Through detailed textile analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, this chapter recovers African perspectives in a crucially transformative moment in history. Keywords: kente; abolitionism; Thomas Clarkson; decolonisation; racial regimes

Introduction Early modern West African kente textiles hardly survive. In almost three decades of research on West African textiles, the only time I encountered actual hand-woven eighteenth-century textiles from Ghana and Togo was in a small museum in Wisbech, the birthplace of the English abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846, Fig. 6.1). At the end of the eighteenth century, Clarkson travelled across England to collect evidence * This chapter would not have been possible without the generous support of St Johns College, University of Cambridge; the Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund; the Janet Arnold Award of the Society of Antiquaries; the feedback of all those participating in the In-Between Textile workshop, including Margarita Gleba, Ulinka Rublack, Stefan Hanß, and Beatriz Marín-Aguilera; Paul Lane; Sarah Coleman and Robert Bell from Wisbech Museum; Ato Quayson; John Picton; Madeleine Elfenbein; and Bertien Kraamer-Heres. I would like to thank in particular Jasper Kwesi Kraamer for his support, without whom this article would have taken much longer to finish. Enzo Bassani and Malcolm McLeod, African Art and Artefacts in European Collections 1400–1800⁠ (London: British Museum Press, 2001) first alerted me to these textiles. I undertook research in Wisbech in 2006, 2019, and 2020. See several blogposts on the museum website (https://www. wisbechmuseum.org.uk/blog/).

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Pres, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch06

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Figure 6.1  Textiles from West Africa in the Clarkson Chest. © Wisbech and Fenland Museum, 1870.13. Photograph by Sarah Cousins.

for the anticipated 1788/89 Privy Council enquiry into the transatlantic slave trade while also giving lectures to mobilise public opinion in support of ending human trafficking. As part of these abolitionist activities, he assembled a wooden chest with natural specimens and manufactured “things” brought by English merchant and slave ships from their West African journeys, including several samples of what he called “native” cloth, a so far overlooked textile repository.1 Four of the cloth samples include machine-woven red yarn, unravelled from imported European or Indian cloth, the oldest extant cloth with red unravelled yarn, mentioned in countless eighteenth-century European sources. One of these cloths has a supplementary warp, a feature considered unique in West Africa to so-called Ewe kente or kete (Figs. 6.2–3).2 If the sample is indeed from the Ewe-speaking region in southern Togo or south-east Ghana, it would be the oldest dated extant kente cloth.3 1 Thomas Clarkson, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (London: Taylor, 1808), vol. 1, 237, 303, 373; vol. 2, 15. 2 Kente cloth has been produced in southern Ghana, in the heart of the former Asante Empire, and in several weaving centres in the Ewe-speaking region, in modern-day southern Togo and the Volta Region of Ghana. See Malika Kraamer, “Ghana,” in Woven Beauty: The Art of West African Textiles, ed. Bernhard Gardi (Basel: Merian, 2009), 161–81; Malika Kraamer, “Origin Disputed: The Making, Use and Evaluation of Ghanaian Textiles,” Afrique: Archéologie & Arts 4 (2006): 53–76. 3 Malika Kraamer, “Ghanaian Interweaving in the 19th Century: A New Perspective on Ewe and Asante Textile History,” African Arts 38, no. 4 (2006): 36–53, 93–94; Malika Kraamer, “Kleurrijke veranderingen:

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Figure 6.2  Left: Detail of an eighteenth-century cloth sample woven with a supplementary warp. Wisbech and Fenland Museum, 1870.13.S. Right: Detail of a late twentieth-century cloth sample with a supplementary warp, woven by Ben Hiamale, Anlo-Afiadenyigba, Ghana. © Photographs by Malika Kraamer.

Figure 6.3  Ghanaian weaver producing a cloth with a supplementary warp, Anlo-Afiadenyigba, Volta Region, Ghana, 2017. © Screenshot video by Malika Kraamer.

De dynamiek van de kentekunstwereld in Ghana [The Dynamic of the Kente Art World in Ghana]” (MA dissertation, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, 1996), 1–198; Malika Kraamer, “Colourful Changes: Two Hundred Years of Social and Design History in the Hand-Woven Textiles of the Ewe-Speaking Regions of Ghana and Togo (1800–2000)” (PhD thesis, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2005), 122–28, 158–87. There is a distinct possibility that more textiles from this time survive in West African textile holdings, but they are currently not dated.

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The chest’s artefacts provide new insights into the history of textiles from eighteenth-century West Africa. I present an in-depth textual, visual, and material analysis based on ethnographic fieldwork and fibre analysis. 4 The textiles from Clarkson’s chest, however, first and foremost make painfully tangible the transatlantic slave trade. These were artefacts directly made, used by, or linked to enslaved people. Material cultural studies have shown the crucial role of textiles in processes of first globalisations during the early modern period, the “cloth age.”5 African textiles and subjectivities, however, often receive little attention. The role and development of West African coastal manufacturing during the era of the transatlantic slave trade, and West African textiles’ significance for cultural exchanges in times of globalised consumerism is understudied.6 Although several publications have focused on Clarkson’s chest, no attempt has been made so far to identify the origins of these textiles.7 Analysis of their materiality, production, collection, and use, focusing on the samples with red yarns, might not only have significant implications for social and design histories of West African textiles, but also for our understanding of how textiles shaped African subjectivities in relation to debates about abolition—which is the focus of this chapter.8 4 Fibre analysis has been recently conducted by Margarita Gleba and Ina Vanden Berghe. The complete publication of the scientific analyses is forthcoming. 5 Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c.1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 32; Amelia Peck, ed., Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013). 6 Colleen E. Kriger, Cloth in West African History (Lanham, MD: Altamira Press, 2006); Joseph E. Inikori, “English vs Indian Cotton Textiles: The Impact of Imports on Cotton Textile Production in West Africa,” in How India Clothes the World: The World of South Asian Textiles, 1500–1850, ed. Giorgio Riello and Tirthankar Roy (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 85–114. 7 David Devenish, “The Slave Trade and Thomas Clarkson’s Chest,” Journal of Museum Ethnography 6 (1994): 84–90; Marcus Wood, “Packaging Liberty and Marketing the Gift of Freedom: 1807 and the Legacy of Clarkson’s Chest,” in The British Slave Trade: Abolition, Parliament and People, ed. Stephen Farrell, Melanie Unwin, and James Walvin (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007); Jane Webster, “Collecting for the Cabinet of Freedom: The Parliamentary History of Thomas Clarkson’s Chest,” Slavery & Abolition 38, no. 1 (2017): 135–54; Patricia Fara, “Thomas Clarkson: A Curious Collector,” Endeavour 34, no. 2 (2010): 43–44. 8 Of major importance for this contextual textile analysis have been the Lloyds Ship List and Sheila Lambert, ed., House of Commons Sessional Papers of the Eighteenth Century, 147 vols. (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resource, 1975) (hereafter HCSP), with vols. 68–73 comprising materials on the Parliamentary enquiry into the slave trade and recorded proceedings of the London Committee that underlay the abolitionist campaign of Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce, and others. Paul Lovejoy and Vanessa Oliviera, “An Index to the Slavery and Slave Trade Enquiry: The British Parliamentary House of Commons Sessional Papers, 1788–1792,” History in Africa 40, no. 1 (2013): 192–255 give an indispensable index to these volumes.

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As argued elsewhere in this volume, global pre-modern textiles were deeply embedded in establishing racial regimes. The textiles discussed here reshaped British ideas about race and humanity and negotiated notions of otherness; they became truly “in-between” textiles. In these imperial and colonial discourses of mimicry, abolitionists show the desire for understanding “Africans” as “a reformed, recognisable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.”9 These cloths shaped how British abolitionists, in the materialisation of their discourses, employed what Homi Bhabha referenced as the enunciation of cultural difference: cultural difference is the process of the enunciation of culture as “knowledgeable,” authoritative adequate to the construction of systems of cultural identification. […] [C]ultural difference is a process of signification through which statements of culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate and authorize the production of fields of force, reference, applicability and capacity.10

This chapter therefore examines how these textiles also had the power to question racial regimes. I argue that these textiles, as in-between cloth, shaped the agenda of abolitionist discourses in Britain in the two decades leading up to the 1807 Abolition Act, and that detailed analysis of these textiles allows us to recover silenced African voices. The cloths, including the supplementary-warp sample, prompt a reconsideration of widespread assumptions about the history of kente cloth and early modern textiles and dress in West Africa. These textiles disrupt the story of white abolitionist heroes, which focuses on the “aggrandisement of white abolition patriarchy.”11 This chapter recovers African perspectives in a crucially transformative moment in history, while contributing to recent debates on decolonising the historiography of writings on the transatlantic slave trade in general and this chest in particular.12 The chapter is organised by examining the different contexts in which these cloths functioned as in-between textiles: debating abolitionism; collecting fabrics; weaving textiles.

Cloth in the Chest Understanding the cloth in the chest as in-between textiles and recovering African voices requires first an assessment of the samples and how the current content 9 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 122, italics in original. 10 Ibid., 50. 11 Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 209 (quote); David Eltis et al., eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 12 Wood, “Packaging Liberty”; Eltis et al., Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol. 4.

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of the chest matches to the cloth collected by Clarkson. At present, the chest contains one entire cloth and six cloth samples (Fig. 6.4). Clarkson collected several textiles and other goods in the f irst half of 1787, but items could have been added or removed on several occasions in the century that passed until Mary Dickenson, the niece and daughter-in-law of Clarkson, donated the chest to Wisbech museum on 28 November 1870. Clarkson’s collection did for sure not survive in its entirety. The samples of West African natural resources and manufactured goods in the mahogany box are placed in four parts, or “divisions” as Clarkson called them. Two trays contain natural resources, including indigo and other dyes, another tray assembled manufactured goods, including cloth, and a final one is empty; it once held items related to the enslavement and torture of people.13 Neither Clarkson’s descriptions nor the original numbering system and donation documents allow ascertainment of what might have been lost or added.14 It is therefore crucial to fully assess which cloth (samples) are in the chest today, and how they match with written and visual sources from Clarkson’s time.15 A watercolour by Charles Turner in 1790 shows Clarkson and his chest, with several textiles and mats flowing out of it (Fig. 6.5). Figure 6.4 indicates which cloths can be identified in the painting.16 The possible kente cloth with a supplementary warp cannot be identified in the painting, however, Clarkson describes the textiles in the chest in 1808: The third division contained an African loom [1870.13.P], and an African spindle with spun cotton round it [1870.13.93; 1870.13.95]; cloths of cotton of various kinds, made by the natives, some white [1870.13.Z], but others dyed by them of different colours [1870.13.44; 1870.13.75; 1870.13.R; 1870.13.S; 1870.13.BB], and others, in which they had interwoven European silk [1870.13.Y].17

13 A reproduction of the cooper engraving of the fourth division can be found in Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 121. 14 Devenish, “Slave Trade,” 85 reasoned that the chest forms a closed collection, with the possible exception of a cotton boll. 15 Apart from the textiles, the chest also contains other fabric-related items, such as raw cotton, indigo dyestuff, and weaving equipment—an apparatus with a warp setup of a double-heddle loom and two spindles with fine yarn. A few items, such as a small bag for a Qur’an text, are partly made from cloth. 16 The cloth on the edge of the painting could refer to the single strip 1870.13.75 or 1870.13.Y. The full cloth in the watercolour could be the freedom of the painter, or the cloth could have been cut later. The two brownish cloths seem to correspond with raphia material in the chest. 17 Clarkson, History, vol. 2, 15. Accession numbers in square brackets follow Devenish, “Slave Trade,” 85. Note the possibility that Clarkson thought that all samples with red yarn were made of silk when, in fact, three are of wool.

material

hand-spun cotton

hand-spun undyed and dyed cotton in light and dark blue

hand-spun undyed cotton; machinespun red silk from unravelled cloth

hand-spun undyed cotton; machinespun red wool

accession number, photo

1870.13.BB

1870.13.75

1870.13.Y

1870.13.S n/a

six

three

ten

number of strips sewn together

supplemen- width of tary weave one strip structures and type of loom

weft-faced plain weave

16 cm supplementary warp and doubleheddle loom

10-10.5 warp-faced doubleheddle loom cm plain weave

c.45 cm Warp-faced upright singleplain heddle loom weave

10-10.5 warp-faced doubleheddle loom cm plain weave

main weave structure

from one single strip

across the cloth

across the cloth

n/a (full cloth or part of full cloth)

cut of the sample

not in watercolour, possibly in description; same production centre as 1870.13.75 and 1870.13.Y

This or 1870.13.75 visible on watercolour; description by Clarkson

original number; this or 1870.13.Y visible on watercolour

clearly identifiable in watercolour (Fig.6.5)

proof collected by Clarkson

appearance on one side of a checker­board

end of cloth (unsewn hem)

remarks

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145

hand-spun undyed and dyed cotton in blue and green; machine-spun red wool

hand-spun undyed and dyed cotton in blue and green; machine-spun red wool

undyed hand-spun cotton

1870.13.R

1870.13.44

1870.13.Z n/a

n/a

n/a

number of strips sewn together

balanced plain weave

weft-faced plain weave

weft-faced plain weave

main weave structure

unknown

n/a

double16-17 cm heddle loom

double16 cm heddle loom

supplemen- width of tary weave one strip structures and type of loom

Figure 6.4  Table with information on the cloth in the Clarkson Chest and its characteristics.

material

accession number, photo

from a piece of cloth

from one single strip

from one single strip

cut of the sample

not in watercolour

identifiable (this or 1870.13.R)

identifiable (this or 1870.13.44)

proof collected by Clarkson

unclear what the width of the strip was

same warp as 1870.13.R (minor error)

same warp as 1870.13.44 (minor error)

remarks

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ABOLITIONISM AND KENTE CLOTH 

Figure 6.5 Alfred Edward Chalon, Thomas Clarkson with His Chest, 1790. Watercolour painting, 44.3 × 35.2cm. © Wilberforce House Museum/Bridgeman Images, KINCM:1980.840.

The full cloth and two samples with red fibres (1870.13.BB; 1870.13.44; 1870.13.R), as well as the cloth sample (1870.13.75), were thus definitely collected by Clarkson. His own description indicates that 1870.13.Z also belonged to the original acquisitions. Research on Clarkson’s travels and the people he interacted with when collecting discussed in the next part of this chapter further shows that Clarkson acquired the

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sample with European silk (1870.13.Y). This means that the sample with the supplementary warp (1870.13.S) is the sample with the least textual or visual evidence; in material terms, however, it is striking that exactly this sample has the same width, weft-structure, and inclusion of red manufactured-woven wool as the two weft-faced samples (1870.13.R and 1870.13.44), which makes it highly likely that this particular item was also collected by Clarkson.

West African Textiles and English Abolitionism The signif icance of the textile samples in British abolition debates cannot be underestimated. African perspectives shaped abolitionist subjectivities in Britain, not just directly through Black voices but even more so through the intricate making of the textiles in Clarkson’s chest that opened a Third Space to negotiate abolitionist discourse. Two samples obtained by Clarkson from the vessel Lively in London played a crucial role in convincing William Wilberforce (1759–1833) to take up his role as Parliamentary spokesman. The textiles in the chest also embodied a perception of Africans which directed the Privy Council enquiries and mobilised public opinion in favour of the abolition of the slave trade. Clarkson studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he wrote a prize-winning essay on slavery in 1785, published soon after.18 During and after his time at university, Clarkson expanded his network of allies for the “African cause”—as the plight for abolition was called—in particular with Quakers and nonconformist Christians. In 1787, Clarkson supported the foundation of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade also known as the London Committee. In 1788, then, the House of Commons, after years of heavy involvement with the slave trade, appointed a Privy Council to hear evidence regarding this trade, an enquiry process that would go on intermittently until 1792. In May 1787, Clarkson and his friends organised a dinner party, hosted by Bennet Langton (1737–1801), with the specific goal of persuading Wilberforce to become the figurehead of the abolition movement. As Clarkson recounted, all “seemed to be greatly impressed with my account of the loss of seamen in the trade, and with the little samples of African cloth, which I had procured for their inspection.”19 The London Committee was formally established a few days later. It was the start of the popular politics of abolition, for which Clarkson developed his particular chest embodying “an elegy over the horrors of the Atlantic slave trade, and simultaneously 18 Thomas Clarkson, An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, particularly the African (London: Cruckhank, 1786). 19 Clarkson, History, vol. 2, 252–53.

ABOLITIONISM AND KENTE CLOTH 

a clarion call to the next generation of missionary politicians.”20 The chest and its textiles proved seminal in increasing pressure on Parliament to ban the slave trade.21 As a “travelling showcase,”22 Clarkson used West African products collected from ships arriving in England to show economic alternatives to the trade in enslaved people; and he employed the textile samples to demonstrate the “ingenuity” of Africans.23 The textiles moved Clarkson emotionally and gave him an opportunity to frame the entire abolitionist discourse in terms of disrespect, inhumanity, and wrong perception of Africans: I prevailed upon him [the mate on the vessel] to sell me a piece of each. Here new feelings arose, and particularly when I considered that persons of so much apparent ingenuity, and capable of such beautiful work as the Africans, should be made slaves, and reduced to a level with the brute creation. My reflections here on the better use which might be made of Africa by the substitution of another trade, and on the better use which might be made of her inhabitants, served greatly to animate, and to sustain me amidst the labour of my pursuits.24

Clarkson carried the chest with him when giving lectures in meeting places and dining rooms around the country.25 As a material aid in these lectures, he used the contents to highlight the sophistication of “the Africans,” enunciated, explained, and signified as the Other, similar to Europeans “but not quite.”26 Clarkson used the cloth as authoritative adequate to the construction of systems of cultural difference. The textiles turned into in-between items that enabled the British public to identify themselves enough with those living in Africa. These textiles enacted a sense of the inhumanity of slavery. At the same time, they tranquillised anxieties of loss in wealth by demonstrating economic alternatives to the trade. The contents of the chest embodied a proto-Victorian vision, a “desire to own and run Africa as a vast trading post for the Christian mercantilists of the British Empire.”27 African abolitionist voices also filtered into the work of Clarkson and the Society through non-material means. In the politics of abolition, Black people played a 20 Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 212. 21 James Walving, “Introduction,” in Farrell, Unwin, and Walvin, The British Slave Trade, p. 7; Webster, “Collecting,” 136. 22 Webster, “Collecting,” 135. 23 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 237 (quote); Devenish, “Slave Trade,” 84–90; Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 209–23; Webster, “Collecting,” 135–54. 24 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 237–38. 25 Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 219; Fara, “Clarkson,” 43; Webster, “Collecting,” 137. 26 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 122, italics in original. 27 Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 212.

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major role.28 Africans fought against enslavement when captured, on slave ships, at plantations, and through slave uprisings.29 In British abolitionist debates, these African actions and voices have been silenced, even though some Africans were consulted in building a case to turn the abolition of slave trade into law. African subjectivities mainly materialised indirectly.30 Long-overlooked African voices in abolitionist debates have been given scholarly attention only recently, partly due to their invisibility in the colonial archival record and partly due to the plethora of West African mixed feelings about the institution of slave trade and slavery.31 Little has been done to demonstrate how African perspectives filtered into the work of Clarkson and the London Committee with the exception of the writings of black evangelical and anti-slavery activists such as Olaudah Equiano (c.1745–1797) and Ottobah Cugoano (c.1757–after 1797).32 Direct testimonies of Africans interviewed by Clarkson or named by people testifying for the Privy Council such as Philip Quaque (1741–1816), however, shaped the abolitionist discourse. Quaque, from a prominent family in Cape Coast, was never enslaved. He was the first black African trained as an Anglican chaplain in London and worked for half a century, from 1765 to 1816, as chaplain and teacher to a slave trading company in Cape Coast Castle, the British main slave fort at the Gold Coast. He visited England in 1784/85, but little is known of his time there. However, it is likely that he encountered British abolitionist debates.33 His attitude towards the slave trade can, at best, be called ambivalent. Quaque criticised the Atlantic slave trade in his correspondence with American abolitionists, such as Samuel Johnson, but not with those who paid him,

28 Walving, “Introduction,” 4–5; Rebecca Shumway, “Anti-Slavery in Nineteenth Century Fanteland,” in Slavery and Its Legacy in Ghana and the Diaspora, ed. Rebecca Shumway and Trevor R. Getz (New York: Bloomsbury, 2017), 85–105. 29 The Lloyds List throws light on the rejection of slave trade in African coastal societies. Elikia M’bokolo, “The Impact of the Slave Trade in Africa,” Le Monde Diplomatique, April 1998, 4. 30 Clarkson hardly consulted with Africans; almost all the highlighted debates took place in Europe and the Americas. In his late 1780s writings, he details the ways people were kidnapped and enslaved in Africa, as well as acts of resistance. Clarkson also interviewed several Africans, recording their names, such as Little Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin Robin John. Thomas Clarkson, The Substance on the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave Trade (London: Taylor, 1788), 4–11. In Clarkson, History, however, these voices of resistance are hardly mentioned. 31 Sandra E. Greene, “Minority Voices: Abolitionism in West Africa,” Slavery & Abolition 36, no. 4 (2015): 643, 657–58; Alice Bellagamba, Sandra E. Greene, and Martin A. Klein, eds., African Voices on Slavery and the Slave Trade (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Trevor Getz and Liz Clarke, Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 32 Interestingly, even though Cugoano and Equiano played a pivotal role in the 1807 Abolition Act, Clarkson, History mentions neither of them. 33 Travis Glasson, “Missionaries, Methodists, and a Ghost: Philip Quaque in London and Cape Coast, 1756–1816,” Journal of British Studies 48, no. 1 (2009): 46.

ABOLITIONISM AND KENTE CLOTH 

the Anglican Society of Propagation of the Gospel.34 Quaque’s critique on the slave trade was not mentioned directly by Clarkson. Quaque was cited, however, by several men, including Alexander Falconbridge (c.1760–1792) who testified before the House of Commons committee in the early 1790s on the enslavement of people.35 Direct and indirect African subjectivity in shaping the British debates can, thus, be traced. Assessing their importance is of crucial significance for current debates about decolonisation. Also the textiles in Clarkson’s chest clearly shaped the British abolitionist discourse, as they had a transformative role in changing people’s hearts and minds in regard to the abolitionist cause in late eighteenth-century Britain. The contents of the chest was foremost designed and used to directly influence the Parliamentary inquiry.36 In February 1788, Clarkson showed the chest to William Pitt (1759–1806) to persuade the Prime Minister to support the abolitionist cause, and shortly afterwards Clarkson took the chest along when visiting Pitt’s cousin, William Grenville (1759–1834).37 Just before the summer recess in 1788, Clarkson showed the chest twice in Parliament itself. The chest was not just used in lectures to influence public opinion, but “to furnish the Committee with a showcase of Africa’s bounty and of the ingenuity of its people.”38 The textile samples, thus, clearly materialised African identities in late eighteenth-century legal abolitionist debates in Britain.

Collecting In-Between Textiles Clarkson collected his West African textile samples from three major ports in Britain: London, Liverpool, and Bristol. In his writings, he often explicitly mentions the origins of the natural goods that he collected but he refers to the textiles as “native” cloth. Undoubtedly, sometimes this is because he was genuinely unable to get more precise information as some of the ships stopped at many ports in West Africa, but he was also guided by prejudices;39 biases apparent in his own writing and in the written and visual anti-slavery propaganda of the time which 34 Frank J. Klingenberg, “Philip Quaque: Pioneer Native Missionary on the Gold Coast, 1765–1816,” The Journal of Negro Education 8, no. 4 (1939): 669–70; Adélékè Adéẹkọ́ , “Writing Africa under the Shadow of Slavery: Quaque, Wheatley, and Crowther,” Research in African Literatures 40, no. 4 (2009): 4; Ty M. Reece, “‘Sheep in the Jaws of So Many Ravenous Wolves’: The Slave Trade and Anglican Missionary Activity at Cape Coast Castle, 1752–1816,” Journal of Religion in Africa 34, no. 3 (2004): 366–67; Glasson, “Missionaries,” 46. 35 HCSP, vol. 68, 22. 36 Webster, “Collecting,” 146. 37 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 575. 38 Webster, “Collecting,” 147. 39 Already in 1789, Clarkson mentions the list of goods that he collected stating the origin of many natural resources, but not of the cloths. HCSP, vol. 69, 73.

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kept Africans, whether enslaved or not, at an abstracted distance in contrast with celebrating white personalised male leaders of abolition. 40 The trope of “Africa as a country” rather than a continent is omnipresent in Clarkson’s writings. 41 He amassed West African manufactured goods, including textile samples, with the explicit purpose to show the possibility of an economic alternative to the trade in enslaved people, including breaking the monopoly of other European imperialist powers to enable British exploitation of West African people.42 He used the textiles to illustrate the cruelty of slavery and what he considered the “cultured nature” of Africans—an attitude which seemed progressive at the time, but also highlights the patronising, Eurocentric, and racist attitudes that he likewise embodied, as well as an implicit vision of Africans and their arts and material culture without individuality or history. It is Clarkson’s process of selecting, collecting, (not) identifying, and (not) naming these fabrics which turns them into in-between textiles. In these moments, as Bhabha puts it, Clarkson produces the articulation of difference. In those interstices, cultural value was negotiated, and textiles negotiated the notion of otherness. 43 In early 1787, Clarkson gathered evidence in the docks of London on request of his abolitionist friends while they extensively deliberated strategies for achieving abolition, including mobilising Parliament and focusing on the trade rather than slavery itself. 44 Clarkson first visited “a little wood-vessel, called the Lively […]. On conversing with the mate, he showed me one or two pieces of the cloth made by the natives, and from their own cotton. I prevailed upon him to sell me a piece of each.”45 Clarkson bought samples cut from the cloth on the vessel. Two samples currently in the chest (1870.13.75; 1870.13.Y), are cut across the strips which is highly unusual in West Africa, as in order to prevent unravelling, it is much easier to cut off one or more strips. Tentatively, the sample with unravelled silk made of six strips and the sample of three strips are the two samples Clarkson collected from the Lively (Fig. 6.4). Thus far, it has been impossible to identify these particular artefacts, the vessel, and its voyage(s). 46 40 Wood, “Packaging Liberty,” 205. 41 For example, Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 489; vol. 2, 316. 42 Thomas Clarkson, A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition (London: Philips, 1787), 11–13. 43 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 2. 44 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 237. 45 Ibid. 46 Although Lively was a common name for ships at the time, especially those involved in the transatlantic trade, none of these ships, according to Lloyd’s ship lists, returned to London directly from West Africa. Furthermore, there is no reference to this ship in the Parliamentary Papers of the 1770s and 1780s. The only possibility might be a vessel Lively, sold by the Royal Navy in 1784 for £405, but it has not been recorded to whom it was sold.

ABOLITIONISM AND KENTE CLOTH 

After the establishment of the London Committee, Clarkson’s collection policy becomes much more focused. In gathering evidence for the anticipated Privy Council, he collected witness testimonies about the conditions on the slave ships, information on crew mortality on long-haul voyages, and samples of African natural resources and artefacts which he eventually arranged in the chest. There is no documentation regarding when the customised mahogany box was made, but the idea developed when Clarkson visited Bristol. 47 He wrote “the objects I had marked down as those to be attended to, were—to ascertain what were the natural productions of Africa, and, if possible, to obtain specimens of them, with a view of forming a cabinet or collection.”48 As Jane Webster argues, Clarkson had a targeted collection strategy “contextualised in the enquiry process itself” and more closely associated with the Parliamentary enquiry of 1788/89 than with mobilising public opinion. 49 In Bristol and Liverpool, Clarkson visited several ships engaged in the “triangular” slave trade, but he mainly collected African natural resources and artefacts from ships trading directly between England and West Africa. In this bilateral trade, Europeans imported mainly raw materials such as ivory, woods, and dyestuff, and to a much lesser extent either portable locally-produced artefacts, which Europeans found interesting or valued for their material. Such West African artefacts were either made for local use or for a European market.50 A close examination of Clarkson’s writings and the eight volumes of Parliamentary papers related to the slave trade shows that Clarkson met with several Quakers active in the bilateral trade in Bristol and Liverpool. Samuel and Isaac Biggs (life dates not known), two of the main shipbuilders and sponsors of these voyages in Bristol, gave him “also small pieces of cloth made and dyed by the natives, the colours of which they could only have obtained from materials in their own country.”51 This reference rules out the undyed cloth sample (1870.13.Z) and might exclude all the samples with unravelled red yarn. This would make 1870.13.Y the most likely candidate for coming from the ship Lively, or potentially lost textiles. Clarkson’s samples could have come from anywhere on the West African coast, as Biggs’s vessels went from port to port, but most likely from an area stretching from Cape

47 The chest was probably made after Clarkson’s return to London as he writes that he “deposited whatever I had collected in the office belonging to the Committee.” Clarkson, Substance, iii. 48 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 295. 49 Webster, “Collecting,” 144; HCSP, vol. 67, 53–59. 50 Adam Jones, “Drink Deep or Taste Not: Thoughts of the Use of Early European Records in the Study of African Material Culture,” History in Africa 21 (1994): 352. 51 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 303.

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Mount in the northern corner of modern-day Liberia to Assinie in western Ivory Coast or to Cape Coast in modern-day Ghana.52 Clarkson was also introduced to another Quaker in Bristol, the rope manufacturer Thomas Bonville (before 1787–after 1822), of whom little is known, from whom he “collected two specimens of cloth made by the natives.”53 Bonville likely supplied the shipping industry and might have received the cloth from clients or from his brother Charles (life dates not known), who worked in Cape Coast Castle, the then headquarters of the British on the Gold Coast.54 Matching these two samples with cloth in the chest is therefore speculative. The former Bristol slave ship surgeon Alexander Falconbridge turned abolitionist and accompanied Clarkson to Liverpool after they met in Bristol. Clarkson does not mention that he received any textile from Falconbridge, but in Falconbridge’s testimonies to the Privy Council, he declares that he acquired numerous pieces of cloth “with a very beautiful and permanent blue.”55 He travelled on four slave voyages to River Galenas on the Grain Coast in present-day Liberia, and twice to Bonny, in present-day Nigeria. Both areas traded many cloths at this time, including warp-faced plain weave textiles. Cloth 1870.13.BB could, thus, be matched provisionally to Falconbridge. In Liverpool, Clarkson writes in his History (1808), that he “was favoured with a sample of […] black pepper from Whidàh […], of mahogany from Calabar, and of cloths of different colours, made by the natives, which, while they gave other proofs of the quality of their own cotton, gave proofs, also, of the variety of their dyes.”56 He specifies that he received the pepper from Robert Norris, a former slave-captain who quit the business, but it is unclear if Clarkson also received other items from him. It is possible, as Norris testified to the Privy Council, that much cotton is grown in Whyday (Ouidah in present-day Republic of Benin) and Eyo (Lagos in present-day Nigeria) and that “many cloths are made from it for the use of the inhabitants of the country.”57 The indication of different colours of dyes might therefore point to the two pieces with green, yellow, red, and white (1870.13.44; 1870.13.R). These two textile samples were collected in a way that those selling or weaving textiles in West Africa would present a sample. Still today it is common to sell not only cloth but also single strips. 52 Detailed description of voyages sponsored by the Biggs can be found in David Richardson, ed., Bristol, Africa and the Eighteenth-Century Slave Trade to America, vol. 4 (Bristol: Bristol Record Society, 1996), xxi, 90, 102, 106, 110. 53 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 303. 54 John Crooks, Records Relating to the Gold Coast Settlements from 1750 to 1874 (London: Cass, 1973), 14. 55 HCSP, vol. 72, 602. 56 Clarkson, History, vol. 1, 373. 57 HCSP, vol. 69, 5.

ABOLITIONISM AND KENTE CLOTH 

So far, cloth samples 1870.13.75 and 1870.13.Y are tentatively identified as coming from the vessel Lively, 1870.13.44 and 1870.13.R from Liverpool, and 1870.13.BB might have come from Alexander Falconbridge. This leaves 1870.13.S, the cloth with the supplementary warp, as well as sample 1870.13.Z, from a plain balanced-weave, undyed, hand-spun cloth, which cannot currently be matched to any of the people from who Clarkson obtained his samples. Webster suggested that some of the cloths in the chest could come from John Clarkson, the brother of Thomson who was involved with the Sierra Leone Company.58 Textiles from Sierra Leone could only be matched with 1870.13.BB, the full cloth that has been discussed in relation to Falconbridge. We cannot exclude that John Clarkson gifted products, including cloth, from Sierra Leone, but this would mean that the chest once contained more textile samples than today. The choices made by Clarkson were, of course, premeditated by the choices of those—mainly sailors—who collected textiles in West Africa. In contrast to the import of Indian and European cloth into the African coast, the export of Africanproduced cloth to Europe was very limited and seems to have been conducted mainly by individuals who bought such textiles at West African ports where they anchored.59 Already when collected by English sailors in West African ports, these textiles acted as in-between cloths. The cloths collected by Clarkson in Britain, then, functioned as “a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite.”60 These textiles were part of a non-verbal discourse about cultural difference and sameness that was constructed around the ambivalence of mimicry; “in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference.”61 Clarkson describes the textiles as “native cloths” without feeling the need to investigate any specificities. A further detailed understanding of how and where these textiles were woven undermines and mocks these generalisations.

Weaving Kente An understanding of Clarkson’s cloth samples as in-between textiles requires researchers to enunciate African perspectives, materialised through these cloths. Identifying where the textile samples were actually woven is a challenging task. 58 Webster, “Collecting,” 144. 59 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many Indian textiles were exported from India to Europe, and from there re-exported to the African coast on both transatlantic slave ships and those involved in the bilateral trade. In the eighteenth century, Indian textiles were widely copied in European factories and gradually replaced the export to West Africa of Indian textiles. 60 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 122. 61 Ibid.

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They represent a wide group of weavers and spinners from a variety of textile production centres, with different histories, aesthetics, technologies, and skills, pointing to a wide trade in cloth, and changing tastes in clothing, materials, and designs of African consumers. Weaving of textiles made of narrow strips, produced on the double-heddle loom, is common throughout West Africa and dates to the first millennium AD.62 Weaving on the upright single-heddle loom, considered even older and once used across a wide area for raphia cloth, has at least for the final few hundred years been common in modern-day Nigeria, northern Cameroon, and the Republic of Benin. The textiles also tell a gendered history. Spinning of cotton and weaving on the upright single-heddle loom has been exclusively a task of women, while men were weaving on the double-heddle loom.63 In the eighteenth century, the production of textiles in West Africa was both stimulated and reshaped by overseas imported fabrics.64 Since the first Europeans arrived on the West African coast at the end of the fifteenth century, particularities of West African consumer markets directed the trade in linen and woollen European textiles and “Guinea cloth,” the generic name for textiles imported from India to Europe, and re-imported into West Africa in exchange for West African goods and enslaved people; and, from the eighteenth century, also including European imitations of Indian cloth. These imported textiles were successful, not because they were novelties but because they supplemented the production of local cloth and dress items.65 They were imported and negotiated on West African terms, based on the preferences of African consumers and producers. The imported cloths were similar to their own woven fabrics, but not quite the same. As in-between textiles, they turned imperial hierarchies on their head. Some were literally “undone”: African weavers unravelled the cloth and used the red threads, not the other yarns, to use as warp or wefts in their hand-woven textiles. Four textiles in Clarkson’s chest, thus, were already transformed into in-between cloth in their contexts of production. Clarkson clearly suggests that the chest contained more than one cloth (sample) with unravelled silk, however, only one textile currently includes silk (1870.13.Y). Silk is far less commonly used in African textile manufacture than cotton, wool, or raphia; wild silk of moth of the genus Anaphe, which breeds in the tamarind tree, is occasionally used in high-end hand-woven textiles. One of the first mentions of the practice of using unravelled red silk from European cloth comes from the Danish 62 Kriger, Cloth, 74–80; Annette Schmidt and Rogier M. A. Bedaux, “Oldest Archaeological Evidence of Weaving in West Africa,” in Gardi, Woven Beauty, 58–59. 63 John Picton and John Mack, African Textiles (British Museum: British Museum Press), 11–21. 64 Colleen E. Kriger, “‘Guinea Cloth’: Production and Consumption of Cotton Textiles in West Africa before and during the Atlantic Slave Trade,” in The Spinning World: A Global History of Cotton Textiles, 1200–1850, ed. Giorgio Riello and Prassanan Parthasarathi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 106. 65 Ibid., 106.

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envoy Nog (life dates not known) to the Asante Kingdom on the Gold Coast. In 1730, he observed King Opoku Ware I (1700–1750) buying silk taffeta and the weaving of narrow strips of three fingers wide with red yarns.66 Thomas Bowdich (1791–1824) also reports the use of unravelled silk threads from imported textiles for use in Asante cloth, the best-known region to produce kente cloth.67 The unravelling of red threads, wool in particular, has also been reported for other areas, especially for the region between present-day Ghana to Nigeria. Captain Paul Erdmann Isert (1756–1789), the son of a German master weaver and a merchant in Danish service, writes in 1785 about Anecho (“little Popo”) in present-day Togo that “since they are lovers of the true red colour, they are forced to unravel European red cloth in order to weave the thread into their cloth. One such cloth […] of the finest sort, with red strips, which is much esteemed everywhere, can cost upwards of 50 thalers.”68 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European scarlet woollen cloth was popular on the Bight of Benin. In some Yoruba areas and in the Kingdom of Benin, it was imported to be unravelled and then rewoven for the weaving of warp-faced textiles. The three samples with red woollen yarn (1870.13.44; 1870.13.R; 1870.13.S), including the supplementary-warp cloth, are all weft-faced and seem to come from the same weaving centre. They not only share weaving structure and material used, but also have a similar width of 16–18cm, indicating weaving with the same or similar loom apparatus. It would mean that the supplementary-warp textile was also collected in Liverpool, possibly from Robert Norris (d.1791) who acquired it in Ouidah or Lagos. Weft-faced plain weave strips of this width are not associated today with this area, but rather with cloth from Northern Nigeria, Mali, or Sierra Leone. However, the use of unravelled red yarn in these much more inland regions has not been reported. The use of a supplementary red warp on a weft-faced cloth is a unique feature and further complicates the identification of the production centre. This technique is only known from the Ewe-speaking region, but for the weaving of warp-faced strips of approximately 10cm wide, at least since the late nineteenth century.69 At the same time, the weaving of weft-faced textiles is common throughout the Ewe-speaking region, including Agotime, one of the main weaving centres. Interestingly, some older cloth from southern Togo has a

66 Ludwig F. Rømer, The Coast of Guinea, ed. Kirsten Bertelsen (Legon: Institute of African Studies, 1965 [1760]), 36. 67 Thomas E. Bowdich, A Mission of Cape Coast Castel to Ashantee (London: Cass, 1966 [1819]), 35. 68 Paul E. Isert, Letters on West Africa and the Slave Trade: Paul Erdmann Isert’s Journey to Guinea and the Caribbean Islands in Columbia (1788), trans. and ed. Selena Axelrod Winsnes (Accra: Sub-Saharan Publishers, 1992 [1788]), 92. 69 Kraamer, “Ghanaian Interweaving,” 50–51. Only in the last twenty years have weavers been experimenting with tools to make wider strips (own observations 1997–2000, 2003, 2012, 2018–2020).

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similar width of circa 18cm.70 This needs much further research but could be an indication that 1870.13.S comes from this particular region. All four samples with unravelled red yarn might therefore come from weaving centres in Ghana and Togo where kente is produced, one from the Asante Kingdom, three from the Ewe-speaking region. British writings before Bowdich do not mention weaving on the Gold Coast, and most European records of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries speak about the importation of Benin cloth and Quaqua cloth from present-day Ivory Coast to the Gold Coast.71 This might have a variety reasons, rather than the total absence of weaving centres. In this area, a clear taste for changing fashions and new fabrics has a long history, meaning that cloth imported from other African ports as well as European and Asian fabrics were in high demand. The trade in textiles along the coast, through the elaborated lagoon system, and to the hinterland was exceptionally complex, as cloth was imported and West African weavers made cloth for export. This long-distance trade in West Africa complicates provenance research on cloths, even when the port of acquisition is known.72 The British, Dutch, and Danish were major competitors on the Gold Coast, with the British Cape Coast Fort and the Dutch Elmina Castle in close proximity. The Dutch and Danish supported the emerging Asante state, while the British were allied with the Akwamu and Akyem states. Furthermore, weaving in Asante, and possibly other Akan states was for domestic and royal use, rather than for export. Weaving on the coast between Axim and the mouth of the Volta and its immediate hinterland seems to have been absent, but further inland as well as on the other side of the Volta River, Nog and Isert reported weaving. The current understanding of kente, based on written, visual, oral, material, and technical analysis and sources, traces the histories of this cloth at least back to the eighteenth century, and likely before (Fig. 6.6).73 European observations of activities in the Ewe-speaking area are limited, mainly because it was difficult to land on this part of the coast, between the mouth of the Volta and Ouidah, until the early eighteenth century, and the first permanent fort, the Danish Prinsenstein, was only built in 1784 in Keta.74 Furthermore, weaving was not very visible because it was mainly conducted within enclosed compounds, as also reported by Isert. He describes weaving on a double-heddle loom in Ouidah, 70 My thanks go to Duncan Clarke, owner of Adire African Textiles, for pointing this out to me and allowing me to study some of these cloths in his (sales) collection. 71 Kriger, Cloth, 39–44. 72 Ibid., 39–40. 73 Kraamer, “Colourful Changes,” 52. The Agotime people, for instance, settled in the current abode in the seventeenth century. 74 At this site, the Dutch West India Company had built Fort Singlenburgh in 1734, but they abandoned it in 1737.

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Figure 6.6  Kwame Kusi Boateng weaving a kente cloth, Bonwire, Ashanti Region, Ghana, 2018 © Photograph by Malika Kraamer.

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making a direct comparison with the production of European textiles with which he was familiar, coming from a weaving family: “The reed is just like ours but has two threads through each division; it hangs loosely without being fastened in the yarn.”75

Conclusion None of the extant textile contents in Thomas Clarkson’s chest have ever been analysed in detail, even though the chest has been researched extensively. This chapter focuses on weaving techniques, ethnography, textual analysis, and s­ cientific f ibre analysis to identify some of the earliest extant textile samples from the ­western “Slave coast,” the area between the mouth of the Volta and Ouidah in West Africa, and demonstrated the ways in which these textiles negotiated cultural in-betweenness.76 Such an approach to the cloth in Clarkson’s box has added to our knowledge about the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson, his activities, and the role of African voices in shaping the British abolitionist movement of legally ending the slave trade. It helped uncovering lost African voices and perspectives. West African textiles and cloth samples collected by Thomas Clarkson in London, Bristol, and Liverpool in 1788, as part of his abolitionist activities, negotiated notions of otherness in various ways. They were in-between textiles materialising articulations of difference, identity politics, and understandings of racial regimes. As in-between textiles, they operated in several contact zones, in particular a frontier zone of European imperial outreach, and functioned differently in the three contact zones or contexts discussed in this chapter—the collecting of the cloth, the weaving of the textiles, and the debating and achieving of abolitionism. In the context of collecting, both by Clarkson and those Europeans who bought them in West African ports, thus pre-mediating Clarkson’s choices, the textiles materialised the idea of Africans as human, but not quite the same as Europeans.77 This created a fundamental basis for a “discourse that produces the colonised as a social reality which is at once an ‘other’ and yet entirely knowable and visible.”78 In the context of production, West African weavers employed European cloth on their and African consumers preferences, turning imperial hierarchies on their head. The employment of a system of representation as developed in the context of collecting is expanded in the context of abolitionist debates, reshaping British 75 Isert, Letters, 92. 76 A seventeenth-century cloth from this area can be found in the museum in Ulm. 77 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 122, italics in original. 78 Ibid., 101.

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ideas about race and humanity and the ways in which “Africans” were stereotyped as “the other.” It is in the materialisation of such a debate that these textiles were made powerful tools within abolitionist discourse. This chapter focused on the cloth in the chest as in-between textiles and on the ongoing detective work—with growing evidence that not just the supplementarywarp textile but also two other weft-faced samples were very likely woven in an Ewe weaving centre, rather than further to the east. Thus, they must be considered the oldest extant kente. Ewe weavers—who unlikely would have referred to themselves as such at the time—have a history of weft-faced, plain weave cloth, while Yoruba and Benin weavers do not have such a tradition. Furthermore, it is likely, but with less certainty than can be applied to the weft-faced samples, that the textile with red silk comes from another kente-weaving centre: the Asante Kingdom in the middle of present-day Ghana. The results of archival, textual, visual, ethnographic, and material analysis presented in this chapter show how a holistic approach to these textile samples adds to recent debates on global consumerism and cultural exchanges through commerce in textiles in the early modern period. This is of importance, as the role and development of West African coastal textile manufacturing during the era of the Atlantic slave trade is understudied. The contents of Clark’s chest thus result from the power of West African cloth to materialise and shape debates about slavery and its abolitionism.

About the Author Malika Kraamer is Curator of the Africa Collections at the MARKK, the Museum am Rothenbaum, Art and Culture of the World, Hamburg, Germany, and Honorary Curator at the Ghana Museums and Monument Board. Until 2019, she worked for many years as Curator of World Cultures at Leicester Arts and Museums Service, UK. Kraamer’s research and major publications focus on contemporary and historical fashions and textiles in West and East Africa, in particular kente cloth from Ghana and Togo, and global social and design histories of the Japanese Sari.

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Dressing in the Deccan Clothing and Identity at the Courts of Central India, 1550–1700* Marika Sardar Abstract In the Deccan region of India between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries, this chapter argues, textiles from a variety of both foreign and domestic sources were an integral part of social life. Deccani portraits of this period document the astonishing variety of fabrics available to the local elite, and carefully differentiate the costume of the figures depicted, in a manner that reflects the sitters’ range in social status, ethnic background, and political aspirations. This chapter examines the extent to which such novel engagement with clothing mobilised what Bhabha calls the “identity effects” of dressing. In the courtly world of the Deccan, characterised by cultural diversity, textiles could serve the purpose of encoding notions of origin, belonging, and affiliations, as well as a broader repertoire of possible identifications. Dress was thus an intricate part of establishing identity in the Deccani political milieu. Keywords: Deccan; identity politics; ethnicity; court culture; elites

Introduction Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, India has been posited as “master dyer to the world,” sending its high-quality textiles to ports around the globe.1 With analyses of the subcontinent’s role in supplying printed, dyed, and embroidered * My thanks to the many colleagues who helped me work through the ideas in this paper, provided references, and suggested comparanda: Elena Phipps, Sylvia Houghteling, Keelan Overton, Pushkar Sohoni, Mika Natif, and Qamar Adamjee. 1 This was the title of an important exhibition on Indian textiles curated by Mattiebelle Gittinger. See the catalogue Master Dyers to the World: Technique and Trade in Early Indian Dyed Cotton Textiles (Washington, DC: The Textile Museum, 1982).

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch07

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textiles to many far-flung markets, as well as the networks that enabled this trade, a growing body of scholarship has explored the features that exemplify India’s role in the global textile network of the period. Yet at the same time, textiles from a variety of both foreign and domestic sources were an integral part of social life within India itself. Paintings include, in quite some detail, depictions of garments constructed from cloths made in a variety of weaving and dyeing techniques. Historical chronicles frequently discuss the gifting of textile items, while administrative documents, particularly from the Mughal court, are replete with references to different types of fabrics as well as the locations of their manufacture. All of these demonstrate a keen awareness of the variations in textiles, their materials and grades, as well as the potential of textiles to signify social and political standing. This is certainly the case for the Deccan region of India between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries, at a time when it was a major source for the kalamkari and other textiles that travelled to Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Americas.2 Deccani portraits of this period document the astonishing variety of fabrics available to the local elite, and carefully differentiate the costume of the figures depicted, in a manner that reflects the sitters’ range in social status, ethnic background, and political aspirations. That dress was an intricate part of establishing identity in the Deccani political milieu is supported by many kinds of evidence. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, for instance, the Hindu rulers of the kingdom of Vijayanagara started to wear a type of long tunic (kabayi) and tall cap (kullayi) of a style introduced by their rivals, the Bahmani sultans, to signal their participation in the Islamicate cultural system that prevailed in the Deccan at that time.3 In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, dress became entangled in politics of the Deccan in new ways. A novel type of royal portrait was developed, for instance, in which the full line of rulers of a sultanate would appear, each in costume carefully differentiated according to the era in which they lived—the earlier members of the family line are shown in more Persianate clothing (particularly, a collared tunic that fastened down the centre of the chest), while the later members are shown wearing types of clothing particular to the Deccan in the late sixteenth 2 Documented in Gittinger, Master Dyers to the World, as well as John Irwin, “Indian Textile Trade in the Seventeenth Century: (2) Coromandel Coast,” Journal of Indian Textile History 2 (1956): 24–42; M. K. Brett, “Indian Painted and Dyed Cottons for the European Market,” in Aspects of Indian Art: Papers Presented in a Symposium at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October, 1970, ed. Pratapaditya Pal (Leiden: Brill, 1972), 167–71 and plates CIIa–CVIIb; John Guy, Woven Cargoes: Indian Textiles in the East (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1998); and Donna Pierce, “Popular and Prevalent: Asian Trade Goods in Northern New Spain, 1590–1850,” Colonial Latin American Review 25, no. 1 (2016): 77–97, among others. 3 Phillip B. Wagoner, “‘Sultan among Hindu Kings’: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara,” The Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 4 (1996): 851–80.

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to seventeenth century (most notably a new type of tunic that crossed over the chest and fastened under the arms, along with a white cap-like turban fitted with a band of a patterned fabric). 4 By casting historicity and identity in terms of fashion, this novel engagement with clothing mobilised the “identity effects” of dressing at that time,5 and this essay examines the role of such textiles for what Homi Bhabha has called “the enunciation of cultural difference” as “a process of signification” and “the construction of systems of cultural identification.”6 In the courtly world of the Deccan, characterised by cultural diversity, textiles could serve the purpose of encoding notions of origin, belonging, and affiliations, as well as a broader repertoire of possible identifications. During this period, the region was a multi-lingual, multiethnic mix, providing a home to hundreds of newcomers, among whom a large coterie found positions of influence in the administration of the five sultanates ruling the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Deccan. Accordingly, local histories refer frequently to the origins of the figures being described, who were differentiated as dekkani (i.e. those born in this part of the subcontinent, though often with northern Indian roots), habshi (i.e. “Abyssinian,” the term in Persian, which was the court language of the time, for people from the eastern coast of Africa), or gharbian (literally, “westerner,” the Persian term used to refer to people from the Persianate sphere of Central Asia, Iran, and Khurasan).7 At different moments in the history of the five Deccani sultanates, these factions enjoyed varying levels of favour; they alternately allied and vied for power, and the ethnic identities of these distinct groups also played out on the sartorial scene. This phenomenon has been discussed largely on the basis of historical texts of the period, but by bringing to the fore local patterns of textile consumption, and by closely examining the relevant portrait paintings, it becomes evident that dress played a critical part in defining the identity and status of each ethnic group in relation to the other. 4 For a Bijapur painting of this type, see The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (MET), 1982.213, Kamal Muhammad, The House of Bijapur, c.1680; for a Golconda painting, see Andhra Pradesh State Museum, Hyderabad, unknown accession number. Deborah Hutton discusses the former in “Memory and Monarchy: A Seventeenth-Century Painting from Bijapur and Its Afterlives,” South Asian Studies 32 (2016): 22–41, here 27–32 for a discussion of dress. 5 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 1994), 128–29. 6 Ibid., 50. 7 A recent discussion of the different ethnicities in the fifteenth-to-seventeenth-century Deccan, the names for each group, and their relative social standing—including references to earlier publications—can be found in Richard M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan 1300–1761: Eight Indian Lives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), esp. 59–77, 105–28. Roy Fischel also discusses the terminology and status for Iranians in “Gharbian in the Deccan: Migration, Elite Mobility and the Making and Unmaking of an Early Modern State,” in Iran and the Deccan: Persianate Art, Culture, and Talent in Circulation, 1400–1700, ed. Keelan Overton (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020), 127–44.

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The Case of the Dekkani Sultan: Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah of Bijapur The period under question here falls at a moment in time when rule of the Deccan was apportioned among five Muslim sultanates. At this moment, Muslims were relative newcomers to this part of the subcontinent, having settled in trading centres along the coasts of central India as early as the ninth century. They arrived in larger waves from northern India during the thirteenth century, and then became more fully entrenched when the first Muslim sultanate was established in the region in 1347. At this point, there were no properly native Deccani Muslims among the ruling elite—this class primarily comprised newly arrived Muslims with roots either in northern India, the greater Persianate world, or, to a lesser extent, the Arab lands. By the mid-1500s, however, the Muslim ruling class could be considered more local, sultans by this time having been born and raised in the Deccan, and perhaps even counting local Deccani converts among their parentage.8 To this group would belong the sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II (r.1580–1627), who had been raised to the throne at age nine after the death of his uncle ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah (r.1557–1580). The ‘Adil Shahi family was of Persian extraction, but between the time of their arrival in the Deccan in the late fifteenth century and the time of Ibrahim’s birth a century later, there had been various levels of integration that could be observed in many facets of court life. The family had brokered marriages with the daughters of prominent Hindu families (along with other strategic-minded unions), and Ibrahim of course had been born in the Deccan and spoke with ease in Marathi, one of the regional languages in the ‘Adil Shahi domains. From the beginning, the ‘Adil Shahi administration had come to accommodate many features of previous systems of assigning land rights, collecting taxes, and selecting officials from among the clans that had held power under previous regimes.9 Perhaps most indicative of their sense of belonging to the Deccan, however, was the way in which the ‘Adil Shahi sultans positioned themselves in relation to the great Chalukya dynasty, a line of Hindu sovereigns who had ruled between the tenth and twelfth centuries and whose territories had been roughly equivalent to those of the ‘Adil Shahis.10 Of all the Deccani rulers, Ibrahim II was the most frequently depicted in his own time, and in the present day continues to hold allure for scholars who have dedicated a relatively sizeable number of articles and books to his reign. He is lauded as an aesthete, particularly sensitive to the visual arts and music, and is 8 Richard M. Eaton and Phillip B. Wagoner, Power, Memory and Architecture: Contested Sites on India’s Deccan Plateau, 1300–1600 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 127–28. 9 Hiroshi Fukazawa, The Medieval Deccan: Peasants, Social Systems and State, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1–48 on ‘Adil Shahi’s administration. His mother is mentioned in texts as “Haji Badi Sahiba,” but her origins are unclear. 10 Eaton and Wagoner, Power, Memory and Architecture, 125–64, esp. 149–56 on Ibrahim II.

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celebrated as a figure who bridged religious divides in the Deccan—a trope of considerable importance in today’s historiography, but perhaps with different significance in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.11 Despite the frequency of his depiction, the fluctuating nature of Ibrahim’s appearance in his at least sixteen known portraits is so remarkable that it is often the context that provides the key to identifying the figure depicted.12 In these portraits, Ibrahim’s physical appearance ranges from a pale-skinned and round-faced fellow,13 to a dark-skinned and hook-nosed type,14 whose beard varies in length and fullness, and whose body may be thick-chested and hale or slight and stooped.15 In some cases the key to the identification is the manuscript of the album in which the painting appears, and in others it is the content, which may show Ibrahim in private and relaxed moments, visiting a dervish, or hunting in a wild and lush landscape. The portrait illustrated here (Fig. 7.1), presents him as a musician—he is seated outdoors, at some kind of picnic, strumming a tambur while an appreciative audience appears to clap and sing along. This association is underscored by the henna staining the tips of his fingers (a practice of musicians of the time) and the strings of beads around his neck (made of the dried berries of the rudraksha tree, and markers of Hindu ascetic figures). In many of his portraits, the sultan wears a light, white jama, a shirt-like garment that crosses over in the front and that extends to the foot. In others (Fig. 7.1), the jama is coloured and appears to be made of a thicker material, perhaps made for cooler weather. This is worn over tightly fitted, calf-length pants which are sometimes visible underneath the jama. But of all these elements, the most striking aspects of Ibrahim’s dress are the heavy, gold-brocaded shawl, sash, and turban wrap that he wears almost uniformly. These accessories are gorgeously patterned in stark contrast to the plain if fine jama.16 Many of the paintings show quite clearly a design of horizontal panels, delineated by black or red bands and filled with a 11 For an example, see Nazir Ahmad, “Introduction,” in Kitab-i Nauras by Ibrahim Adil Shah II, ed. Nazir Ahmad (New Delhi: Bharatiya Kala Kendra, 1956), 11–14. 12 First gathered and discussed by Robert Skelton, “Documents for the Study of Painting at Bijapur in the Late 16th and Early 17th Centuries,” Arts Asiatiques 5 (1958): 97–125. 13 As seen in unknown painter, Procession of Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II, c.1595, private collection, London. Cf. Navina Haidar and Marika Sardar, eds., Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700: Opulence and Fantasy (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015), 95. 14 Hashim, Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II Standing, c.1620, San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA), 1990.440, illustrated in Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 115; Hashim, Portrait of Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II, c.1620, MET, 55.121.10.33 verso. 15 Unknown painter, Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II Holding Castanets, c.1615, The British Museum, London (BM), 1937,0140,0.2. 16 This style of dress is similar to that worn by Ibrahim’s predecessor ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah I, as shown in the two known portraits of him reproduced in Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 88–89. Styles changed, however, under Ibrahim’s successors, particularly Muhammad ‘Adil Shah and ‘Ali Adil Shah II.

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Figure 7.1  Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II Playing the Tambur, ascribed to Farrukh Beg. India, Bijapur, c.1595–1600. Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper, folio: 42.3 × 26.5cm. Naprstkovo Muzeum Asijskych, Africkych a Americkych Kultur, Prague, A.12182.

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diamond-shaped motif, that carries the full length of the sash, even around the waist, where presumably, a heavy brocade would have hindered wrapping and tying.17 While other Deccani sultans wear related fashions—several in this period favoured nearly transparent white jamas over fitted pants—the brocaded elements with this type of patterning are specific to Ibrahim’s dress. Select courtiers from this time wear similar sashes, which differs from the dress of other court members.18 Though it is somewhat ambitious to identify such technical details on the basis of a painting, the fabric appears to have been made in the taqueté technique, a compound weave structure incorporating gold or silver strips or metal-wrapped threads floating on the face of the cloth. Therefore, production of the fabric was an arduous proposition starting with the manipulation of the metal into a form that would allow it to be woven—by beating and drawing it into thin strips that could be wrapped around silk thread—followed by the setting up of the drawloom, and the slow and laborious process of weaving the complex pattern.19 In the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, when Ibrahim was in power, production of this kind of textile was well known to be a specialty of Iran. As documented in many sources of the period, raw silk was a major source of income for the Safavid state, and woven silk fabrics were distributed far and wide, including to India.20 This is confirmed in the written accounts of men such as Raphael du Mans (1613–1696) and Jean Chardin (1643–1713), living in or visiting the Safavid realms 17 In addition to the painting illustrated here, this kind of textile is depicted in a portrait of Ibrahim in the Gulshan Album (Golestan Palace Museum, Tehran, no 1663, fol. 87), and another in the Small Clive Album (Victoria and Albert Museum, London [V&A], IS48-1956, fol. 1b), for which see Keelan Overton, “Vida de Jacques de Coutre: A Flemish Account of Bijapuri Visual Culture in the Shadow of Mughal Felicity,” in The Visual World of Muslim India: The Art, Culture and Society of the Deccan in the Early Modern Era, ed. Laura Parodi (London: I.B. Tauris, 2014), 238, 247. Other relevant paintings include one showing Ibrahim in procession on an elephant (formerly collection of Howard Hodgkin, current location not known, published in Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 125) and one showing Ibrahim feeding a hawk (Earl of Harrowby Collection, Sandon Hall, Staffordshire, published Skelton, “Documents for the Study of Painting at Bijapur,” fig. 4). 18 See Stout Courtier, BM, 1937,0410,0.3, which contrasts with the depiction of religious figures shown wearing Kashmiri shawls over tunics that fasten down the middle of the chest, for which see A Mullah, The British Library, London (BL), J.25,14, both illustrated in Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 114–15. Furthermore, Brahmans are said to have worn a long muslin gown called an angrakha, with a turban and a length of cloth across the shoulders; while the Marathas wore tight-fitting pants, a shirt, large coat of silk or cotton, pointed turban, and a length of cloth as a belt; see P. M. Joshi, “Cultural, Social and Economic Conditions under the ‘Adil Shahis,” in History of Medieval Deccan, ed. H. K. Sherwani (Hyderabad: Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1973), vol. 1, 402, based on the accounts of European travellers to the Bijapur court. 19 Ian R. Hardin and Frances J. Duffield, “Microanalysis of Persian Textiles,” Iranian Studies 25 (1992): 44, 52–53. 20 Among the many studies of this trade are Rudolph P. Matthee, The Politics of Trade in Safavid Iran: Silk for Silver, 1600–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, The Shah’s

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at about this time, who commented on the production there of gold brocades and velvets, and more to the point, the export of these fine silks to India.21 In India, the production of brocaded sashes can be documented by the late seventeenth century, yet written references to sashes being made earlier are intriguing. In 1611, for instance, when passing through Burhanpur, a Mughal-held city in the northern Deccan, John Jourdain (d.1619) states that it “doth abound in making of [several kinds of textiles, including] girdles of silke and gould,” and that trade with the rest of the Deccan was continuing, despite the fact the Mughals were at war with the Deccan sultanates. Sironj also produced “rich shashes with silke and gould,” and the ‘Adil Shahi kingdom itself “yieldeth store of all sortes of fine cloathinghe, as […] shasses and many other sortes.”22 Many cities in Gujarat were also renowned by this time for the fine fabrics they produced; among these were silk fabrics made with gold from Ahmedabad, described by the Mughal chronicler Abu’l Fazl (1551–1602) at the turn of the century.23 There are technical features that distinguish Iranian and Indian production of the late seventeenth century and later,24 and design features as well—while many Iranian sashes are brocaded with geometric panels for their entire length, most Indian ones have floral end panels and incorporate a length of plain-woven cotton or silk where the garment would have been wrapped around the waist.25 But without surviving examples directly associated with Ibrahim’s court, it is quite impossible to determine where the ones depicted in the portraits were made.26 All that can be Silk for Europe’s Silver: The Eurasian Trade of the Julfa Armenians in Safavid Iran and India (1530–1750) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 21 Raphael du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660 (Paris: École des Langues Orientales Vivantes, 1890), 186 mentions brocades being made in Isfahan and selling well in India. See also Jean Chardin, Sir John Chardin’s Travels in Persia (New York: Dover, 1972), 268, 277–78. 22 William Foster, ed., The Journal of John Jourdain, 1608–17, Describing His Experiences in Arabia, India, and the Malay Archipelago (London: Hakluyt Society, 1905), 146, 151, 198. 23 Hamida K. Naqvi, “Some Varieties of Indian Silken Stuffs in Persian Sources, ca. 1200–1700,” Indian Journal of History of Science 18, no. 1 (1983): 116–18. 24 Milton Sonday and Nobuko Kajitani, “A Type of Mughal Sash,” Textile Museum Journal 3, no. 1 (1970): 45–54; Milton Sonday and Nobuko Kajitani, “A Second Type of Mughal Sash,” Textile Museum Journal 3, no. 2 (1971): 6–12; Rahul Jain, “The Indian Drawloom and Its Products,” The Textile Museum Journal (1993–1994): 50–81; Rahul Jain, Mughal Patkas, Ashvali Saris and Indo-Iranian Metal-Ground Fragments in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles and the Sarabhai Foundation (Ahmedabad: Sarabhai Foundation, 2008). 25 Cf. MET, 33.80.18, sash with flowering plants, Iran, seventeenth century; MET, 1983.494.9, sash with floral border, India, second half of the seventeenth century. 26 Because of the COVID shutdown, I have not been able to access sources that might have illuminated this question, such as Rahul Jain, “The Mughal Patka: A Technical Overview,” in Indian Costumes II: Patkas: A Costume Accessory in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles, ed. B. N. Goswamy and Rahul Jain (Ahmedabad: Sarabhai Foundation, 2002), 215–30; Rahul Jain, Indian Lampas-Weave Silks in the Collection of the Calico Museum of Textiles (Ahmedabad: Sarabhai Foundation, 2013).

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said with certainty is that Ibrahim’s persona has been carefully crafted: together, the elements of his dress telegraph a set of complex, if not conflicting, signals, of an earthy man and soulful artist, but one who also surrounded himself in luxury. The paintings with this form of dress date from about 1595 until about 1620,27 a crucial period of Ibrahim’s reign during which time he distanced himself from the regents under whom he initially ruled and established his court as being open to cultural influences of all kinds. Ibrahim’s combination of the jama, a locally developed garment, along with brocaded silks, also possibly locally made, and the bead necklace of a Hindu devotee, could be contrasted to what others at court were wearing, and were the visual markers of the political “balancing act” that he maintained.28 Thus his dress paralleled the makeup of his government apparatus, which included dekkanis, promoted more intensely than under previous regimes, with the result that the sultanate had “a more indigenous character than ever before.”29 It also coincided with the rise, in the 1580s and 1590s, of Dakhni, a local vernacular closely related to North Indian Urdu, which became prevalent in court discourse and enjoyed popularity as a literary medium with the composition of works such as The Book of Nine Sentiments (Kitab-i Nauras) and The Toils of Love (Pem Nem).This might be contrasted with a change in attire that took place in the 1620s when, it is said, he formed a relationship with the religious figure Shah ‘Abd Allah ‘Aidarus of Aden (d.1631–1632) who convinced him to stop wearing the rudraksha beads and to take up a more sober Arab-style dress. This is not to say that he moved to less inclusivity, but the outward manifestation of his cultural alliances had switched.30

The Case of the Ethiopian General: Malik ‘Ambar A second major faction at the Deccani courts were converted Muslims of African origin, brought into the court as slaves but given certain latitude to ascend to power within the unique political circumstances of the Deccan. Their presence 27 It should be noted that the dates have been primarily determined based on stylistic grounds and/or a judgement of Ibrahim’s age, and so are not necessarily infallible. 28 Keelan Overton, “A Collector and His Portrait: Book Arts and Painting for Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II of Bijapur (r. 1580–1627)” (PhD diss., University of California Los Angeles, 2011), 38. 29 Richard M. Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur, 1300–1700: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978), 90–91, 100–101. 30 Bruce Wannell, “The Epigraphic Program of the Ibrahim Rauza in Bijapur,” in Sultans of the South: Arts of India’s Deccan Courts, 1323–1687, ed. Navina Haidar and Marika Sardar (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011), 266 and perhaps reflected in the dress depicted in the painting Sultan Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II Venerates a Sufi Saint, c.1620–1630, BM, 1997,1108,0.1. Cf. Eaton, Sufis of Bijapur, 99, 128.

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in the Deccan seems to have been the direct result of the rise of Muslim polities in the subcontinent in the late twelfth century, the conduit by which the notion of using foreign slaves, whether Turkic or African, was introduced despite not having been an Indic practice prior to this time.31 The Africans were known to the Muslim world in which they circulated as habshi, the Arabic equivalent of “Abyssinian”; the name by which they came to be known in the Deccan as well.32 Although they may have been put to work in a variety of contexts including agricultural labour, the contemporary historical sources emphasise two primary domains in which enslaved Africans worked in India. Some were bought to work at the court, serving as eunuchs providing protection within the palace. Many more were used to populate the armies. In these positions, enslaved African men were privy to the innermost workings of the royal households, and were critical to the defence of their respective sultanates. From these menial roles in the court and in the army, many individuals advanced to positions of some status. Within the structures of this society, they were granted freedom and could marry and pass on their wealth and hereditary titles to their sons. Dozens of habshis were given administrative or advisory positions, or were elevated to the status of commanders to troops with the right to revenues from estates that would help support the troops and horses they were obliged to supply the sultan.33 Another aspect of the political situation in the Deccan which favoured the habshis was the divide at the courts between the native-born Muslims and the immigrants from the greater Islamic world with whom they competed for authority. While the Africans are known to have often sided with the native Indians, the dekkanis, they did fall somewhat outside of either party, and could navigate the spaces in between, changing allegiances as politically needed.34 “It is that Third Space,” as 31 For a description of the Muslim concept of slavery and its effect in the African slave trade see J. Alexander, “Islam, Archaeology and Slavery in Africa,” World Archaeology 33, no. 1 (2001): 44–60; Gwyn Campbell, “Slave Trades and the Indian Ocean World,” in India in Africa and Africa in India: Indian Ocean Cosmopolitanisms, ed. John C. Hawley (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008), 17–51, here 24. In this particular axis of trade, Ethiopia was the primary source of human commodities, as opposed to slaves going to Europe and the Americas, who were primarily of West African origin. Arab sources relate this as well as European ones, such as Tomé Pires, The Suma Oriental of Tomé Pires: An Account of the East from the Red Sea to Japan, Written in Malacca and India in 1512–15, ed. Armando Cortesão (London: Hakluyt Society, 1944), vol. 1, 14; John H. van Linschoten, The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East, ed. Arthur Coke Barnell, Pieter Anton Tiele, and William Phillip (London: Hakluyt Society, 1885), 264–65. 32 In different regional communities of India, they were also known as Siddis and/or Zanjis. These slaves also tended to be given a particular set of personal names—Firuz (turquoise), ‘Ambar (ambergris), Sandal (sandalwood)—to which honorifics such as Malik (“king”) were sometimes added. 33 Fitzroy A. Baptiste, John McLeod, and Kenneth X. Robbins, “Introduction: African Elites in India,” in African Elites in India, Habshi Amarat, ed. Fitzroy A. Baptiste, John McLeod, and Kenneth X. Robbins (Mumbai: Mapin, 2006), 25–26. 34 Eaton, Social History of the Deccan, 110–11.

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Bhabha put it, “which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation,” and textiles, as we shall see, played a crucial role in negotiating the in-betweenness of these protagonists themselves. As “signs,” such textiles could “be appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew” in manifold and vibrant ways.35 These are the larger factors which allowed for the rise of a figure known to history as Malik ‘Ambar. Born in Ethiopia in 1548, as Chapu, Malik ‘Ambar was initially sold to an owner in Baghdad, and was then taken to India where he was bought by the chief minister of Ahmadnagar in the early 1570s. This minister was himself an Ethiopian, and on his death Malik ‘Ambar was freed. Over the next few years, he built up his own corps of African slave-soldiers, becoming more and more powerful within the Ahmadnagar state. His rise coincided with a perilous time for Ahmadnagar—the Mughals had from 1586 been pressing down on this, the northernmost Deccani sultanate, but until his death in 1626 Malik ‘Ambar was able to prop up the Ahmadnagar state with a series of puppet sultans.36 Along with the sultans and a few key ministers represented in Deccani paintings, Malik ‘Ambar too makes an appearance. A portrait type developed at the Ahmadnagar court, seemingly from direct observation, is represented today by a single surviving version (Fig. 7.2). This painting shows its subject against a plain ground, a profile view of the man that shows his unmistakeable aquiline nose and rounded stomach. From this image, dozens of copies were made. The most notable is one made at the Mughal court, created by Hashim (active 1598–c.1650), apparently on order of the emperor Jahangir (r.1605–1627).37 Many other versions were created for inclusion in albums of portraits representing the key political figures of the Indian subcontinent that were made in the Deccan for the European market starting in the mid-seventeenth century. Portraits of other prominent habshi figures are also known, and in the majority, they wear the kind of dress also typical of their dekkani counterparts, with a long jama made of a sheer white fabric and worn over tightly fitted pants. This muslin fabric is remarked upon frequently by European travellers to India in the early 1600s, who refer to it as beatilha in Portuguese sources, and betteela or serebaff in English and French sources. They describe it as a “fine slight stuffe or clothe whereof the Mores make their cabaies [qabayas] or clothing,”38 thus connecting it 35 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 55. 36 Eaton, Social History of the Deccan, 107–12; Shanti Sadiq Ali, The African Dispersal in the Deccan (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1995), 64–82. 37 V&A, IM.21-1925. Hashim was likely given the task of replicating the originals so that the paintings would conform in format, size, and style to the album in which they were to be inserted. For one discussion of Hashim and his career see John Seyller, “Hashim,” in Master Artists of the Imperial Mughal Court, ed. Pratapaditya Pal (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1991), 105–18. 38 Quoted in Foster, Journal of John Jourdain, 143, note 6.

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Figure 7.2  Malik ‘Ambar. India, Ahmadnagar, early seventeenth century. Ink, opaque watercolour, and gold on paper, folio: 30.5 × 21.1cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 26.8. Photograph © 2022 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

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especially to the Muslim population. They also marvel at the quality of this cloth, “so fine that it is difficult to say whether a person so attired be clothed or nude.”39 They mention various places where it can be obtained including Burhanpur (in Madhya Pradesh), Nandurbar (Gujarat), and Bengal, although the last of these was associated with cloth of the highest quality. 40 In Mughal sources, the town of Sunargaon is mentioned specifically as the source of the “royal muslin” presented to emperor Akbar in 1572. 41 This textile derived its superior attributes from the cotton of which it was made, the way the cotton threads were spun, and the humidity and temperature levels in which the spinning and weaving were undertaken—any variation in the spinning technique or fluctuation to colder or drier conditions would have resulted in a coarser fabric. 42 The cotton was woven on pit-looms and was extremely time-consuming to produce, the expenditure in labour being reflected in the cotton’s high prices, comparable to those for silks. From Bengal, the muslin travelled widely abroad, and within India, was favoured at the Mughal court as well as in the Deccan. 43 The mode in which Malik ‘Ambar and his brotherhood of elite Africans from the other Deccani courts chose to dress tends to support earlier assessments of their integration into the Deccan scene—that they “readily assimilated into Deccan society, embracing its regional culture and its vernacular languages,” in contrast to the Persian immigrants to the Deccan, who on the whole maintained stronger cultural ties to their homelands.44 By choosing the white jama as the main element of costume (sometimes enhanced with vests or sashes) they signalled their alignment with the Deccani sultans, many of whom also dressed in this style through the mid-seventeenth century. Most critically, however, the thin white jama might have had additional valences of meaning to the habshis who wore them: in Ethiopia, this kind of textile was specially imported from India and worn by the elite. Seble Wongel, empress and wife of emperor Lebna Dengel (r.1507–1540) and mother of emperor Gelawdewos (r.1540–1559), is described in an account by the Portuguese adventurer Miguel de Castanhoso (d.1565) as wearing a flowing silk coat over a “very thin white Indian 39 Albert Gray and H. C. P. Bell, eds., The Voyage of François Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the Moluccas, and Brazil (London: Hakluyt Society, 1887), vol. 1, 328. 40 Foster, Journal of John Jourdain, 143–46; Gray and Bell, Voyage of François Pyrard, vol. 1, 328. 41 Muhammad Arif Qandhari, Tarikh-i-Akbari, trans. Tasneem Ahmad (Delhi: Pragati Publications, 1993), 178. Unfortunately, I have not been able to consult the original text to see the term used in Persian. 42 Sylvia Houghteling, “The Emperor’s Humbler Clothes: Textures of Courtly Dress in Seventeenth-Century South Asia,” Ars Orientalis 47 (2017): 91–116 quoting Benjamin A. Dobson, Humidity in Cotton Spinning (Bolton: Heaton, 1894), 3–5; Sonia Ashmore, Muslin (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012), 14. 43 Cf. Houghteling, “The Emperor’s Humbler Clothes.” 44 Eaton, Social History of the Deccan, 112.

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cloth.”45 In nearly the same period, Father Francisco Alvares (c.1465–c.1540) mentions that the abima (bishop) of Ethiopia wears “a white cotton robe of fine thin stuff, and in India whence it comes it is called cacha.” A priest he observes at another time wears a cloak of cacha, defined as a kind of Indian cotton cloth. As further signs of the cloth’s esteem Alvares notes that the traders at the Ethiopian ports “pay a large sum of cotton cloths from India [to the emperor] for the customs which they levy in the port of Arquiquo,” and he later described an event in which this tribute was paid, during which the emperor was “presented many silks and much thin cloth from India.”46 Don João Bermudez (d.1570), another Portuguese member of Castanhoso’s mission, also describes seeing, in the Gafat region of western Ethiopia, “cotton cloths as delicate as sinabafas and beatilhas so fine that a piece of thirty or forty ells could be held between the hands.”47 It would have therefore been a form of dress that had resonance with a particular faction within the Deccan, and in addition, to its wearers, would have more generally held connotations of royalty, power, and wealth.

The Case of the Iranian Queen: Khanzah Humayun A third piece of the Deccani political scene was the coterie of immigrants from Iran who, despite their newcomer status, were also able to attain positions of power and wealth in their adopted home. The history of an Iranian presence at Deccani courts stretches back to the reign of the Bahmani sultanate (1347–1523), which preceded the sultanates discussed here. The Bahmani sultans actively recruited Iranians to the court, particularly in the early fifteenth century when the Deccan was politically distanced from northern India and attempting to more fully define that divide by recruiting a new set of actors independent of that milieu. By the early sixteenth century, it is estimated that between ten and twelve thousand Iranians were resident in the Deccan and one observer of the local political scene noted that the sultan “who has more of them [at his court] is the most powerful.”48 The attraction for the Iranians was the wealth of the Deccan and the potential for advancement, which many felt was lacking in the political environment of Iran 45 R. S. Whiteway, ed., The Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia in 1541–1543, as Narrated by Castanhoso (London: Hakluyt Society, 1902), 18. 46 C. F. Beckingham, The Prester John of the Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John Being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia Written by Father Francisco Alvares (London: Hakluyt Society, 1958), 359, 270, 117, 429. 47 Whiteway, Portuguese Expedition to Abyssinia, 232. 48 Quoted in Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Iranians Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern State Formation,” Journal of Asian Studies 51, no. 2 (1992): 342.

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in that period. Among these hundreds of men arriving annually from Iran, a few dozen served as ministers and ambassadors, and found patronage as historians, artists, and calligraphers. 49 At Bijapur, the prominence of the Iranians at different moments in time has been briefly discussed above. In Golconda, the founder of the ruling dynasty had himself immigrated from Iran, and Iranians were always welcomed, resulting in the rise of figures such as Ibn-i Khatun (d.1649), respected adviser to the sultans Muhammad (r.1612–1627) and Abdullah Qutb Shah (r.1627–1672). In the sultanate of Ahmadnagar, under the rule of the Nizam Shahi sultans (1490–1636), Iranian figures such as Shah Tahir Husaini (c.1480s–1549) were prominent members of the court in the mid-sixteenth century, while the Sayyid ‘Ali bin ‘Azizullah Tabatabai (active 1580–1596) and Muhammad Qasim Shah Astrabadi (1560–1620), known as Firishta, wrote important histories of the dynasty. Aside from the appeal of their Iranian heritage, men such as Ibn-i Khatun and Shah Tahir also proved useful in the maintenance of communications with the Safavid rulers of Iran. Less well sketched is the role of Iranian women, chosen as wives for the sultans or their offspring to further cement the ties between the ruling royal families and the prominent newcomers. Among many examples is the unnamed daughter of an Iranian minister who was married to Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah at Golconda (r.1580–1612), and the young woman married to Sultan Husain (r.1553–1565) known to history as Khanzah Humayun (sixteenth century; exact dates unknown), but called Shah Humayun in contemporary sources. Khanzah Humayun is said to have descended from the line of Sultan Jahan Shah of the Qara Qoyunlu dynasty that ruled Khurasan, parts of northwest Iran, and Azerbaijan in the fifteenth century. After being removed from power, members of the family fled Iran for India, taking up at different courts across the subcontinent—a relative named Bairam Khan, for instance, served as regent to the Mughal emperor Akbar (r.1556–1605). Khanzah Humayun’s branch of the family eventually arrived at Ahmadnagar, and to ingratiate himself at the court her father offered Khanzah Humayun in marriage to Sultan Husain Nizam Shah (r.1553–1565).50 With the family’s distinguished lineage, this 49 H. K. Sherwani, The Bahmanis of the Deccan (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1985 [1953]); Sadiq Naqvi, Iran-Deccan Relations (Hyderabad: Bab-ul-Ilm Society, 1984); Subrahmanyam, “Iranians Abroad”; Eaton, Social History of the Deccan, 61–63, 67–70, 76–77; Emma Flatt, The Courts of the Deccan Sultanates: Living Well in the Persian Cosmopolis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 74–91 offer perspectives on the social forces that enabled this movement. Overton, Iran and the Deccan looks at the cultural products of the connections between the two regions. 50 Sayyid Ahmad-Ullah Qadri, Memoirs of Chand Bibi: The Princess of Ahmadnagar (London: Luzac & Co, 1939), 46–49 quoting the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Persian-language chronicles Tarikh-i Muhammad Qutb Shah, Burhan-i Ma‘athir and Tarikh-i Firishta. I was not able to access the original sources to verify these comments due to COVID restrictions.

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must have been an attractive proposal, and the family’s integration into court affairs is further attested by the prominent role her three brothers also played in advising the sultan. With Husain, she had three children—two sons who would each rule as sultan of Ahmadnagar (Murtaza Nizam Shah I, r.1565–1588, and Burhan Nizam Shah II, r.1591–1595), and a daughter (Chand Bibi) who, after marrying the sultan of Bijapur, would act as regent to a young Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II at that court. After the death of Husain Nizam Shah in 1565, Khanzah Humayun ruled as regent for her son Murtaza until the year 1569/70 (977 AH) when he was convinced, by her rivals at court, to remove her from power and imprison her. It is unclear when she died or where she was buried, but all indications are that she remained in captivity until her death.51 Khanzah Humayun is a shadowy figure, literally and figuratively. Though a woman of some status, like other women of the sixteenth century she remains a cipher in the written historical record, and though depicted in painting, unlike most women of the court, her images have been erased from those very paintings. The paintings of Khanzah Humayun appear in The Chronicle of Husain Shah (Ta‘rif-i Husain Shahi), a manuscript dedicated to her husband, who had led the coalition of Deccani sultans in the attack on Vijayanagara, the pivotal event eulogised in the Ta‘rif. Written in Persian by the court poet Aftabi (active mid-sixteenth century), the verses also include a lengthy description of Khanzah Humayun’s physical attributes as well as a description of the royal wedding, a section of the manuscript copy in which five paintings depicting the queen were included.52 However attempts were made, quite likely after the queen’s imprisonment, to cover over or scratch out her image in four of those paintings.53 Despite this attempt at erasure, through the flaking of the later overpainting, along with the emergence of the underlying pigments through the upper layer of paint, we regain some visibility of Khanzah Humayun. In the first two paintings, accompanying a section of the poem extolling the beauty and charms of the queen, she and the sultan are seated together; once in a pavilion facing a garden, and once 51 Events as described in the Burhan-i Ma‘athir, 1595/96, translated by T. W. Haig, “The History of the Nizam Shahi Kings of Ahmadnagar,” The Indian Antiquary 50 (1921): 196, 206–8. 52 Out of a total of twelve extant paintings; originally it is believed there were fourteen. See Mark Zebrowski, Deccani Painting (London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1983), 17–19. The pages of the manuscript have come loose from their binding and are out of order. I have reconstructed the original placement based on M. S. Mate and G. T. Kulkarni, eds., Tarif-i Husain Shah, Badshah Dakhan (Pune: Bharata Itihasa Samshodhaka Mandala, 1987). Antonio Martinelli photographed the manuscript in 2013 for The Metropolitan Museum Deccan exhibition and kindly shared those photographs with me. 53 Two propositions have been put forward about when the text was written and the manuscript was made: it has been suggested that this took place either in the six months between Talikota and Husain’s death in mid-1565, or during the regency of Khanzah Humayun, between 1565 and 1569, the first four years of the reign of her son Murtaza Nizam Shah (r.1565–1588).

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Figure 7.3  Khanzah Humayun and Sultan Husain Nizam Shah. Folio from the Ta‘rif-i Husain Shahi. India, Ahmadnagar, c.1565. Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, Pune. Photo © Antonio Martinelli (Paris).

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outdoors seated on a charpoi (padding laid on a four-legged base) (Fig. 7.3).54 In both she is now a rather amorphous veiled figure, but in the latter certain details can be discerned. Khanzah Humayun sits on Sultan Husain’s left, grasping his hand. Her knees are bent, with the right leg laid down and the left leg (now transformed into a pillow) upright, knee in the air. She wears a voluminous orange robe with a blue cloth belt at the waist, the brushstrokes used to indicate the gathering of cloth now visible through the overpainting. This is worn over a tunic, the extended fabric of which is indicated by the triangular shape extending between the queen’s feet, which falls over the yellow textile on which she and the sultan are seated. She also appears to wear a veil made of lightweight white cloth. This ensemble appears to be a combination of the dress worn in Qara Qoyunlu tradition, seen in fifteenth-century paintings, and what was fashionable in greater Iran in Khanzah Humayun’s own period, seen in mid-sixteenth-century paintings. In these images, the women wear a long, loose garment that comes down to the feet and with a slit between the legs to ease movement. This is worn over trousers and under a robe with either a V-shaped neck or an opening down the front fastened with loops. In many mid-sixteenth-century examples, this overrobe has short sleeves and sometimes, especially in paintings of the late sixteenth century, is accompanied by a cloth belt around the waist,55 both of which features can be detected in the Khanzah Humayun image. In the next three paintings in which she appears—the fourth, fifth, and sixth in the manuscript—Khanzah Humayun’s costume appears to have transformed.56 These paintings fall in the text after Husain Nizam Shah has asked his viziers to prepare a wedding celebration, and once the bride arrives. She now seems to be wearing clothing of a style similar to the other women who appear in the paintings, her Indian attendants. As also seen in the painting illustrated in Figure 7.3, they wear a type of fitted, short-sleeved blouse that exposes the midriff, known as a choli, along with patterned lengths of cloth akin to the sari, which are wrapped around the waist, with one end brought up over one side of the chest, behind the 54 These are on what is now labelled as pp. 34, 38. 55 Layla S. Diba, “Clothing x: In the Safavid and Qajar Periods,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, accessed 1 May 2020, http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/clothing-x. For fifteenth-century paintings with an earlier form of this dress, see Dar al-Athat al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait (DAI), LNS 77 MS, published in Adel Adamova and Manijeh Bayani, Persian Painting: The Arts of the Book and Portraiture (London: Thames and Hudson, 2015), 166; MET, no. 57.51.24, Wine Drinking in a Spring Garden, Iran, c.1430. For sixteenth-century dress see Harvard Art Museums, 2002.50.28, Wedding Celebration of Zal and Rudaba, Iran, c.1562; 1958.76, Mir Sayyid ‘Ali, Nighttime in a City, Iran, c.1540; or, the closest parallel I have seen, The Wedding Night of Khusrau and Shirin, folio from the Khamsa of Nizami, 1539–1543, BL, Ms. Or 2265, fol. 66v. For the cloth belt see DAI, LNS 233 MS, fol. 225v in Adamaova and Bayani, Persian Painting, 485. 56 Today numbered as pp. 52, 63, 66.

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neck or over the head and then down on the other side of the waist.57 At the waist, a jewelled belt made of circular gold plaques outlined with pearls secures the cloth in place. This is visible quite clearly in the fourth painting, a remarkable image in which she is depicted as the dohada, a composition with a long history in India that shows a woman grasping the branch of a tree, causing it to burst into bloom.58 In this painting, which has not been damaged, perhaps not having been recognised as depicting the queen, she wears a yellow choli and an orange- and red-striped sari with gold patterning. In the ghostly image of the Khanzah Humayun preserved in the fifth painting, one can see traces of garments similar to those represented in the fourth painting: she wears a blue bodice and an orange cloth that is brought up from the waist area and draped over the head; between the two is an abbreviated glimpse of skin.59 In the sixth painting only the bottom edge of a green garment can be seen, pointed at the end like the sari in the fourth painting; the only other detail of her body still visible is a slender, light-skinned foot, which playfully touches her husband’s. If a change in clothing can be traced with a further study of the paintings under a microscope, this would indeed indicate a remarkable act of coding, whereby the artist used the depiction of clothing to at first mark Khanzah Humayun’s foreign origins and then her integration into Deccani society, culminating in her reincarnation as a quintessentially Indian type, the dohada. Although we are on somewhat shaky ground with the identification of Khanzah Humayun’s dress in the 57 Now numbered as p. 63. 58 Pushkar Sohoni has discussed the Indic origins of this pose as well as that of seated king and queen, in The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate: Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India (London: I.B. Tauris, 2018), 41–44. 59 For a better understanding of these garments, which are rather cursorily depicted, one can look to other paintings with more details. Produced slightly later but in the same part of the Deccan, a Ragamala folio depicting the Dhanasri Ragini indicates a similar form of dress, as does the manuscript The Toils of Love (Pem Nem), made at the neighbouring court of Bijapur c.1590/91. For reproductions, see Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 58, 63, f igs. 14–17. Both the princess depicted in this manuscript and her many companions wear short bodices with long lengths of cloth wrapped around the waist and carried over the upper part of the body, though the method of draping the upper part of the cloth differs slightly—it rises up from the waist over the left side of the chest, descends along the back below the waist and then is looped upward to the belt on the right side. Like those in the Ahmadnagar paintings, these two elements are made of up textiles in contrasting colours and patterns. Although the sari would eventually gain in popularity, in paintings from other parts of India at this time, as well as from Deccani paintings of a slightly later period, women’s outfits consist of a blouse worn with a skirt (ghaghra) and transparent scarf (odhni), which though resulting in the same coverage of the body involve a different set of garments. This style of clothing can equally be observed the Ni‘matnama, a manuscript from central India dating to c.1495–1505 (BL, IO Islamic 149), as well in a Mughal manuscript of the 1560s, The Tales of the Parrot (Tutinama), demonstrating the long period of time and wide geographical spread in which this style of clothing held sway. The sixth painting is too damaged to make out any details of Khanza Humayun’s dress.

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painting illustrated in Figure 7.3, we do know from better preserved portraits of men from Iranian backgrounds that they often wore attire different from their dekkani counterparts, and that this was done as a way of asserting their identity. Figures such as the aforementioned Ibn-i Khatun preferred the type of voluminous turban popular in Iran at the time over the fitted Deccani-style turban (seen in Fig. 7.1) along with a long coloured overrobe and a sash tied diagonally over the chest.60 This might have inspired the artist’s decision to represent Khanzah Humayun initially in the clothing of her homeland (for we cannot assume the paintings correlate to her real-time change in attire), as it would have been in line with the practices of many of her countrymen, who often (if not always) made their cultural roots visible in their selection of garments. The marked switch in attire after her wedding would serve to establish her as a woman of status within the local culture. The clothes worn by the queen and her attendants in other images in the manuscript are depicted with enough detail to see that they are made of fabrics dyed in a variety of colours and decorated with repeating designs, some printed or resist-dyed, or, as it appears in other instances, stamped with an adhesive and then gold foil. Patterns of dots, cross-shaped motifs, and stripes are detectable. These textiles are similar in form to the many fifteenth-to-sixteenth-century block-printed fragments made in Gujarat and known primarily in the context of their trade abroad—but that also circulated within India itself.61 Perhaps, in this period before the Deccan became known for its own production of printed cottons, the women imported cloth from the sultanate just to their north.

Conclusion These three paintings demonstrate the appetite and appreciation in the Deccan for many different kinds of textiles, made from silk, cotton, and precious metal, and patterned in an array of designs—but not necessarily manufactured in the region itself. While it was busy creating dyed fabrics that were sought in many parts of the world, the Deccan was importing textiles from a variety of sources, affirming the longstanding traditions of trade in the region, and the language of trade that permeated courtly rhetoric, which placed a premium on goods coming from outside.62 But even more significant is the recovery of the role of textiles in 60 For a portrait of Ibn-i Khatun see Haidar and Sardar, Sultans of Deccan India, 226. For a discussion of the Safavid styles of turban see H. Algar, “‘Amama,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, accessed 12 May 2020, https:// iranicaonline.org/articles/amama-or-ammama-arabic-emama-the-turban. 61 In particular Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (AM), 1990.105, reproduced in Ruth Barnes, “Indian Textiles for Island Taste: Gujarati Cloth in Eastern Indonesia,” Ars Orientalis 34 (2004): 140. 62 Flatt, Courts of the Deccan Sultanates, 120–64.

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what Bhabha has described as the “enunciation of cultural difference.”63 Previous scholarship has recognised that ethnicity was understood as something consequential to convey in the Deccan, but it has been little remarked to date how that could be encoded through dress—how fibres, their weaving, their patterning, and their tailoring could be orchestrated in this expression. But indeed, the abundance of different textiles in the Deccan, and the means to wear them, not only allowed for this expression but gave rise to many different manners of dress, each unique to the group that adopted it.

About the Author Marika Sardar is an independent scholar who has held curatorial positions at the Aga Khan Museum, the Museum of Islamic Art, Doha, the San Diego Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Among the exhibitions she has contributed to or led are Interwoven Globe (2013), focusing on the worldwide textile trade from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century; Sultans of Deccan India, 1500–1700 (2015), examining the artistic traditions of the Muslim sultanates of central India; and Epic Tales from Ancient India (2016), looking at narrative traditions and the illustration of texts from South Asia.

63 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 50.

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8. “Rags of Popery” Dressing and Addressing the Material Culture of Disrupted Faith in Early Modern England*1 Mary M. Brooks Abstract This chapter examines how clerical garments became disruptive signifiers of religious and political (dis)connections in early modern England. Ritual garb, this chapter argues, became a material expression of a minority “social articulation of difference” which Bhabha positions as “a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation.” Freighted with conflicted values, vestments physically “fix[ed] cultural difference in a containable, visible object” at a time of religious flux. Their very cultural fluidity and ability to carry alternative meanings made vestments simultaneously a threat or a comfort, seen as emblems of deceit or continuity as they were rejected by reformers and claimed by believers. Keywords: clerical vestments; identity politics; minority; hybridity; cultural difference

Introduction In the early 1640s, the material culture of worship in England was, yet again, extraordinarily politically sensitive. Archbishop Laud (1573–1645), head of the English church, was under arrest, charged with seeking “papal and tyrannical power” and making physical his devotion to “Popish practices” by the installation * I would like to thank Claire Marsland, Curator, Ushaw Historic House, Chapels & Gardens, County Durham, for her support and engagement in our various vestment research projects, the British Academy for funding the “Material Culture under Penalty” project which enabled many vestments to be seen in situ and the generosity of the custodians of the vestment collections, including the custodians of the green velvet fragment, whose request for anonymity I am pleased to respect.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch08

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of “superstitious Pictures, Images and Crucifixes […] in many Churches, and in the Kings Chappell.”1 The Commons had passed the Protestation Oath against popery, received a bill for the abolition of the episcopacy, and supported a resolution reversing Laud’s attempt to re-order English churches. Leveller and pamphleteer Richard Overton (fl.1640–1664) published his satirical poems attacking the bishops through their regalia.2 In both Lambeth Faire wherein you have all the Bishops Trinkets set to Sale (1641) and its extended sequel New Lambeth Fayre newly consecrated wherein all Romes Reliques are set at Sale (1642), the location of the imaginary Lambeth Fair draws attention to Overton’s critique of Laud, often derided as “the Pope of Lambeth.” Overton describes English bishops attempting to sell off their “Romish” gear before fleeing to Rome: Another comes as if his back would breake, Burthen’d with Vestures, and gan thus to speake, Trinckets I have good store, within my packe, […] Wherein are Miters, Caps rotund and square, The rar’st Episcopalls, that ere you see, Are in my pack, come pray you buy of me; […] Buy this brave Rochet, buy this curious Cope, The tippet, Scarfe, they all came from the Pope […].3

Why were these “rags of popery” such a concern, both for those who revered them and for those who reviled them?4 The centrality and acceptability of material expressions of belief varied sharply across the faith spectrum. Closely associated with the person of the priest and the celebration of the mass, vestments were a flash point for the expression of difference. Contrasting views of their material and immaterial importance led to dissension within the evolving—and conflicted—strands of the Church of England and distinctly different attitudes in repressed but resilient Roman 1 John Rushworth, “The Trial of William Laud,” in Historical Collections of Private Passages of State, ed. D. Browne (London: Browne, 1721), vol. 3, 1365–81; Lawrence Blaiklock et al., A Perfect Diurnall of Some Passages in Parliament, ed. Samuel Pecke ([London]: Coles and Blaikelock, 1643–1649), 339. 2 Lambeth Faire is anonymous while Richard Overton is named as the author of New Lambeth Fayre; Don M. Wolfe, “Unsigned Pamphlets of Richard Overton 1641–1649,” Huntington Library Quarterly 21, no. 2 (1958): 168. 3 Richard Overton, New Lambeth Fayre newly consecrated […] (London: O. and D., 1642), n.p. 4 The phrase comes from a published “letter” written by the cleric Edmund Elys (c.1633–1708), known for his tendency towards religious toleration, where he is summarising attacks by anti-papists such as William Prynne (1600–1669): “Being agitated with such furious Conceits, what Hellish Contempt have they shewn of our Sacred Liturgie! Away, they cry, with those Rags of Popery, those Scraps of Prayer!” Edmund Elys, The Second Epistle to the truly Religious and Loyal Gentry of the Church of England (London: n.p., 1687), 11.

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Catholic communities. Anti-Catholic legislation in England, starting about 1530 and continuing until the early nineteenth century, made the practice of the Roman Catholic faith political treason and religious apostasy. Those who practised the “old religion” did so in the knowledge they risked financial penalties, imprisonment, and, at certain points, death. This paper unpicks such a spectrum of attitudes, taking a thematic rather than chronological approach, examining how these highly formalised garments became disruptive signifiers of religious and political (dis)connections. Such ritual garb, I argue, became a material expression of a minority “social articulation of difference” which Bhabha positions as “a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation.”5 Freighted with conflicted values, vestments physically “fix[ed] cultural difference in a containable, visible object” at a time of religious flux.6 Their very cultural fluidity and ability to carry alternative meanings made vestments simultaneously a threat or a comfort, seen as emblems of deceit or continuity as they were rejected by reformers and claimed by believers who embraced their distinct and different allegiance to “the old faith” and refused to forget what they considered to be the vestments’ original and ongoing function and significance.

“See What Thy Soul Doth Wear”7 Vestments were (and remain) richly ambiguous. Like much religious material culture, they were important for their tangible and intangible qualities but were also highly atypical garments. Most people who were able, through social, cultural, and economic circumstances, to select their own clothes made choices which reinforced, communicated, and interpreted their identity, gender, sexuality, and, sometimes, religious and national allegiances. Def ined by their performative liturgical functions, vestments were ceremonial clothing whose function was not to reinforce individual identity but rather to subdue it. Vestments “were not made to enhance the priest, but rather to humiliate him […]. [O]nce vested in the raiment of the church he ceases to be himself, he ‘puts on Christ,’ speaking not in his own name but in that of the church.”8 From this perspective, vestments were transformative garments which functioned as metonyms for particular expressions of faith and 5 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 11. 6 Ibid., 59; for the power of transformative materiality in medieval devotion, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Christian Materiality: An Essay on Religion in Late Medieval Europe (New York: Zone Books, 2011). 7 George Herbert, The Temple (Cambridge: Buck and Daniel, 1633), 6. 8 Jerome Bertram, “Foreword,” in High Fashion in the Church, ed. Pauline Johnstone (Leeds: Maney, 2002), n.p.

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liturgical practice. The Puritan Anthony Gilby (c.1510–1585), vehemently against all vestments, summed up this identifying fusion of faith and dress: “Garmente giueth men great occasion to gesse what hee is.”9 A priest’s choice of vestments was often predetermined and governed by external circumstances. Many medieval parish churches possessed vestments so priests did not necessarily have to have their own.10 Donors paying a handsome sum might specify the materials and iconography for vestments destined for a specific church or chantry chapel, reflecting personal preferences for certain biblical stories or holy figures while sometimes recording their identity through an embroidered rebus or coat of arms. Fabric choices, too, reflected contemporary textile fashions as well as the donor’s desire to honour the church by selecting the most lavish materials available or bequeathing cherished personal clothing for re-use in the church. Luxurious materials were preferred, so velvets and satins with rich silk and metal thread embroidery dominated, although more austere fabrics such as linen were also used occasionally.11 The material could thus accrue both spiritual and social values, commending a donor’s soul to God while also embodying their status, although vestments seem to have been set outside the scope of sumptuary legislation aimed at articulating social difference through fabric choices.12 Richer ecclesiastics evidently owned personal vestments. Geoffrey le Scrope (d. January 1383), canon at Lincoln and York, possessed some expensive ones: “I bequeath to the church of the Blessed Mary of Oxford my best whole vestment of gold with orphrays of red velvet embroidered with golden lilies.”13 The question of ownership brings up the issue of fit. Vestments cover but do not conform to the body so may be easily transferred from one body type to 9 Anonymous [Anthony Gilby], A pleasant Dialogue, betweene a Souldior of Barwicke, and an English Chaplaine […] ([Middelburg?: R. Schilders?], 1581), n.p. Priests also came under suspicion for their use of various secular disguises, see Sarah Johanesen, “‘That Silken Priest’: Catholic Disguise and Anti-Popery on the English Mission (1569–1640),” Historical Research 93, no. 259 (2020): 38–52. 10 Maria Hayward, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 270. 11 For example, the majority of copes listed in the 1552 inventories of Kent churches were silk woven with gold or silver threads or silk damasks, satins, taffetas or velvets with only a few made of linen or linen blends. The Rev. Mackenzie et al., “Inventories of Parish Church Goods in Kent, A.D. 1552,” Archaeologia Cantiana 8 (1872): 74–163. 12 Henry VIII’s 1509 Act against Wearing of Costly Apparel (1 Henry VIII c 14) expressly excludes vestments: “Provided always that this Act be not prejudicial nor hurtful to any spiritual or temporal man in wearing any ornaments of the church in executing divine service.” Alexander Luders, ed., The Statutes of the Realm (London: Dawson, 1963 [1817]), vol. 3, 9. By the time of Elizabeth I’s sumptuary legislation, the circumstances of the English church were, of course, very different. 13 C. W. Foster, ed., “The Testament of Geoffrey Le Scrope,” in Lincoln Wills, ed. C. W. Foster (London: British Record Society, 1914), vol. 1, 1–19; Kate Heard, “‘Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On’: Textiles and the Medieval Chantry,” Journal of the British Archaeological Association 164, no. 1 (2011): 163–64.

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another, with adjustments for height. Although not fashionable garments in the usual understanding of the concept, there are clearly trends in the cut of vestments. Facilitated by the ease with which fabric can be cut and adapted, numerous medieval chasubles, once generous bell-shapes, have been narrowed into more functional “U” shapes or reshaped into the “fiddle” form fashionable in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Unexpected effects could result when material form triumphed over iconographic meaning. Reshaping of the Chichester-Constable chasuble (1330–1350) resulted in two embroidered saints losing their heads but the “off-cuts” were used to create new liturgical accessories—a stole and maniple.14 Vestments were worn for a reason. Consequently, the material takes on further immaterial resonances. Vestments were seen in movement in specific places and in specific ways during the performance of the liturgy, part of a multi-sensory experience fusing together sound (bells), smell (incense), and sight (the priest elevating the chalice when the congregation could glimpse the embroidery on the chasuble’s back). Specific prayers intensified the transformative ritual of putting on vestments, freighting them with spiritual significance through Christological equivalences. For example, the maniple was considered analogous to the ropes which bound Christ’s hands while he was scourged so the vesting prayer links it with weeping and sorrow and hence the burden of priestly office.15 Christ’s trial is fused with the life of the priest through the vestment.16 Unsurprisingly, such approaches were not endorsed by reformists; worship without vestments does not require vesting prayers. As anomalous garments, consecrated vestments experienced a different life trajectory to that of secular clothing. Specif ic principles governed the care of vestments and altar linens and—even more significantly—their disposal, at least in theory. Stains made by consecrated wine were not a defilement but added sanctity to the material. Such areas were to be excised, burnt, and the ashes placed in the sacristy, giving them the same status as relics.17 Worn-out altar linens were also to be burnt and their ashes flushed through the piscina, the same disposal 14 The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (MET), 27.162.1–3, chasuble (Opus Anglicanum), stole with saints and maniple, British, fourteenth century; Glyn Davies, “The Chichester-Constable Chasuble, Stole and Maniple,” in English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum, ed. Clare Browne, Glyn Davies, and Michael A. Michael (London: Yale University Press in association with the Victoria & Albert Museum, 2016), 218. 15 Dyan Elliott, “Dressing and Undressing the Clergy: Rites of Ordination and Degradation,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 59. 16 Stephen M. Holmes, Sacred Signs in Reformation Scotland: Interpreting Worship, 1488–1590 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 34–35. 17 Thomas M. Izbicki, “Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church,” in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, ed. Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2016), vol. 12, 51–52.

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route used for consecrated wine.18 Similarly, burning rather than secular re-use was the appropriate end for old vestments. The requirement to bury these ashes in the baptistry or elsewhere in the church where no one could walk over them highlights their metonymic function.19 Fusing the transforming garment and the body, priests could be buried in their vestments rather than shrouds. These might be the vestments worn when a Catholic priest was consecrated, as in the case of Thomas Beckett (1119/20–1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, or those which demonstrated his status, as in the case of Godfrey de Ludham (1258–1265), Archbishop of York, who was buried with his pallium and mitre.20 Secular practices of adaptation and re-use were evidently followed in parallel with these canonical “end of life” scenarios. Such valuable textiles were found new uses in domestic or theatrical contexts.21 More prosaically, embroidery might be unpicked to recover the gold threads.

Contesting Vestments Divisions between reformers, influenced by Continental Protestant thought and practices, and traditionalists in the evolving Church of England took a material turn, making conflicting beliefs visible in alternative practices.22 Any belief in sacred qualities ascribed to vestments was firmly suppressed in the Elizabethan Royal Articles and Injunctions (1559) which specified the “seemly habits, garments, and […] square caps” to be worn by all clergy: “not there by meaning to attribute any holiness or special worthiness to the said garments, but as St. Paul writeth: Omnia decenter et secundem.”23 Vestments previously used for celebrating mass were expressly forbidden: 18 Roberta Gilchrist, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2012), 180; Izbicki, “Linteamenta altaria,” 43, 47. 19 Izbicki, “Linteamenta altaria,” 47, 49, 57. 20 Roberta Gilchrist, “Transforming Medieval Beliefs: The Signif icance of Bodily Resurrection to Medieval Burial Rituals,” in Death and Changing Rituals, ed. J. Rasmus Brandt, Håkon Ingvaldsen, and Marina Prusac (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2014), 388; Kay B. Slocum, Liturgies in Honour of Thomas Becket (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 76; Donald King, “The Textiles,” in H. G. Ramm, “The Tombs of Archbishops Walter de Gray (1216–55) and Godfrey de Ludham (1258–65) in York Minster, and their Contents,” Archaeologia 103 (1971): 136. 21 Peter Heylyn, “To The Reader,” in Ecclesia Restaurata, ed. James Craigie Robertson (Cambridge: Ecclesiastical History Society, 1849 [1661]), 1, viii; Su-kyung Hwang, “From Priests’ to Actors’ Wardrobe: Controversial, Commercial, and Costumized Vestments,” Studies in Philology 113, no. 2 (2016): 290–96. 22 Calvin Lane, “Before Hooker: The Material Context of Elizabethan Prayer Book Worship,” Anglican and Episcopal History 74, no. 3 (2005): 326–31, 335–41. 23 Henry Gee and William J. Hardy, eds., Documents Illustrative of the English Church History (London: Macmillan, 1914 [1896]), 432.

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[T]he minister at the tyme of the Communion […] shall use neither albe, vestment, nor cope: but being archbishop or bishop, he shall have and wear a rochet; and being a preest or deacon, he shall have and wear a surplice onely.24

For most Elizabethan clergy, colour and iconography were proscribed and plain white linen preferred although even this was too rich a diet for some reforming English clerics whose reluctance was gleefully seized on by Catholic polemists.25 Two moments when men are dressed in clerical garments to make liturgical/ political points are selected here as indicators of how vestments functioned as signif iers. First, the examination of Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), one of the architects of the Reformation, under the Marian Roman Catholic regime.26 On 14 February 1556, Cranmer was ritually degraded, a process deeply informed by the sacred symbolism of vestments as it enacts a ritualistic reversal of their function in the making of a priest.27 Arriving at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Cranmer wore academic dress, appropriate as he was no longer Archbishop of Canterbury: “a faire blacke gowne, with his hoode on both shoulders, suche as Doctors of divinity in the University use to weare.”28 He was forcibly redressed in parody vestments made of inferior coarse fabric, probably plain weave linen or hemp, rather than silk brocades or velvets: actual “rags of popery.” John Foxe (1516/17–1587), evidently not a disinterested commentator, describes how Cranmer was vested first as a priest and then as Archbishop: [T]hey proceeding thereupon, to his degradation, first clothed and disguised him: putting on hym a surplis, and then an Aulbe: […] as a Priest ready to Masse […]. Then they inuested him in all manner of Robes of a Bishop and Archbishop, as he is at his installing, sauyng that as euery thing then is most riche and costly, so euerye thing in this was of Canvas and olde cloutes, with a Miter and a Pall of the same sute downe vppon hym in mockery.29 24 The Order for Morning and Evening Prayer, Book of Common Prayer (London: Richard Grafton, 1552), n.p. 25 Karl Gunther, Reformation Unbound: Protestant Visions of Reform in England, 1525–1590 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 189–217. It should be noted that not all Protestants were of the same mind. Others including German Anabaptists and, indeed, Luther himself favoured coloured vestments. See Ulinka Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 81–124. 26 Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996), 590–93. 27 Elliott, Dressing and Undressing, 64–66. For metaphor and metonymy in Cranmer’s degradation see Judith H. Anderson, Translating Investments: Metaphor and the Dynamic of Cultural Change in Tudor-Stuart England (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 78–111. 28 John Foxe, Actes and Monuments […] (London: Day, 1583), 1872. 29 Ibid., 1881.

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Cranmer was then reclothed in low-status secular garments, a “pore yeoman Bedles gowne, ful bare and nearely worne, and as euil fauouredly made […] and a townes mans cap on hys head.”30 This would have been doubly insulting, given Cranmer’s attitude to vestments. His understanding of the complex ironies in this redressing/ dressing down ritual is clear in his reported comment: “I had my selfe done wyth this geare long ago.”31 In one sense, this ritual devesting was irrelevant. Cranmer had long moved away from seeing vestments as possessing transformative spiritual power but the function of vestments as metonyms for the embodied church in the person of the priest was the entire point of the process as far as the presiding bishops were concerned. Immaterial beliefs took material forms in the vestarian conflicts of the Elizabethan Protestant regime, highlighting different attitudes to theological positions, church authority, and liturgical practices. The second moment is thus the day in 1566 when Archbishops Matthew Parker (1504–1575) and Edmund Grindal (c.1519–1583) staged a display of preferred vestments at Lambeth Palace. Working out how to deal with vestments in practice had proved difficult. Disagreements had resulted in ambiguous messages, giving Roman Catholics cause for misguided hope while infuriating reformers. Robert Cole (1527?–1577), minister at St Mary-le-Bow, found himself paraded in front of London clerics assembled at Lambeth Palace clad in Parker’s approved clerical garb: “a square cap, a scholar’s gown priestlike, a tippet […], and in the church a linen surplice,” not dissimilar to the academic clothes Cranmer wore arriving at Christ Church.32 The archetypal mass vestment—the chasuble—was nowhere to be seen. This was a double-edged episcopal strategy: Cole was being rebuked in front of his peers for his resistance to reformist clerical dress while those who refused to alter their habits—in both senses of the word—were threatened with deprivation. The implications of this clerical fashion parade were bitter and long-lasting.33 Gilby expresses almost visceral horror at the implications of these “dregges & remnants of transformid popery”: [T]hey can not thinke the worde of God safelye ynoughe preachid, & honorably inough handlyd, without cap, cope, surplus […]. God will vysit the werears of this Idolatours garmentes or strange aparell, […] rvuerence to the sacrame[n]t is wrought by doctrine and discipline, and not by popisshe & Idolatours garments.34 30 Ibid., 1883. 31 Ibid. 32 John Strype, History of the Life and Acts of Edmund Grindal […] (London: Hartley, 1710), 98. 33 Anglican aversion to “popish” vestments persisted and persists. Simon Goldhill, “When Things Matter: Religion and the Physical World,” in Simon Goldhill, The Buried Life of Things (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 51–63. 34 Anthony Gilby, To my lovynge Brethren that is troublyd abowt the Popishe Aparrell […] ([Emden: van der Erve, 1566]), n.p.

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Suspicion of vestments as, literally, agents of deceit is acted out to tragi-comic effect through the transforming effect of a “gown and beard” in Twelfth Night. Thus equipped by Maria, Feste can make Malvolio believe he is “Sir Topas the curate.” Feste himself, ever alive to disguise and transgression, reflects: “Well, I’ll put it on, and I will dissemble myself in’t, and I would I were the first that ever dissembled in such a gown.”35 To be effective, however, Feste’s mocking imitation of the curate depends on double vision: Malvolio believes Feste’s “dissembling” but the audience knows it to be “untrue.” Out of this donning of physical and verbal disguise comes the slippage, excess, and, above all, ambivalent difference which Bhabha argues is essential for mimicry.36

Material Resistance Such wildly divergent attitudes to vestments illuminate both the eventual retreat of the Church of England into black and white clerical garb and the devotion shown by English Roman Catholics to sustaining their repressed faith through traditional mass accoutrements. Those whose beliefs led them to refuse to attend Church of England services did so in the knowledge that this, and the possession of the material culture of the mass, could result in financial penalties, imprisonment, and death. Application of the law varied over time, influenced by class, locale, and gender. A spectrum of refusal strategies emerged, from “church papists” to clandestine networks.37 For the latter, worship was relocated, taking place in covert chapels in gentry homes, in barns or even outdoors.38 Massing equipment became an intense focus of interest for clandestine communities of faith and for those seeking to enforce legal conformity. Vestments were literally the material fabric of resistance and could become potent signifiers of Catholicism. As recusants sought to worship correctly in unfamiliar contexts, it became vital to know what was necessary and then obtain and retain appropriate massing gear. Tricky questions emerged. Was it, for example, 35 William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night: The New Shakespeare, ed. Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 68, [IV, I, 1–6]. In a paper exploring ideas of transformation in Twelfth Night Dean argues that the Feste/Topas figure may be “a dig at Cranmer”; Paul Dean, “Nothing that Is So Is So: Twelfth Night and Transubstantiation,” Literature and Theology 17, no. 3 (2003): 287. 36 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 86. 37 Alexandra Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993). 38 Lisa McClain, “Without Church, Cathedral, or Shrine: The Search for Religious Space among Catholics in England, 1559–1625,” Sixteenth Century Journal 33, no. 2 (2002): 381–99.

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a mortal sin for a priest to celebrate mass without vestments? Must those vestments be consecrated? William Allen (1532–1594) and Robert Parsons (aka Persons, 1546–1610), who trained priests for the English mission in continental seminaries, provided guidance which was a judicious balance of realism and optimism. Celebrating mass without appropriate vestments would be a mortal sin but, given the lack of Bishops to perform such blessings, unconsecrated vestments could be used: [I]t is hardly very difficult to obtain such clothes. Provided therefore that the priest is wearing sacerdotal vestments—that is, the alb, amice, stole, maniple and chasuble—even if they are not blessed, then I think that he does not sin in England where there are such great problems.39

In fact, obtaining such vestments was a problem which required considerable ingenuity, commitment, and no small degree of courage. One obvious source was older vestments which had survived the Reformation or changed hands during the sales under Edward VI’s (1537–1553) Commissioners. These had the advantage of having been consecrated appropriately as well as being a physical assertion of the continuity of the Catholic faith. “Two crimson copes left by the ancestors of the house, worth £100” were confiscated from the Catholic Vaux family in 1612.40 Sir John Towneley (1473–1541) acquired some fifteenth-century mass vestments from Whalley Abbey, possibly the set listed in the inventory taken at the Abbey’s dissolution (Fig. 8.1).41 The replacement seventeenth-century lining suggests the vestments were refurbished for use by “missioner” priests sent from Europe when they were celebrating mass in Towneley Hall’s illegal chapel.42 Alternatively, priests might smuggle their massing equipment into England and take it with them on their travels. Thomas Trollopp (dates unknown), 43 accompanying the seminary priest Bernard Pattenson (dates 39 The Allen-Persons Cases in P. J. Holmes, Elizabethan Casuistry (London: Catholic Record Society, 1981), 81–82. 40 Godfrey Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, a Recusant Family (Newport, Mons: Johns, 1553), 460. 41 Lisa Monnas, “Opus Anglicanum and Renaissance Velvet: The Whalley Abbey Vestments,” Textile History 25, no. 1 (1994): 3. These vestments are now at Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Burnley, T141.1974; T142.1974 and the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 29.2. 42 Clare Browne and Michaela Zöschg, “Chasuble and Two Dalmatics (the Whalley Abbey Vestments),” in Browne et al., English Medieval Embroidery, 253. 43 Presumably a member of the Trollope family of Kelloe, County Durham who were well-known recusants. Thomas Trollope was arrested in 1586 for the offence of “conveying a priest called Bernard Pattyson” but, most unusually, twice pardoned. Pattison escaped from York Castle but Trollope was still in Durham jail in 1579; see John Morris, ed., The Troubles of Our Catholic Forefathers Related by Themselves. Third Series (London: Burns and Oates, 1877), 188; Barbara N. Wilson, “The Changes of the Reformation Period in Durham and Northumberland” (PhD thesis, Durham University, 1939), 538.

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Figure 8.1  Whalley Abbey chasuble, back. Burnley, Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery. Photograph courtesy of Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery.

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unknown), 44 is reported to have “carried in a cloke bagge on his horse behind him the priests massing vestments books &c.”45 As Catholic networks became more organised, gentry houses were able to provide—and hide—the necessary vestments. Yet again, priests were wearing liturgical garments which they did not own. Although used in covert chapels in secluded safe houses—always with a listening ear for the arrival of state’s searchers—these vestments could be remarkably elaborate. The Jesuit John Gerard (1564–1637) described the chapel at Harrowden Hall, an important safe house during his mission, which belonged to the Vaux family: a beautifully furnished altar with Mass vestments laid out beside it […] both plentiful and costly. We had two sets for each colour which the Church uses; one for ordinary use, the other for feast days: some of these latter were embroidered with gold and pearls, and figured by well-skilled hands. 46

An inventory of the vestments owned by Eleanor Brooksby (née Vaux, c.1560–1625) and Anne Vaux (c.1562–c.1637) includes an expensive cloth of gold cope and chasubles, an embroidered silver chasuble, and other purple vestments. 47 Were these imported vestments or were the “well-skilled hands” who made them English? Gerard had a track record of encouraging the women of the families with whom he stayed to make vestments. Those which Jane Wiseman (d.1610) made were so much admired that more were requested: “Mr. Metham and Father Edmonds would buy as much satin as would make a vestment for the accomplishment of a suit for principal feasts.”48 Another devout Catholic woman made “severall whole suits [of vestments] ech of severall colours, to comply with the Rubrickes” with the specific goal of equipping an English Jesuit seminary. 49 Helena Wintour (c.1600–1671) is renowned for her intricately embroidered vestments, rich with explicit Catholic and personal iconography.50 In marked contrast to these elaborate vestments, a number 44 This may be the priest Bernard Pattison who was arrested with Trollope apparently having travelled from Rheims to Newcastle. In 1593, he was listed as “one of the priests in the north” and in 1698 is recorded as having said mass for Lady Katherine Grey, daughter of the Earl of Westmorland; see Rosamund Oates, “Catholicism, Conformity and the Community in the Elizabethan Diocese of Durham,” Northern History 43, no. 1 (2006): 62. 45 John H. Pollen, ed., Unpublished Documents relating to the English Martyrs (London: Catholic Record Society, 1908), 1, 219–20. 46 John Gerard, Autobiography of an Elizabethan, ed. Philip Caraman (London: Longmans and Green, 1956), 383. 47 Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden, 386. 48 John Morris, The Life of Father John Gerard (London: Burns and Oates, 1881), 86. 49 Stonyhurst College, MSS A. I-22, no. I, letter from Father George Grey to his Provincial, 17 November 1668. 50 Wintour’s vestments are at Stonyhurst College and Douai Abbey. Janet Graffius, Plots and Spangles: The Embroidered Vestments of Helena Wintour (Stonyhurst: St Omer’s Press, 2015).

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Figure 8.2  Chasuble associated with the Duke of Norfolk; rose-pink outer face and brown-black inner face (UCI.645). Photograph courtesy of the trustees of Ushaw Historic House, Chapels & Gardens.

of austere chasubles survive, in unusually plain fabrics and ornamented only with outline or solid crosses, usually with strong recusant associations.51 These typically reverse to a dark colour, making them multi-functional. One such rose-pink/dark brown-black set was found in the priest hole of a building owned by the Catholic Duke of Norfolk (Fig. 8.2).52 Unusually, the pink face is polished wool rather than silk. Some medieval vestments were made from wool worsted but the fabric of this chasuble might have been chosen for its hardwearing properties or simply because it was the only cloth available. Dress fabrics, used for the flowered damask chasuble found in the Stamlesbury Hall chest, and non-traditional techniques, such as the quilted vestments at Traquair, Peeblesshire, were used.53 Vestments made from commonplace fabrics served the essential transformative purpose and might also 51 Examples linked to the Jesuit priest Edmund Arrowsmith (1585–1628) survive from Upholland, Brindle, and Stamlesbury Hall in Lancashire. Maurice Whitehead, Held in Trust: 2008 Years of Sacred Culture (Stonyhurst: St Omers Press, 2008), 70. 52 Mary M. Brooks and Claire Marsland, “A Hidden Faith: Recusant Liturgical Objects,” in James Kelly, ed., Treasures of Ushaw College (London: Scala Arts, 2015), 90, 92–93. 53 Whitehead, Held in Trust, 70; Margaret Swain, “Vestments at Traquair,” Bulletin du CIETA 72 (1994): 48–59.

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be more readily concealed amongst everyday clothing and domestic textiles. Lively and varied expressions of materialised faith with distinct and inventive aesthetics evolved in response to the oppression of the penal period.

“Garments of the Balamites”54 These vestments also need to be understood from the opposite perspective—the contempt and suspicion which they aroused in the pursuivants searching for clandestine Roman Catholics and their massing gear. Vestments are threaded through their accounts of arrested priests and recusant houses. They are glimpsed in trunks, recovered from bundles under beds, pulled out of packs, reviled but rarely described in any detail as if this would be too strong and too risky an engagement. Perversely, the opprobrium poured at vestments by those who professed to loathe them serves to underline their significance. If vestments were meaningless, they would hardly generate such profound distaste and emotion. Margaret Aston notes “the currency of dismissive words” used in descriptions of church goods for sale.55 James Kearney and David Kaula analysed similar language used in describing the material culture of the mass.56 As in Overton’s New Lambeth Fayre, reductive terms such as “knacks” and “trumpery” abound. Hugh Hilarie’s satirical The Resurrection of the Masse: The Masse Speaketh (1554) derides “copes, vestements, albes” as “trynckettes” and “ragges […] brought out of their popish poke.”57 This language is mild in comparison to that of A View of Popish Abuses yet remaining in English Churches (1572) which attacks not just “ministers […] attired in pretious and Bishoppelike, yea, and Emperourelike garments” but even the more sober “cap, gowne, tippets” as “popish and Antichristian apparel,” the “garments of the Balamites, popish priestes, […] enemies to God and all Christians.”58 Such vestments possessed an evil and corrupting agency as “they worke discorde […] hinder the preachyng of the Gospel 54 The extreme Puritan clergyman, John Fielde (aka Field, 1545–1588) published this critique anonymously together with Thomas Wilcox’s (1549?–1608) equally vehement “Admonition to Parliament,” under the overall title of the latter work but edited, also anonymously, by Fielde; following publication, both clergymen were imprisoned; Anonymous [John Fielde], “A View of Popishe Abuses yet remayning in the Englishe Church,” in An Admonition to the Parliament ([Hemel Hempstead?: Stroud?], 1572), n.p. 55 Margaret Aston, Broken Idols of the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 230. 56 James Kearney, “Trinket, Idol, Fetish: Some Notes on Iconoclasm and the Language of Material in Reformation England,” Shakespeare Studies 28 (2000): 257–61; David Kaula, “Autolycus’ Trumpery,” Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 16, no. 2 (1976): 287–303. 57 Hugh Hilarie [?], The Resurreccion of the Masse: The Masse Speaketh (Strasburgh: [J. Lambrecht? for H. Singleton], 1554), n.p. 58 Fielde, “Popishe Abuses.”

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[…] bring the ministreie into contempt […] offend the weake” and “encourage the obstinate.”59 Rejecting vestments indicated more than a difference of opinion over ceremony or aesthetics; it signalled a profound difference in faith expressed through the materiality of the practice of worship.

“The Defacing of All Papistrie”60 The treatment of these suspect vestments is significant. In Stowe, Lincolnshire, in 1566, the churchwardens reported on the movement of a set of vestments under the switchback of changes between the Edwardian, Marian, and Elizabethan churches: Itm one cope one albe and one vestment wch was lent to or churche by Johnne hirst of the same pishe [parish] of Stav in queen maries daies and at the defacing of all papistrie he had yt againe and haith defaced the same. Let the churchwardes see yt defaced.61

Whatever form this defacement took—removing the head of a sacred figure, unpicking the whole motif, or cutting off pictorial embroidered orphreys—it is clear that reporting alone was not enough; the churchwardens needed to see the required physical changes had been made to the material with their own eyes. Hirst owned these vestments and was willing to lend them to the church under the Marian regime and then retrieve them, suggesting he may have been a covert Roman Catholic. Other churchwardens secreted their vestments, possibly against another switch in the liturgical whirligig. In 1570, churchwardens at Steep, Hampshire, were ordered to cut up the “papistical vestments” they had concealed and re-use the material in the church.62 Changed attitudes to the English cult of the Virgin could be expressed through defacement of her image. It was no accident that John Clotworthy (d.1665) destroyed the faces of Christ and Mary first when attacking Ruben’s Crucifixion in Queen Henrietta-Maria’s “papist” chapel in 1643.63 Destroying heads and hands ensures

59 Ibid. 60 Edward Peacock, ed., English Church Furniture, Ornaments and Decorations […] (London: Hotten, 1866), 147. 61 Ibid., 147, italics in the original. 62 John E. Paul, “Hampshire Recusants in the Time of Elizabeth I,” Proceedings of The Hampshire Field Club 21, Pt. 2 (1959): 68. 63 Albert J. Loomie, “The Destruction of Rubens’s ‘Crucifixion’ in the Queen’s Chapel, Somerset House,” Burlington Magazine 140, no. 1147 (1998): 680.

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Figure 8.3  Green velvet fragment with the outline of an appliqué motif of Virgin and Child surrounded by an embroidered nimbus. Church’s name withheld by request.

the “death” of a representation.64 Some embroidered images were similarly defaced. Removal of an overlying repair fabric revealed defacement of the Virgin’s head on the Sadler’s Company’s funeral pall (c.1508): “rather than destroy a valuable textile by ripping out part of the fabric, compliance was achieved by ruining the image itself.”65 X-radiography of the Auckland frontal, itself constructed from cut-up vestments, revealed a missing motif of Mary with an apparently deliberate jagged cut through the underlying fabric.66 A green velvet fragment bearing the outline of a Virgin and Child appliqué also survives along with the detached motif itself; this was remounted on a medieval orphrey in the twentieth century (Fig. 8.3). The preservation of such fragments suggests that Diarmaid MacCulloch’s observation that defacement gave rise to “a new genre of Roman Catholic Marian devotion […] 64 C. Pamela Graves, “From an Archaeology of Iconoclasm to an Anthropology of the Body,” Current Anthropology 49, no. 1 (2008): 37–39. 65 Beryl Dean, Embroidery in Religion and Ceremonial (London: Batsford, 1985), 21. 66 Mary M. Brooks et al., “Fragments of Faith: Unpicking Archbishop John Morton’s Vestments,” The Antiquaries Journal 100 (2020): 293–95.

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battered Marys” could also be applied to textile images; as Joseph Koerner notes “image breakers become image makers.”67

Conclusions Dressing the clergy was not—and still is not—a matter of aesthetics or convenience: it was—and remains—a fundamental expression of belief. This places the material artefact at the centre of experiences of faith practice, both overt and covert. Concealment, alterations, and defacement demonstrate the fusion of belief and resistance embedded in the material artefact. Vestments could be charged and recharged with theological, political, and liturgical agency. Such shared material culture sustained the spiritual identity of covert faith communities but also excited the attention of opposing forces and the opprobrium of reformers. Preserving or destroying vestments defines, includes, and excludes but, above all, demonstrates the force of their agency in negotiating the politics of identity and difference in the religiously contested landscape of early modern England.

About the Author Mary M. Brooks is an Associate Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. Trained at the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC), Hampton Court Palace/ Courtauld Institute, she undertook conservation and curatorial roles in America and England before returning to the TCC as Head of Studies and Research. Research interests include seventeenth-century embroideries, vestments and sacred textiles, using X-radiography to understand textiles and dress and regenerated protein fibres. She is particularly interested in applying object-based research and conservation approaches in the interpretation of cultural artefacts.

67 Diarmaid MacCulloch, All Things Made New ([London]: Allen Lane, 2016), 39; Joseph Koerner, “Icon as Iconoclash,” in Iconoclash, ed. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (Karlsruhe: ZKM, 2002), 164.

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Part III Identity Effects In-Between the Local and the Global

9. Globalising Iberian Moorishness Japanese Visitors, Chinese Textiles, and Imperial Cultural Identity Javier Irigoyen-García Abstract This chapter examines the role of textiles in the globally staged “game of canes,” an equestrian mock battle in which participants, dressed as “Moors,” throw spears at each other. More specifically, the chapter charts the role of textiles in establishing what Bhabha calls ambivalent “identity effects”—once textiles circulated across the Iberian world, and with them notions of imperial identities, the politics of identification themselves got dynamised within specific local settings. The use of textiles for the globalisation of Iberian notions of Moorishness, this chapter argues, produced conflicting “identity effects” on a local level. Keywords: game of canes; racial regimes; identity politics; Spanish Empire

Introduction A 1632 letter from Manila reports the organisation of festivals in celebration of the birth of prince Baltasar Carlos (1629–1646) emphasising that “there was a game of canes, which is no small feat in the Philippines.”1 The author of the letter praises the ability to preserve equestrian cultural practices originally from the metropolis in such a distant place, even if the conditions present were not ideal. Yet, of all similar instances coming from the margins of the Spanish Empire, the case of the Philippines is significant because this outpost, despite having difficulties in organising games of canes, actually had a dramatic impact on how aristocratic equestrian culture developed in the rest of the Spanish Empire. As this chapter will show, the Philippines was both the symbolic outpost of Spanish expansion toward 1 Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI), Filipinas, 8, R.1, N.19: “Ubo cañas, que en Filipinas no llega a ser poca azaña.”

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch09

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East Asia and the main hub from which Chinese silks were exported for their use of Moorish clothing for the game of canes. It is in this material context, I argue, that Iberian Moorishness emerges as an ambivalent sign of cultural difference and identity, both within the Spanish Empire and in regard to its colonial experiences. As Homi Bhabha holds, “cultural difference is the process of the enunciation of culture as ‘knowledgeable,’ authoritative, adequate to the construction of systems of cultural identification. […] [C]ultural difference is a process of signification through which statements of culture or on culture differentiate, discriminate and authorize the production of fields of force, reference, applicability and capacity.”2 In what follows, I chart the role of textiles in establishing what Bhabha calls ambivalent “identity effects”—once textiles circulated across the Iberian world, and with them notions of imperial identities, the politics of identification themselves got dynamised within specific local settings. The use of textiles for the globalisation of Iberian notions of Moorishness, I argue, produced conflicting “identity effects” on a local level.3

The Enunciation of Cultural Difference in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Games of Canes: Exporting Moorishness and Iberianness The game of canes ( juego de cañas) is an equestrian mock battle in which participants throw spears at each other. Riders mount in the gineta style, which required the use of shorter stirrups and therefore allowed for quick manoeuvring of the horse. Even though we call it a “game,” it is not properly a competition in the modern sense, as there is no scoring system, but rather a choreography to display gallantry. Most typically, all the sides in these equestrian mock battles are dressed up as “Moors.” The Moorish clothing for the game of canes was not a theatrically oriented costume, but a highly codified dress etiquette consisting of several garments: the adarga, which is the leather shield; the manga, literally “the sleeve,” in singular, since the right sleeve holding the reed is usually lavishly decorated, while the left arm holding the shield is invisible, and therefore participants did not invest any effort in decorating it; the capellar, a hooded cloak; and the marlota, which we can define as a Moorish tunic; and, of course, the turban (Fig. 9.1). 4 2 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 50, italics in original. 3 Ibid., 128–29, 158–59. 4 On the game of canes, see Barbara Fuchs, Exotic Nation: Maurophilia and the Construction of Early Modern Spain (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 89–91, 101–2; Noel Fallows, Jousting in Medieval and Renaissance Iberia (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010), 267–304; Javier Irigoyen-García, Moors

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Figure 9.1 Anonymous, “Haist el Schvgo de Kainna” [It is called the Game of Canes]. Códice de trajes, 1r. Courtesy Biblioteca Nacional de España, RES/285.

There are several particularities of the Moorish clothing used by Christians that explains its social currency. In principle, the Moorish clothing was a set of garments that were supposed to be used only for this ceremony and was costly enough to mark the social standing of its wearer. Yet it was cheaper to obtain than the armour used in jousts, thus allowing for the inclusion of a larger spectrum of socio-economic classes to participate in these ceremonies than in jousting, which was accessible only to those of elite means and status. There was also a well-established practice Dressed as Moors: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 27–72.

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of making Moorish clothing intentionally reusable to incorporate those garments to everyday life, which is attested to in two tailoring books published in the 1580s. The Madrid tailor Juan de Alcega’s Libro de geometría, práctica y traza (1580) offers a pattern to make a marlota for the game of canes, remarking that “one can make a skirt out of this marlota.”5 Therefore, Moorish clothing was clearly understood to be a commodity with an intrinsic exchange value—a luxurious garment that, once exhibited in the public arena of the festival, was intended to be transformed into daily wear. Beyond the socio-economic aspect, the game of canes also served as a diplomatic conduit to celebrate royal entrances all around Europe, such as at the imperial coronation of Charles V (1500–1558) in Bologna in 1529,6 and for his entrance in Brussels (1554)7, the entrance of Prince Philip (1527–1598) in Ghent in 1549,8 or his marriage (now as Phillip II) to Mary Tudor (1516–1558) in London in 1554.9 As Barbara Fuchs shows, these types of celebrations appropriate Moorishness to represent Spanishness abroad.10 The game of canes was also transported by all Iberian empires as part of the coloniser’s “culture” beyond Europe. Castile exported it to the New World, and to the most remote colonies, including the Philippines.11 Since the game of canes was also common in Portugal, it could be found in Portuguese colonies as well. For instance, the festivals held in Brazil to commemorate the acclamation of

5 Juan de Alcega, Libro de geometría, pratica, y traça (Madrid: Drouy, 1580), fols. 51r–52v: “puedese hazer una basquiña desta marlota.” A later tailoring book is very explicit about how to sew the marlota so it could be easily turned into a skirt by not finishing the seams, Diego de Freyle’s Geometría y traça para el oficio de los sastres (Seville: Díaz, 1588), fol. 20r. 6 Alfonso de Ulloa, La vita dell’invitissimo imperator Carlo quinto (Venice: Valgrisi, 1560), 246; Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crónica del emperador Carlos V, ed. Ricardo Beltrán y Rózpide and Antonio Blázquez y Delgado-Aguilera (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1920–1925), vol. 3, 79. 7 Anonymous, Li gran trionphi et feste fatte alla corte de la Cesarea Maesta, per la pace fatta tra sua Maesta et il Re Christianissimo (n.p.: n.p., 1554), 4. 8 Juan C. Calvete de Estrella, El felicíssimo viaje del muy alto y muy poderoso don Phelippe, ed. Paloma Cuenca (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001), 75–77, 202–4. 9 Anonymous, “Carta cuarta de nuevas de Inglaterra,” in Viaje de Felipe Segundo a Inglaterra por Andrés Muñoz y relaciones varias relativas al mismo suceso, ed. Pascual Gayangos (Madrid: Sociedad de Bibliófilos Españoles, 1877), 138–39; anonymous, Narratione particolare del parlamento d’Inghilterra, et in che modo e uenuto quel popolo all’ubbudienza di Santa Chiesa […] et appresso le feste, et giuoco delle canne, che si e fatto per allegrezza di tal nuoua (Venice: n.p., 1555), 1–5 (second pagination). 10 Fuchs, Exotic Nation, 94–102. 11 For the game of canes in the New World, see Ángel López Cantos, Juegos, fiestas y diversiones en la América española (Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992), 173–83; Agustín Zapata Gollán, Juegos y diversiones públicas (Santa Fe, Argentina: Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, 1972), 34–36; Max Harris, Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals of Reconquest in Mexico and Spain (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), 122–69. For the Philippines, see José Sánchez Garrigós, ed., Toros y cañas en Filipinas en 1623 (Barcelona: El Siglo XX, 1903).

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João IV (1604–1656) of Portugal in 1641 included games of canes, and other Portuguese colonies such as Madeira, Goa, and Malacca also display similar evidence.12 The cultural relevance that the game of canes had across the Iberian empires explains why it was usually deployed as a conceptual frame to find cultural similarities with the people Spaniards and Portuguese encountered during imperial expansion. Duarte Barbosa (1480–1521) praises the equestrian abilities of the inhabitants of Gujarat and points out that “they are so dexterous in their saddle, that while they are riding their horses they play with some clubs, with which they hit a ball, which is similar to another game they use in Spain, the game of canes.”13 Hernán Ruiz de Villegas (1510–1572), in his Tratado de la cauallería a la gineta (c.1567–1572), comments on Odoardo’s passage, speculating that this similarity can only be explained because of Iberian cultural influence.14 Ruiz de Villegas’s comment is a classic instance of imperial cultural arrogance, but it also reveals how Iberians considered this equestrian exercise as a unique feature of their identity. According to Iberians, the game of canes inspired admiration in European audiences, who regarded them as an exotic spectacle. The effect of admiration on foreigners is clearly mediated by Iberians themselves. This is especially true in those cases in which the effect is conveyed by Iberian authors, such as Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella (c.1510–1593), who reports that the game of canes in Ghent in 1549 was received “with great happiness and admiration from everyone in that town […] because it was so new for them, who do not use it and see it only very rarely.”15 On the game of canes held in London in 1554, an anonymous correspondent stated that “it pleased everyone because it was something that had never been seen in London.”16 Tomé Pinheiro da Veiga (1566–1656) reports that, on the occasion of one game of canes held in Valladolid in 1605, “the Englishmen were very excited, because they do not use these kinds 12 Anonymous, Relaçam da aclamaçam que se fez na capitania do Rio de Janeiro (Lisbon: Rodrigues, 1641), fol. 7v; António Aragão, A Madeira vista por estrangeiros (1455–1700) (Funchal: Secretaria Regional da Educação e Cultura, 1981); Carlos Pereira, Naissance et renaissance de l’équitation portugaise: Du XVe au XVIIIe siècle d’après l’étude des textes fondateurs (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010), 354; Manuel de Meneses, Chrónica do muito alto e muito esclarecido príncipe D. Sebastião (Lisbon: Officina Ferreyriana, 1730), 335. 13 Duarte Barbosa, “Libro di Odoardo Barbosa delle Indie Orientali,” in Delle navigationi et viaggi, ed. Giovanni B. Ramusio (Venice: Giunti, 1563), vol. 1, fol. 296r: “E son sì adestrati nelle selle, che a cavallo correndo giocano con certi bastoni, con i quali danno ad una palla, o simil altro giuoco; usano ancho, come in Spagna, il giuoco delle canne.” 14 Hernán Ruiz de Villegas, Tratado de caualleria a la gineta (1569–1572), ed. Valentín Moreno Gallego (Madrid: Unión de Bibliófilos Taurinos, 2012), 120: “yo me haría muy marauillado si nuestros españoles no huuieran passado allá, de quienes a lo que yo creo lo debieron aprender.” 15 Calvete de Estrella, El felicíssimo viaje, 204: “con gran contentamiento y admiración de todos los de aquella villa […] por ser para ellos cosa tan nueva y que no lo usan y pocas vezes lo veen.” 16 Anonymous, “Carta cuarta,” 139: “a todos paresció bien por ser cosa que no se auia visto en Londres.”

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of festivals over there.”17 Andrés de Almansa y Mendoza (d.1627?), describing the festivals held for the visit of the Prince of Wales in 1623, which included a game of canes, comments that they are “things rarely seen if ever by the English people.”18 By the end of the seventeenth century, Antonio Luis Ribero’s El espejo del cavallero en ambas sillas (1671) still holds that one of the utilities of the gineta is “to cause wonder in the foreign nations in the games of canes and bullfights.”19 Thus Iberians themselves emphasised their own displays of Moorishness as unique, taking as a source of pride a cultural practice that was considered Moorish, while Iberians were simultaneously conducting a seemingly contradictory process of ethnic and cultural cleansing of their Islamic legacy.20

Staging Cultural Identity through the Game of Canes: Framing Iberia for East Asian Visitors Iberian anxieties about the game’s foreign perception can be observed for the arrival of the Japanese embassy to the peninsula in 1584/85, for which games of canes were held in several locations on their itinerary, such as Vila Viçosa, Murcia, and Orihuela.21 There were also games of canes for the second Japanese embassy (1613–1615), this time at least once in Puebla (Mexico).22 On the different journeys of the Japanese ambassadors, the game of canes served as a homogenising cultural practice that wove together the heterogeneity of the empire’s multitude of kingdoms and territories. Japanese encounters with Iberian equestrian performances also turned into a rhetorical space to elaborate different visions of cultural identity in 17 Tomé Pinhero da Veiga, Fastigimia, ed. José Pereira de Sampaio (Porto: Biblioteca Municipal do Porto, 1911), 117: “os Inglezes estavam muy alvoroçados, por serem festas que lá não uzam.” 18 Andrés de Almansa y Mendoza, Obra periodística, ed. Henry Ettinghausen and Manuel Borrego (Madrid: Castalia, 2001), 270: “cosas pocas veces o nunca vistas de la nación inglesa.” 19 Antonio L. Ribero, El espejo del cavallero en ambas sillas (Madrid: n.p., 1671), 7–8: “admirar las naciones Estrangeras en los juegos de Cañas y Toros.” 20 Even more strikingly, game of canes participants often sought the approval of an imagined Muslim gaze. See Javier Irigoyen-García, “La mirada musulmana sobre la cultura festiva de la España de los siglos XVI y XVII,” Sharq-al-Andalus 22 (2017/2018): 237–54. 21 Luís Fróis, La première ambassade du Japon en Europe, 1582–1592: Première partie, le traité du père Fróis, ed. J. A. Abranches Pinto, Yoshitomo Okamoto, and Henri Bernard (Tokyo: Sophia University, 1942), 52, 121; Duarte Sande, De missione legatorum Iaponesium (Macao: Societatis Iesu, 1590), 185, 211, 212. See also the English translation by J. F. Moran: Derek Massarella, ed., Japanese Travellers in Sixteenth-Century Europe: A Dialogue Concerning the Mission of the Japanese Ambassadors to the Roman Curia (1590) (London: Ashgate, 2012), 229, 253; Luis de Guzmán, Historia de las missiones que han hecho los religiosos de la compañía de Jesús […] en los Reynos de Japón (Alcalá: Gracián, 1601), vol. 2, 234, 242–43. 22 Masamune Date, Historia de la embajada de Idate Masamune al papa Paulo V (1613–1615), por el doctor Escipión Amati, ed. José Koichi Oizumi and Juan Gil (Madrid: Doce Calles, 2011), 75.

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the various accounts written to document their visits. Duarte Sande (1531–1600), under the guidance of Alessandro Valignano (1539–1606), the Visitor of the Jesuit mission in Japan, composed De missione legatorum Iaponesium (1590), which sought to generate financial support for the mission. This work is written as a humanist dialogue in which one of the Japanese ambassadors who converted to Christianity describes his travel to Europe to his fellow comrades back in Japan. Chapter XI, entitled “About the Agreeable and Honourable Exercises in which the Nobles of Europe Engage, and of the Noble Education of Their Children,” deals with European equestrian performances and opens with a description of the joust: “the most notable events, and they are very famous, are those commonly known as jousts, in which mail-clad horsemen take the Veld with lance in one hand, shield in the other.”23 This chapter’s protagonists go on to discuss the dangers of the joust and the armour in detail, and only observe by the end of this section that there are other equestrian exercises, mentioning the game of canes in passing as a variant of the tournament: “Sometimes the contest is fought out with canes and oranges and balls made of mud, and here too, in the same way, attacks, flight, dodging, retreating, and other similar moves provide wonderful entertainments.”24 While the text clearly gestures to the game of canes, it is notable that an Iberian author filters the voice of the Japanese observer to mention it only incidentally. This imbalanced description gives too much attention to the joust while downplaying the game of canes, when in fact, by the second half of the sixteenth century, the celebrations of games of canes largely outnumbered jousts—both in Castile and Portugal. As the account of the journey itself reveals, what the Japanese embassy actually witnessed were only games of canes and the germane juego de alcancías.25 Arguably, this passage presents an Italian perspective, since, while Sande was Portuguese, he was translating the notes in Latin provided to him by the Italian Valignano. Another Portuguese author, Luís Fróis (1532–1597), provides a very different perspective on the equestrian spectacles witnessed by these Japanese ambassadors. When talking about the visit to Vila Viçosa, Fróis, who also claims to be transcribing the notes taken by the Japanese emissaries, says that during the welcome festivals “at the end they played the game of canes, which they very much enjoyed seeing, because it is not used in Japan.”26 The conventional phrasing, which, as we have 23 I follow Massarella, Japanese Travellers, 150. For the Latin original, see Sande, De missione, 105–6. In the English translation, I replaced “tournaments” with “jousts,” which is properly speaking the exercise described here, because even if tournaments and jousts have become almost synonymous in our current vocabulary, they were neatly differentiated in early modern Europe. 24 Massarella, Japanese Travellers, 151. 25 Sande, De missione, 185, 211–12. 26 Fróis, La première ambassade, 52: “e por derradeiro jugarão as canas, o que elles folgarão muito de ver, por ser couza desacostumada em Japão.”

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seen, is identical to similar comments about the alleged reactions of European observers of this game, indicates that Fróis was filtering the Japanese testimony through the expectations that Iberians already had about their own equestrian culture. Furthermore, Fróis “Iberianises” the alleged impact that the visit may have had among the Japanese, since, contrary to Sande’s focus on jousting, he mentions only the game of canes as the object of the foreign gaze’s admiration. The Japanese voice is strongly mediated in all these instances. It is therefore impossible to gauge the “real” impression of these Iberian equestrian performances and the use of Moorish clothing on the Japanese ambassadors. What these texts reveal, however, is the extent to which Iberian authors deployed the rhetorical perspective of Asian visitors to claim, deploy, and stage an Iberian model of cultural identity. All these instances show that increasingly mercantile and imperial contacts with East Asia impacted the way Iberians conceived of the game of canes as a vehicle to grant both cultural consistency to their empires and to cement their own concept of cultural identity. Yet, it is not merely an issue of how globalised gazes affected the Iberian Peninsula’s sense of cultural identity. The years between both Japanese embassies, at the turn of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, also represented the moment at which trade with East Asia was leaving a clear imprint on Iberian cultural practices, most notably, in the use of Chinese silk fabrics for the Moorish dress of the game of canes, as I analyse in the next section.

Silk Textiles and Mexican Moorish Clothing It was not always easy to facilitate the performance of games of canes in distant, precarious colonies. As we have seen at the beginning of this chapter, a 1632 letter from Manila reported that the organisation of games of canes was “no small feat in the Philippines.”27 Similarly, the council of Guadalajara, Mexico, wrote a letter to Philip II describing the festivals organised in 1572 to celebrate both the victory of Lepanto and the birth of Prince Ferdinand (1571–1578). The author of the letter praises the game of canes by focalising through the eyes of the Spaniards who came from Mexico City, who commended it even if Guadalajara was a corner (rincón) of the world with meagre resources.28 Although Guadalajara could boast of organising a praiseworthy game of canes while being on what was considered 27 AGI, Filipinas, 8, R.1, N.19. 28 AGI, Guadalajara 30, N.13. For a more detailed discussion of these festivities, see Stefan Hanß, “Lepanto in the Americas: Global Storytelling and Mediterranean History,” Journal of Early Modern History 25 (2021): 1–36.

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the empire’s periphery, the further north we move into the Kingdom of New Spain, the more difficulties colonisers would encounter upon attempting to organise such ostentatious festivals. Gaspar de Villagrá (1555–1620) succinctly reports that a game of canes was held in 1598 in San Juan de los Caballeros (nowadays Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico).29 Based on the precariousness of this Spanish outpost, it seems unlikely that the game of canes mentioned by Gaspar de Villagrá would compare to the fancy spectacle with dozens of riders and costly liveries regularly organised in places such as Madrid, Valladolid, and Mexico City. In both the cases of Manila and San Juan de los Caballeros, as in any peripheral outpost with weak Spanish imperial presence, a main issue was to find the necessary minimum number of skilled riders willing to participate in this exercise. Regarding the availability of fine textiles for the Moorish clothing of the game of canes, Manila was in a much-privileged position when compared to San Juan de los Caballeros because, as the centre of Castilian trade with East Asia since 1573, it was a hub for the trade in Chinese silks to the Americas and Europe. While the game of canes and the use of Moorish clothing helped create a sense of cultural homogeneity among the Iberian empires, textile commerce with Asia may have influenced Moorish fashions and further increased the cultural heterogeneity of the empire.30 Between the end of the sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth century, Chinese textiles were regularly used for the Moorish clothing of the games of canes in Mexico. On the occasion of the viceroy’s entry in Puebla in 1585, for instance, the town council organised a game of canes and ordered that the Moorish liveries shall be made out of Chinese damasks and satins.31 Similarly, in 1595, for the entry of the count of Monterrey, Puebla planned to distribute silk textiles for the marlotas and capellares for a game of canes with no less than forty-eight riders.32 Evidence for the use of Chinese textiles is even more widespread for Mexico City, where council minutes are sometimes very explicit about the reason for resorting to Chinese silk textiles. In 1593, for the usual game of canes on the occasion of the feast 29 Gaspar de Villagrá, Historia de la Nueva México, ed. Felipe I. Echenique March (Mexico City: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1993), 316. 30 There seems to be no extant visual document of this syncretic clothing. At best, we have the feather adarga (Moorish shield) made in Mexico and sent as a gift to Philip II between 1572 and 1579, see Hanß, “Lepanto in the Americas,” 12–13. 31 Archivo Histórico Municipal de Puebla (AHMP), Actas de Cabildo 12, 9 August 1585, fol. 21v. Later, they also planned a skirmish (escaramuza) with twenty-four riders wearing Chinese taffetas, 1 October 1585, fol. 26v. 32 AHMP, Actas de Cabildo 12, 1 September 1595, 323r. The purchase and confection are minutely discussed in subsequent sessions, 16 October 1595, fol. 329v; 17 November, fol. 334r; 2 January 1596, fol. 343r. Similar cases in 23 July 1602 (vol. 13, fol. 194r), 15 November 1604 (vol. 13, fol. 283r), 19 July 1640 (vol. 19, fol. 161v). In other instances, Chinese textiles were also used for the liveries of musicians, 25 January 1606 (vol. 14, fol. 7r), and for the clothing worn by the councilmen to welcome the viceroy, 24 July 1612 (vol. 14, fol. 238r).

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day of Saint Hippolytus, the council initially planned to distribute Moorish liveries made out of “silk from Castile or from the land.” However, one of the councilmen contradicted this decision and pointed out that “this city used to buy silks from China for festivals because they are cheaper.”33 In 1595, also the viceroy suggested using Chinese taffetas to save costs, and in a similar discussion for another game of canes in 1596, the council of Mexico City ordered the use of Chinese damasks because they cost half of Mexican or Castilian silks.34 While it is generally correct that Chinese silks were cheaper, this has not always been the case. For instance, in 1592 the council allowed the riders to purchase whichever textiles they could afford,35 and in 1601, when there was a shortage of Chinese textiles, the city council decided that it would be cheaper to purchase Mexican or Castilian silk.36 The demand for Chinese silks for Moorish clothing was so prominent that these fibres’ availability could even condition the festival calendar. On at least one occasion, in 1599, a festival was delayed until the arrival of the fleet from the Philippines with the prospect of then having more affordable textiles.37 It should not come as a huge surprise that Chinese silks were regularly used for the production of Moorish clothing for the games of canes in these two particular cities since New Spain was the main recipient of the silk route of the Manila Galleon.38 Yet, the trade of the Manila Galleons also had an impact in the Iberian Peninsula, 33 Manuel Orozco y Berra, ed., Actas de Cabildo de la Ciudad de México, 27 vols. (México City: Aguilar, 1889–1907), vol. 11, 5 July 1593, 140–41: “esta ciudad está en costumbre de comprar seda de la China para las fiestas por ser más barata.” For a description and analysis of the festival culture in colonial Mexico, with special attention to the costs involved in urban celebrations, see Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, The Great Festivals of Colonial Mexico City (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004). For a brief overview of games of canes in Mexico City, see Heriberto Lanfranchi, La fiesta brava en México y en España, 1519–1969, 2 vols. (Mexico City: Siqueo, 1971), vol. 1, 40–84. 34 Orozco y Berra, Actas, vol. 12, 31 July 1595, 197–98; 9 August 1596, 299. Similar instances can also be found for other games of canes, ibid., vol. 10, 25 June 1590, 4; 10 December 1590, 36; vol. 15, 10 June 1602, 59; 22 August 1603, 194; 10 November 1603, 257; vol. 16, 5 August 1605, 107; vol. 17, 17 August 1607; vol. 21, 24 July 1617, 246. 35 Ibid., vol. 10, 6 July 1592, 12. 36 Ibid., vol. 14, 28 September 1601 and 1 October 1601, 312–13. 37 Ibid., vol. 14, 23 November 1599, 26. In 1614, the usual allowance for the participants in a game of canes was increased because the shipment from the Philippines had not arrived and, subsequently, the price of silks had soared, ibid., vol. 18, 6 June 1614, 388. 38 For the import of Asian textiles in colonial Mexico, see Woodrow Borah, Silk Raising in Colonial Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943), 89–100; Arturo Giraldez, The Age of Trade: The Manila Galleons and the Dawn of the Global Economy (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), 152–54; José L. Gasch-Tomás, The Atlantic World and the Manila Galleons: Circulation, Market, and Consumption of Asian Goods in the Spanish Empire, 1565–1650 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 153–97. For the silk trade in Puebla, see Jan Bazant, “Evolution of the Textile Industry of Puebla, 1544–1845,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 7, no. 1 (1964): 59–61; Peter Boyd-Bowman, “Spanish and European Textiles in Sixteenth Century Mexico,” The Americas 29, no. 3 (1973): 334–58. For colonial Latin America in general, see Mariano

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which was a traditional producer of silk, and the Parliament of Castile tried to ban the import of Chinese silk to Spain after at least 1618.39 While I have been able to find only scant evidence of the use of Chinese textiles for the Moorish clothing of the games of canes on the Iberian Peninsula, this apparent paucity might be due to the way this information surfaces in the documents produced by local administration. For instance, in 1605 the town council of Jerez de la Frontera offered the riders liveries made out of damask “from these kingdoms,” which, indirectly, could be read as a reaction against imported textiles. 40 The 1610 post-mortem inventory of the clothing lender Gabriel Núñez lists four capellares, emphasising that three of them were made out of damask while the fourth one was made from Chinese silk. 41 We should be cautious about some of these references, since in Spain it was common to confuse China and India as the origin of silk.42 Indian silk was also used for Moorish clothing, especially in Portugal, as for the game of canes held for the marriage between the Duke of Bragança (1568–1630) and Ana de Velasco (1585–1607) in 1603, Philip III (1578–1621) gave marlotas made of silk from India as livery. 43 Beyond such rather circumstantial evidence, the most explicit reference to Chinese textiles in Spain occurs in 1605, when the council of Saragossa proposed organising a game of canes to celebrate the birth of Philip IV and to use “some taffetas that have arrived from China, and they are very appealing, of bright colours, and cheap” for the Moorish livery. 44 The minutes of Saragossa not only praise the arrival of the taffetas from China as an intriguing novelty, but also as a commodity Bonialian, China en la América colonial: Bienes, mercados, comercio y cultura del consumo desde México hasta Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 2014), 89–117. 39 See Manuel Garzón Pareja, La industria sedera en España: El arte de la seda de Granada (Granada: Gráf icas del Sur, 1972), 165–66. As Gasch-Tomás, The Atlantic World, 131–42 shows, while New Spain imported semi-manufactured silk from China, Spain imported mainly raw silk, which may have affected the already declining silk raising industry but actually helped silk artisans. 40 Archivo Municipal de Jerez de la Frontera, Libro de Actas Capitulares 1603–1605, 30 April 1605, fol. 987v: “damasco destos reinos.” Juan Gil, La India y el Lejano Oriente en la Sevilla del Siglo de Oro (Seville: Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, 2011), 201–5 documents the arrival of Chinese textiles to nearby Seville between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth. 41 Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Madrid, “Partición de los bienes de Gabriel Núñez,” Prot. 2559, fol. 589r. 42 Gasch-Tomás, Atlantic World, 175. For an overview of the import of Indian and Chinese silk in Portugal, see Maria João Ferreira, “Procedência e consumo da seda asiática em Portugal (séculos XVI et XVIII),” in Las rutas de la seda en la historia de España y Portugal, ed. Ricardo Franch Benavent and Germán Navarro Espinach (València: Universitat de València, 2017), 375–99. 43 Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid (BNE), Ms 3826, fol. 11r, “Relación de las fiestas que ubo en el casamiento de el excelentísimo señor Duque de Bragança con la excelentísima señora doña Ana de Velasco.” 44 Archivo Municipal de Zaragoza, Libros de Actas, 1 June 1605, fol. 151r: “unos tafetanes que an venido de la China que son muy vistossos y de muy buenas colores y muy acomodado precio.”

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of cheaper price. Such novelties also altered the widespread cultural association of Moorish clothing with class distinction, once a broader social spectrum could afford them. 45 Even when Moorish clothing was given away by town councils, the general affordability of such textiles broadened the number of participants, thus including people who would have been otherwise excluded. 46 In this sense, such globally circulating textiles helped broaden the local identificatory repertoire of Iberian empires. The use of Chinese textiles for Andalusi-derived garments may be interpreted as a form of cultural syncretism. 47 However, it is crucial to acknowledge that the global translation of Chinese silks actually served the homogenisation of local cultural practices across the Spanish Empire. The distinctive features of Moorish clothing were its shape and use; it could be tailored anywhere around the world, as long as it was made of silk. 48 The only exception for the silk requirement took place in early colonial Mexico, between the initial conquest and the establishment of the Manila Galleons. In Puebla, at least toward the 1560s, it was common to use toldillos pintados (painted blankets) for games of canes liveries. 49 The detailed account of Mexico City’s council minutes helps establish a more precise chronology. At least between 1537 and 1571, the town council regularly distributed toldillos or mantas for games of canes.50 The reference to toldillos pintados is certainly 45 While most of the evidence shows that the most attractive feature of Chinese silk was its affordability, José L. Gasch-Tomás, “Transport Costs and Prices of Chinese Silk in the Spanish Empire: The Case of New Spain, c. 1571–1650,” Revista de Historia Industrial 24, no. 60 (2015): 15–47 shows that Chinese silks continued to be an expensive merchandise, mostly due to freight costs and taxation. 46 For a general perspective of how the globalisation of trade in the early modern period transformed patterns of consumerism and social distinction, see Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 47 For instance, Gasch-Tomás, The Atlantic World, 189 analyses the use of Chinese silk for the Moorish clothing of the game of canes as a manifestation of Mexican cosmopolitism. As María J. Feliciano, “Mudejarismo in its Colonial Context: Iberian Cultural Display, Viceregal Luxury Consumption, and the Negotiation of Identities in Sixteenth-Century New Spain” (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2004), 127–86 shows, the influence of Andalusi-derived garments in sixteenth-century Mexico was not limited to the game of canes. 48 For instance, when Philip II organised a game of canes in London in 1556, silks were purchased locally. Jesús F. Pascual Molina, “‘Porque vean y sepan cuánto es el poder y grandeza de nuestro príncipe y señor’: Imagen y poder en el viaje de Felipe II a Inglaterra y su matrimonio con María Tudor,” Reales Sitios 197 (2013): 13. The account ledgers of the Count of Benavente shows how his tailor purchased silks for several games of canes celebrated in many different cities in Italy, Castile and Catalonia, Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid (AHN), Sección Nobleza, Osuna, C.422, D.72, analysed by José P. Blanco Carrasco, “Sedas, rasos y damascos en la casa del conde de Benavente (c. 1533),” Estudios Humanísticos: Historia 15 (2016): 11–28. 49 AHMP, Actas de Cabildo 8, 29 April 1560, fols. 98v–99r; 16 August 1562, fol. 170v. 50 See for instance, Orozco y Berra, Actas, vol. 4, 31 July 1537, 91; 18 June 1540, 207; 22 April 1541, 240; 30 June 1542, 290; vol. 5, 20 July 1545, 102; 12 July 1550, 301; vol. 6, 30 June 1553, 104; 18 April 1555, 167; vol. 7,

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understandable in some cases, such as a festival of moros y cristianos (Moors and Christians) held in 1572, in which a theatrical, more affordable version of Moorish costumes was customary.51 However, the use of such costume-oriented garments is simply unthinkable for the gallant, aristocratic Moorish clothing of the game of canes as it was usually performed in the rest of the empire. It is hard to know with certainty to which kind of fabric the expressions mantas and toldillos pintados refer, but the absence of such expressions for games of canes in Castile may indicate that they refer to some Indigenous, local fabric that Spaniards adopted for the games of canes in the early stages of the colonisation of Mexico.52 The interpretation that these expressions allude to the use of local fabrics is confirmed by some references to mantas de la tierra (local blankets), or, more specifically, to mantas brought from Cuernavaca.53 It therefore seems that, at least between the 1530s and the early 1570s, Mexico developed a particular, local variant of the Moorish clothing of the games of canes incorporating Indigenous fabrics, quite likely due to the high prices of silk imported from Castile and the uncertainties about local silk production. Yet this local variant of Moorish clothing disappeared when the Manila Galleons increased the import of Chinese silk, and so from 1573 on, silk clearly replaces toldillos and mantas as the prescribed fabric for Moorish liveries. Therefore, the widespread circulation of Chinese textiles did not introduce a note of exoticism into the Moorish impersonations of the games of canes, as one might be tempted to think on first glimpse, but rather put Mexican Moorish clothing back in sync with the rest of the Spanish Empire. In that sense, Chinese silk textiles became crucial to translate cultural difference and to negotiate cultural identity within the Spanish Empire, an increasingly “interwoven globe.”54

Conclusion Interaction with East Asia affected in several ways how Moorish clothing was used to articulate concepts of cultural identity and the cultural homogeneity of the Spanish Empire. While the largely constructed narrative gaze of Japanese 1 August 1565, 251; 4 February 1568, 387; 5 October 1568, 418; 24 July 1570, 482; 9 July 1571, 519. In some cases, we find the expression marlotas pintadas, which probably refers to the same kind of materials, vol. 4, 20 September 1566. 51 Ibid., vol. 8, 9 June 1572, 26. 52 Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, we lack the perspective of how local Mexicans perceived the Spanish colonial use of Moorish clothing. 53 Orozco y Berra, Actas, vol. 5, 7 May 1545, 90; vol. 5, 20 July 1545, 102; vol. 6, 18 April 1555, 167. 54 Amelia Peck, ed., Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013).

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visitors was deployed to stage a debate over the place of the game of canes in the articulation of an aristocratic culture vis-à-vis Europe and colonial expansion, the search for cheaper silk textiles allowed for the widening of the social spectrum that could have access to this form of class distinction. Furthermore, the introduction of Chinese textiles was adopted in New Spain before it was introduced to the Iberian Peninsula. This apparent difference served to level the local diversity of cultural practices within the empire, as Chinese silks actually contributed to the disappearance of a specific Mexican notion of Moorishness. As a globally exported, Iberian imperial category of identification, thus, the textile universe of Iberian Moorishness created ambivalent “identity effects” across the Spanish Empire.55 Iberian Moorishness, I argued, was constantly altered in its materiality and social meaning when entering a globalised web of gazes and material circulation. As Bhabha states, “the question of identification is never the affirmation of a pre-given identity, never a self-fulfilling prophecy—it is always the production of an image of identity and the transformation of the subject in assuming that image.”56 As in-between textiles, East Asian and Mexican textiles traded and translated across the Spanish Empire became crucial forces in the rearticulation of imaginaries of both cultural identification and difference embedded in Iberian Moorishness—in its ever-changing global materialisation, Iberian Moorishness was constantly reshaped by subjective colonial appropriations in local contexts. When interweaving the Iberian globe, thus, textiles created spaces of in-betweenness.

About the Author Javier Irigoyen-García is a Professor of Spanish Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research focuses on the representation of race and ethnicity in early modern Spain. He has published The Spanish Arcadia: Sheep Herding, Pastoral Discourse, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Spain (University of Toronto Press, 2013) and “Moors Dressed as Moors”: Clothing, Social Distinction, and Ethnicity in Early Modern Iberia (University of Toronto Press, 2017).

55 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 128–29, 158–59. 56 Ibid., 64, italics in original.

10. Tornasol Techniques as Cultural Memory Andean Colonial Practices of Weaving Shimmering Cloth, and Their Regional Forebears* Denise Y. Arnold Abstract This chapter challenges traditional interpretations of the shimmering effects of Andean colonial cloth that are widely considered to result from the introduction of Asian silks to the New World. Instead, such techniques illustrate a much longer-term regional strategy concerned with cultural continuity, subjectivity, and memory, through the material replication of ancestral knowledge. Early modern shimmering Andean textiles, this chapter argues, materialised indigenous cultural memory, persistence, and resistance, and the making of indigenous communal identities in a changing world. The colonial setting opened up a liminal space in which the material articulation of these pre-colonial cultural continuities became a crucial element of identification, memory, and identity. Keywords: identity politics; Critical Indigenous Studies; colonial Andes; silks; liminality

Introduction Existing studies on the “shot” or “changeable” effects, known in Spanish as tornasol (“it turns to the sun”), found in some Andean textiles, tend to assume these are a uniquely colonial phenomenon.1 Their arguments tend to trace the introduction * Many thanks to Elvira Espejo, for our collaboration on Andean techniques for making shot effects during the AHRC-financed project “Weaving Communities of Practice” (No. AH/G012180/1), and to Juan de Dios Yapita for his comments and insights on the chapter. 1 Laurie Adelson and Arthur Tracht, Aymara Weavings: Ceremonial Textiles of Colonial and 19th Century Bolivia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1983); Teresa Gisbert, Silvia Arze, and Martha Cajías, Arte textil y mundo andino (La Paz: Gisbert y Cía 2006 [1987]); William

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch10

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of Chinese silk into the New World in the emerging global trade in cloth from the late sixteenth century onwards, directed at the major exchanges between these and Mexican and Andean silver. Documentary evidence indicates that silk skeins, raw silk, woven silk in bales, and finished products were carried first in chests on Chinese junks to the Spanish trading port of Manila in the Philippines. Then, from 1571 onwards, the Manila Galleons, loaded with these products, crossed the Pacific Ocean, bringing Chinese silk and porcelain to the viceroyalty capitals, docking at Acapulco, and from there the goods were transported overland to Mexico City.2 From 1581, transhipments sailed on to Lima (El Callao), often illicitly as the Spanish were wary of the fiscal consequences of this trading. Once in Lima, the silk was exchanged in the local markets for silver from Potosí. Similar voyages were made across the Atlantic by the Tierra Firme fleet carrying this time Spanish silk, setting sail from Seville’s port, at Cadiz, to trade with Vera Cruz in Mexico, and thence down to Peru.3 Much Andean silver delivered back to Cadiz, as its first return port of call, was invariably traded on to other European countries, before being traded on again towards the East, notably in a contribution towards the building of the Taj Mahal.4 In comparison, Andean vicuña fibre, along with cochineal, cotton, and indigo from elsewhere, as well as raw Chinese silk, tended to circulate in the European textile industry.5 These former studies claim that the introduction of fine silks up into the high Andes initiated a period of experimentation among regional weavers, with the purpose of replicating the shimmering qualities of this unknown material. They observe how silk’s characteristic lustre and iridescence were reworked by these weavers in loose warp-faced plain weaves, by the interplay of a dark coloured visible warp and a more hidden weft in a highly contrasting colour, and they note the incredible fineness of the results. Many studies assume that the shot effects Siegal, Aymara-Bolivianische Textilien/Historica Aymara Textiles: Catalogue of the William Siegal Collection, 20 November 1991–26 January 1992 (Santa Fe, NM: Krefeld, 1991); Elena Phipps, “Tornesol: A Colonial Synthesis of European and Andean Textile Traditions,” in Approaching Textiles, Varying Viewpoints: The Seventh Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2000, ed. Textile Society of America and Ann Lane Hedlund (Earleville, MD: Textile Society of America, 2000), 221–30; Elena Phipps, “The Iberian Globe: Textile Traditions and Trade in Latin America,” in The Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500–1800, ed. Amelia Peck (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013), 28–45. 2 Katharine Bjork, “The Link That Kept the Philippines Spanish: Mexican Merchant Interests and the Manila Trade, 1571–1815,” Journal of World History 9, no. 1 (1998): 25–50; Maria T. (Teresa C.) Llorens Planella, “Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer: China and Japan and Their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500–1644. A Survey of Documentary and Material Evidence” (PhD diss., Leiden University, 2015), 69. 3 Elena Phipps, “An Andean Colonial Woman’s Mantle: The New World and Its Global Networks,” Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings 727 (2012): 4; Phipps, “Iberian Globe,” 32–33. 4 Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 256. 5 Phipps, “Iberian Globe,” 33.

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of these fine woven examples present a certain hybridity or synthesis, through this colonial Andean reworking of recently introduced Far Eastern techniques.6 That is, Chinese silkwork is assumed to come first, and Andean shot effects are an imitative echo. But this is far from the whole story. Indeed, the story is changing constantly with our ideas about colonial situations, and our points of view. In fact, the basis of these arguments about hybridity, or even synthesis, as concepts of cultural change, have been undergoing a radical rethinking in recent years. Homi Bhabha’s classic study on hybridity suggests it is the in-between spaces of colonial settings where new experiments in collective identities were actually negotiated and formed.7 However, this is the view from the outside. Seen from the point of view of these collective identities in colonial settings, rather than “hybridity,” the consolidation of these new identities is at issue. Hybridity as a concept, then, depends on points of view; and also points in time. The North American anthropologist Silliman, who explores hybrid forms in the animal world, asks when hybridity in animals finally stops, and new species come into being.8 We could ask the same of these regional weaving experiments to replicate the lustre of silk. At what point do those experiments become truly Andean rather than just colonial echoes? Like hybridity, an academic focus on emerging new identities in colonised situations, this time through a process of “ethnogenesis,” is also under reconsideration. The North American archaeologist Barbara Voss draws our attention to other recent studies that are emphasising, in ethnogenesis, not so much a new onedirectional change, but alternative interpretive models that consider processes of cultural persistence and continuity as an impulse for these changes.9 Such new interpretations suggest that these kinds of changes occurring during colonial contact might in fact indicate an authentic “remaking” of communal identities as a way of fostering persistence and survival. Their readings imply that adopting “new” cultural practices, such as weaving silk-like garments, might have allowed colonised peoples to express their own enduring cultural principles and ways of being in the changing world of imposed colonial situations. Voss notes that these new archaeologies concerned with continuity and persistence are put forward as correctives to the previous meta-narratives of disappearance and deculturation, which have tended to portray indigenous populations as passive victims of colonial 6 Phipps, “Tornesol,” but also see her “Woven Brilliance: Approaching Color in Andean Textile Traditions,” The Textile Museum Journal 47 (2020): 28–53, published when this chapter was already in press. 7 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), 2. 8 Stephen W. Silliman, “What, Where, and When Is Hybridity?,” in The Archaeology of Hybrid Material Culture, edited by Jeb J. Card (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2013), 486–500. 9 Barbara L. Voss, “What’s New? Rethinking Ethnogenesis in the Archaeology of Colonialism,” American Antiquity 80, no. 4 (2015): 655–70.

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and postcolonial events.10 This approach would seem to confirm Bhabha’s assertion that, in practice, the hybrid spaces of colonial settings actually engender the active materialisation of cultural continuity, identification, and subjectivity, in this case through textiles. At the same time, Voss is aware of how the new archaeological emphasis on ethnogenesis as a tactic of resistance among, say, indigenous communities, has led to a general neglect of how ethnic identity practices are deployed in the real exercise of power. The increasing use of bioarchaeological evidence in ethnogenesis research also raises pressing ethical and epistemological issues about the relationship between the body, materiality, and identity.11 Faced with these absences, Voss proposes a more focused and restricted application of ethnogenesis theory to identify and investigate those situations in which colonialism and its consequences resulted in ruptures and structural transformations of identity practices.12 Here, hybrid or synthesising practices become double-edged swords. They can promote transformations in pre-existing identities, as in the case of weaving garments as fine as the silk. However, hybrid practices can also initiate a search among practitioners, in their innovations making new material objects, for similarities to their own material experiences and repertories, rather than differences, as the basis upon which to reinstate continuities. This paper explores both possibilities in this colonial reworking of silk.

Aymara Identity and Cloth In terms of ethnicity, these colonial experiments in weaving silk-like effects were carried out mainly by Aymara-speaking weavers belonging to the populations living around Lake Titicaca, in the Pacajes and Omasuyos provinces of what is now Bolivia, and on the lake’s western and northern shores, now in Peru. These populations were descendants of the Lupaca chiefdoms who occupied this region in the period immediately preceding the Spanish conquest.13 Unfortunately, there is a notable absence in the earlier studies about these longer-term origins, or about the identity of these weavers’ clients as the consumers of these garments, which again demand answers. The longer-term origins of these Aymara speakers are relevant to their weaving practices. It is commonly held that Aymara-speaking populations have lived around 10 Ibid., 656. 11 See also Denise Y. Arnold, “The Material World,” in The Andean World, ed. Linda J. Seligmann and Kathleen S. Fine-Dare (New York: Routledge, 2018), 143–57. 12 Voss, “What’s New?” 13 John V. Murra, “An Aymara Kingdom in 1567,” Ethnohistory 15 no. 2 (Spring 1968): 115–51.

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the lakeside since Tiwanaku times, dating back to the Middle Horizon Period (AD 400–1000), although there is an ongoing debate concerning their actual role in Tiwanaku civilisation. However, linguistic evidence emerging over the last decades has challenged the earlier idea that Aymara speakers dominated Tiwanaku civilisation, suggesting instead that this language was a latecomer to the region, around the eleventh century, sometime past the peak of Tiwanaku’s greatness.14 More recent linguistic arguments are that Tiwanaku inhabitants were more likely speakers of Pukina.15 The nature of this overlapping of ethnic populations around the lakeside is still unresolved. Moreover, as there is no textile evidence from the immediate site of Tiwanaku with which to examine these claims, evidence has to be taken from Tiwanaku sites much further afield. Turning to Aymara weaving practices in the early colonial period, it is possible that the lakeside became the main productive area for these colonial experiments in shot fabrics because it was the initial receptor geographically of imported silk that arrived from the coast up into the Altiplano colonial cities of Puno (now in Peru) and hence La Paz (now in Bolivia), before proceeding to Potosí. An older precedent for this interest in silk-like effects around Lake Titicaca might derive from previous artisanal expertise under the Incas, in the working of iridescent feathers to make garments.16 This fine featherwork too was considered to “turn to the sun,” and called pluma tornasol.17 Nevertheless, modern weavers themselves say that it was the very proximity of the lake that inspired them to imitate, in their dark and light contrasts, the everchanging movement of the water on the lake’s surface.18 These lakeside weavers are well known for the fineness of their cloth during the early colonial period, as part of the continuing tradition called qumpi, woven there during the previous Inca period. A village called by this name (now written as Compi) on the southern edge of Lake Titicaca is said in their oral tradition to have had herds of captured vicuñas penned up there for this purpose, and its weavers specialise in naturally 14 Paul Heggarty, “Linguistics for Archaeologists: A Case Study in the Andes,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18, no. 1 (2008): 35–56, here 38–39. 15 Ibid., drawing on the work of Alfredo Torero, Idiomas de los Andes – lingüística e historia (Lima: Editorial Horizonte/Institut Français des Études Andines, 2002), Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino, Lingüística aymara (Cusco: Gráf icos de CERA, Bartolomé de Las Casas, 2000), and Rodolfo Cerrón Palomino, Lingüística quechua (Cusco: Gráficos de CERA, Bartolomé de las Casas, 2003). 16 W. Espinoza Soriano, “Migraciones internas en el reino Colla: Tejedores, plumereros y alfareros del estado imperial Inca,” Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena 19 (1987): 243–89; Stefan Hanß, “Material Encounters: Knotting Cultures in Early Modern Peru and Spain,” The Historical Journal 62, no. 3 (2019): 583–615, here 595. 17 Hanß, “Material Encounters,” 608–9. 18 Denise Y. Arnold and Elvira Espejo, “The Intrusive K’isa: Bolivian Struggles over Colour Patterns and Their Social Implications,” World Art 2, no. 2 (2012): 251–78, here 260.

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coloured fabrics to this day.19 The fine camelid fibres still used in the early colony, often combined with introduced metal fibres, already produced a shimmering surface effect, even in the structures and techniques of conventional plain weave. The earliest example of silk cloth in China, found in a child’s tomb, dates to about 3630 BC, although knowledge of its cultivation and production in cloth was disseminated in the silk routes to the Byzantine Mediterranean only in the latter half of the first millennium BC. Silk from elsewhere was already known in Southern Europe with the Arab conquest of Andalusia in the first half of the eighth century.20 However, Chinese silk, esteemed more for its colours and lower prices, arrived in Western Europe later on, with the Crusades, followed by the opening up of Lyon as Europe’s productive centre from 1540 onwards. Documentary evidence suggests that the Spanish elite were wearing taffetas of tornasol from the late fourteenth century onwards.21 Compared to these early dates, the written evidence for Andean familiarity with tornasol’s structural effects is much later, only appearing in the regional terminology of the early seventeenth century. Ludovico Bertonio’s Vocabulario de la Lengua Aymara—written in 1612 when this Italian Jesuit lived and worked in Juli, among the lakeside Lupaca populations—has an Aymara entry for tornasol clothes or silk as having “sheens or lustres” (viso). Its synonyms are paya samiri isi, literally woven clothing (isi) “of two colours,” and huateca isi, where clothing “turned one way appears to be of one colour, but in another way to another.”22 Both entries emphasise how sunlight plays on the cloth surfaces. Bertonio has other entries for the very fine threads of taffetas and silks, this time in variants of the Aymara term hucchusa (or juch’usa) for “fine,” so we become aware of an additional array of spinners providing weavers with the materials for their craft, most likely the silk destined for weaving called trama (probably weft-faced or tapestry weaves).23 Bertonio has additional entries for woven fabrics and woven clothing of gold and silk, and others, which because of their fineness “sound like silk,” presumably a reference to silk taffeta.24 Another of his entries compares the lustre of clothes made of silk or very fine wool to the repetitive flickering (lliphi lliphi) of lightning, or the 19 Personal communication about local oral tradition by Juan de Dios Yapita, native of Compi. See also Denise Y. Arnold, Los productos textiles de los Andes sur-centrales: Guía ontológica centrada en la región aymara-hablante (La Paz: IFEA and ILCA, 2018), 264–65. 20 Llorens Planella, “Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer,” 67. 21 Phipps, “Tornesol,” 222. See also Elena Phipps, “Garments and Identity in the Colonial Andes,” in The Colonial Andes: Tapestries and Silverwork, 1530–1830, ed. Elena Phipps, Johanna Hecht, and Cristina Esteras Martín (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004), 17–39. 22 Ludovico Bertonio, Vocabulario de la lengua aymara, ed. Xavier Albó and Félix Layme (La Paz: CERES, IFEA, MUSEF 1984 [1612]), vol. 1, 453; vol. 2, 154. 23 Ibid., vol. 2, 235. Cf. Llorens Planella, “Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer,” 82, n. 215. 24 Bertonio, Vocabulario, vol. 1, 443; vol. 2, 89.

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way light shimmers as it falls on ice (chulluncaa).25 Silk here is already interpreted in terms of a familiar Altiplano world of climatic and geocultural phenomena. Fortunately, Bertonio reveals the identity of some of the clients served by the lakeside weavers, in several references to the silk and fine clothes “of the caciques.” So these fine silk-like garments were worn, not only by the new Spanish elites living in towns, but by the traditional leaders of Aymara populations, men and women, as well as wealthy indigenous clients as part of their changing identity under colonialism, and their own reference points for entry into the new colonial social groupings.26 Another early colonial text, González Holguín’s Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Peru llamada lengua qquichua o del Inca (1608), makes it clear that these garments were not for ordinary daily use, since the person “dressed in silks with gold and silver” went about “in a festive way” (de galas).27 Early colonial patterns of tribute were still modelled on former Inca practices, whereby the caciques provided fine fibre or wool, and their subjects worked these raw materials.28 As in the garments of today, the terms in the colonial vocabularies for the distinct sections and particularly the kinds of borders, in this sumptuary festive clothing, refer to elements of agricultural production, although these differ in male or female dress. Stripes or borders on female garments (called names such as qquilli) refer to furrows, whereas some of the borders on male garments (which tended to be more finely finished) were associated with instruments to break up the earth (cumpa).29 Thus these garments, displayed by the caciques to their subjects on feast days, embodied not just the status of their newly acquired colonial wealth but documented their riches from work on the land. The contemporary meanings of woven compositions suggest that the fine examples of silk-like plain weave would have documented the earth at rest. However, those with additional stripes and design bands would have embodied the food crops produced from this land.30 These features suggest that the colonial imitation of silk by the lakeside weavers arose not so much from their interest in the new garb of Spanish elites as their harkening back to their own elite practices. Indeed, the powerful memory of Andean elite dress was enough to encourage Spanish women living in the Andes to imitate 25 Ibid., vol. 1, 417; vol. 2, 204, 89. 26 On wealthy indigenous women wearing silk, see Llorens Planella, “Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer,” 87–88. Silk products also decorated Indian churches (ibid., 87). 27 Diego González Holguín, Vocabulario de la lengua general de todo el Peru llamada Lenguaqquichua o del Inca, preface by Raúl Porras Barrenechea (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1952 [1608]), vol. 1, 214. 28 Catherine J. Julien, “Spanish Use of Inca Textile Standards,” Indiana 5 (2001): 58–81; Denise Y. Arnold, El textil y la documentación del tributo en los Andes: Los significados del tejido en contextos tributarios (Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, 2012), 70–72. 29 Arnold, El textil y la documentación del tributo, 74–76. 30 Ibid., 122–24.

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garments such as the pollera, rather than European modalities, from the early seventeenth century on to the age of Independence in the early nineteenth century.31

Andean Concepts of Beauty in Cloth The fact that these entries appear in early colonial vocabularies in the native languages of Aymara and Quechua implies that fineness, contrast in light and colour, and lustre, were already Andean criteria of beauty long before the introduction of Chinese silk, when we would expect introduced borrowings to be more prevalent. It may be that an established Andean aesthetics converged in this period with the Chinese preference for shimmering cloth. The Chinese certainly preferred the diffuseness of contrasts, combined with the energy fostered by flashing lightning, with their merging of boundaries, beings, and materials, to the clarity of self.32 Indeed these qualities were already taken for granted by the Andean chronicler Guaman Poma de Ayala in his Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno, written in the same period as Bertonio’s Vocabulario, where his illustrations of the generational tasks associated with weaving already have girls spinning “fine silk” under the Incas.33 The specific sense of beauty, for Andean populations, aroused by sharp contrasts, in the interplay between dark and light colours rather than the juxtaposition of single tones, is explored by the Chilean anthropologist Verónica Cereceda, in the case of the bi-coloured lowland wayruru seeds (ormosia coccinea, also known as Peonia Seed, Crab’s Eye or Lady Bug Seed). Here, the contrast between their brilliant redness and their lesser markings in black leads her to suggest that this Andean notion of beauty derives from how “the purity of the red’s spectral tones hits the eyes, as it sets itself in opposition to the impure and opaque black.”34 Her work makes us appreciate how contrasts between more opaque dark warp threads, and brilliantly coloured wefts, would have been admired for their beauty in those colonial garments that imitated silk. This conscious tension in Andean weavings between lightness and darkness is longstanding too, as an expression between opposing forces, and we have found it is particularly favoured in moments of

31 James Middleton, “Their Dress Is Very Different: The Development of the Peruvian Pollera and the Genesis of the Andean Chola,” The Journal of Dress History 2, no. 1 (2018): 87–105. 32 François Jullien, The Great Image Has No Form, or On the Nonobject through Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012 [2003]), 22. 33 Don Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Nueva coronica y buen gobierno, ed. Paul Rivet (Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie 1936 [c.1613]), fols. 228r, 230r. 34 Verónica Cereceda, “Aproximaciones a una estética andina: De la belleza al tinku,” in Tres reflexiones sobre el pensamiento andino, ed. Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne et al. (La Paz: Hisbol, 1987), 133–231, here 178–83.

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historical change.35 To be able to manipulate in practice several colour contrasts in the warp probably might also have been a keen incentive on the part of weavers, in certain historical conjunctures such as Early Horizon Paracas, to gain a greater technological loom complexity at their disposition.36 In the Andes, it was the Inca as the Sun God who reputedly wore garments that glimmered.37 Portraits of Incas in the colonial period still express the fineness and lustre of their dress, and the use of these male garments worn by the Inca, notably tunics, became a symbol of resistance in the eighteenth-century rebellions, until they were finally outlawed by the Spanish.38

Technical Precedents for Weaving the Colonial Shot Effects of Silk Attention to the technical side of these colonial experiments in weaving the new tornasol cloth around the lakeside shows how weaving structures and techniques, as well as loom technologies, were deeply embedded in a plurality of much longer-term material practices directed at transforming regional identities. At an ontological level, the lakeside weavers would have been concerned with creating a living being out of woven cloth, as a new “person” in the world, perhaps drawing on the powerful forces of sunlight or lightning, each with the pre-Columbian status of deities, to break down surface appearances and thus facilitate this historically determined transformation.39 Undoubtedly the most straightforward technique for rendering a silk-like surface, with the characteristics that Bertonio describes, is a loose warp in a dark colour contrasted with a lighter weft. But there are others. In practice, the lakeside weavers applied several other overlapping structures and techniques they were already familiar with, to achieve varying shot effects in the colonial garments they wove. 35 Ibid., 196; Denise Y. Arnold and Elvira Espejo, “The Heads on the Periphery, in the Center and the Inner World: A Comparison of War Iconography in the Archaeological Textiles of Paracas-Topará (in Southern Peru) and in the Weavings of Ayllu Qaqachaka (Bolivia) Today,” Textile: The Journal of Cloth and Culture 7, no. 3 (2009): 272–95. 36 Anne Paul, “The Use of Color in Paracas Necropolis Fabrics: What Does It Reveal about the Organization of Dyeing, Designing, and Society?,” National Geographic Research 6, no. 1 (1990): 7–21. 37 Adam Herring, Art and Vision in the Inca Empire: Andeans and Europeans at Cajamarca (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Also in what is widely termed “Western societies,” the power of shimmering cloth is recognised. The novelist Clive Barker takes up this idea in Weaveworld (London: Fontana/Collins, 1987), where a glimpse of the scintillating jacket lining worn by the devilish character of Shadwell the Salesman, with its iridescent threads, enchants your gaze, trapping you into his power. 38 Joanne Pillsbury, “Inka Unku: Strategy and Design in Colonial Peru,” Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7 (2002): 68–103, here 94–95; Phipps, “Iberian Globe,” 43. 39 Denise Y. Arnold, “Making Textiles into Persons: Gesture, Complexity and Relationality in Communities of Weaving Practice in the South Central Andes,” Journal of Material Culture 23, no. 2 (2018): 239–60.

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This means that their colonial experiments are not so much hybrid Euro-Asiatic reworkings in an Andean idiom as ongoing attempts at re-establishing regional identities with reference to a properly Andean past. I suggest that this past has its roots much further back than the immediate colonial period (post 1532), dating to the Middle Horizon civilisation of Tiwanaku (AD 400–1000) and beyond, several hundred years earlier. This would imply that the colonial setting opened up a liminal space in which the material articulation of these pre-colonial cultural continuities became a crucial element of identification, memory, and identity. Other studies have already observed how Andean weavers continue to work particular weaving structures and techniques in certain historical conjunctures, such as the early colonial period, in order to express facets of their cultural memory and identity, in a search to prolong these memories in moments of profound political change. For instance, Sophie Desrosiers observes how Andean weavers responded to the new colonial norms, under Viceroy Francisco de Toledo (in 1572), prohibiting figuration and so imposing non-figurative weaving designs, as a Spanish attempt to restrict the cultural memory of a pre-Hispanic past, by continuing to weave particular structures and techniques that in themselves expressed their own cultural values. Moreover, this unfamiliar cultural use of technical weaving language escaped the Spanish gaze.40 This kind of cultural strategy, where identities are reworked through material practice, but favouring continuity over change, challenges a long-term debate in art history about the “darker side” of Aymara weavings. Notably Teresa Gisbert and colleagues criticise the “limited scale” of lakeside designs as compared to those of other regions, and express dismay at the tendency towards repetition over an extended period, whether in these designs or the general repertory of structures and techniques applied in their making.41 This repertory favours simple complementary weaves, and the characteristic mottled designs of the technique called “pebble weave” (paris palla). The same technical simplicity is evident in the colonial examples with shot effects that most seem to imitate silk: those woven in plain weave garments such as the fine headdresses (inkuña) and shawls (chuqaña) worn by women, and the tunics (unku) and mantles (llaqulla) worn by men. It was 40 Sophie Desrosiers, “Lógicas textiles y lógicas culturales en los Andes,” in Saberes y memorias en los Andes: In Memoriam Thierry Saignes, ed. Thérèse Bouysse-Cassagne (Lima: Credal and IFEA, 1997), 325–49, here 333. A much more recent example of cultural interchange, in the year 2000, in the so-called “War of the ayllus” between Southern Oruro and Northern Potosí in highland Bolivia, inspired regional weavers to create entirely new structures and techniques in such moments of change, by drawing on the existing elements of the different factions involved. Arnold and Espejo, “Heads on the Periphery,” 284. Here again, transformations in identity were mediated quite consciously through the manipulation of already familiar material objects. 41 Gisbert, Arze, and Cajías, Arte textil, 180–88. This debate is summarised in Denise Y. Arnold and Elvira Espejo, El textil tridimensional: Pautas hacia la naturaleza del tejido como objeto y como sujeto (La Paz: Fundación Albó and ILCA, 2013), 273–75.

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these four garments, in their two gendered pairs, that were given precedence in colonial tribute assignments. 42 This focus by the lakeside weavers on technical criteria to express cultural continuity rather than to search constantly for radical change, as do the ayllu weavers who once formed part of the great Charkas-Qharaqhara Aymara federations to the south, is striking, and warrants an explanation. I propose that the shot effects developed in the colonial period by these populations are a specific example of a cultural and material expression of transformation in times of radical change. The creative impulse driven by the hybrid setting of the colonial Andes was thus made manifest through peoples’ conscious investments into the long-term continuity of material practices related to textiles. In this context, the appeal of tornasol with its diffuse accents might be the expression of the most powerful transformative energies they knew, that is from sunlight or lightning. The familiarity of Aymara weavers with techniques to generate shimmering surfaces is already evident in their own terminology for these shot effects. Contemporary Aymara weavers regard the different shot, tornasol (or tornesol) or “dove chest” (pecho de paloma) silk-like effects as one of “variegation,” described in Spanish as jaspeado (jaspery, also meaning speckled or marbled) or pixeleado (pixelated). However, weavers tend to use a more generic term, ch’imi in Aymara, or else its Quechua equivalent of ch’imisqa, which describes something granular. These generic terms can also be applied to a thread twisted of two or more colours, where the strands become pixelated in appearance. 43 For many Andean people, granularity is a primordial material quality, something seed-like with incipient creative potential. 44 Although the colonial tornasol effects tend to be woven in plain weave, weavers recognise four different ways in practice of achieving slightly different and often overlapping shot and variegated effects, some being applied in cloth with additional warp levels. Of course, these pre-colonial examples are made from camelid fibre rather than silk, with the finest examples in alpaca. They involve colour contrasts and patterning resulting from the distinct combinations of warp and weft, the presence of variations in natural fibre colour, the nature and composition of the warp threads, including their spin direction, and those produced by the count of warp threads in different colours. 45 I shall illustrate each of these in turn, as well as their combinations. 42 Julien, “Spanish Use,” 59; Arnold, El textil y la documentación del tributo, 72. 43 Denise Y. Arnold and Elvira Espejo, The Andean Science of Weaving: Structures and Techniques of Warp-Faced Weaves (London: Thames and Hudson, 2015), 182–87. 44 Denise Y. Arnold, “Al grano: Los haces de relaciones, lo sensorial y la ef icacia ritual en los Andes Sur-centrales,” Textos antropológicos 19, no. 1 (2018): 49–67. 45 Arnold and Espejo, Andean Science of Weaving, 12–183.

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Figure 10.1  Detail of a fine headcloth (ch’uqaña) from the late colonial period, with a structural shot effect from the contrasting warp and weft colours. © Musef, La Paz, register 452. Photographed by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA Collection.

The first and most straightforward way to weave shot fabrics is with a plain weave warp-faced structure warped up in one pass, where the warp is of a dark colour and the weft of a contrasting lighter colour, as seen through a loose warp-faced cloth. This technique is unknown in archaeological examples, being restricted to colonial and republican ones, so this could be regarded as the colonial experimental technique par excellence. Its inspiration seems to come specifically from “shot” silk (also called changeant, changeable silk or changeable taffeta), which has this same structural effect. A fragment of a fine headcloth from the late colonial period, held in the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, in La Paz (Fig. 10.1), has a bright blue warp, probably dyed with indigo, and a bright pink weft, probably dyed with cochineal, which were both highly valued dyestuffs in this period. The second structural shot effect is achieved through the nature of the fibre or wool colour, either by manipulating the common variegation found in natural fibre tones, or by reproducing a similar variegation though dyed tones. Nowadays, this effect is known as vareteado in Spanish, which would be “streaked” in English, although it is still called ch’imi in Aymara (and ch’imisqa in Quechua). This effect is found in archaeological textiles, in men’s tunics (unku) and mantas (llaquta),

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Figure 10.2  Man’s mantle (llaquta) from Killpani, in Potosí, showing a variegated effect through changes in the natural fibre tones of the dark brown plain areas. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, MCM-ARQ 0397. Photo in the ILCA Collection.

and women’s shawls and headdresses, which became the four colonial tribute items, as well as in their newer garments such as women’s overdresses (anaku or ñañaka). The technique continues into republican and modern garments, as well as in accessories such as bags, so it is an Andean technique that has continued through the centuries. Early examples can be found in the Potosí region, in Late Intermediate Period tunics and mantles (AD 1000–1420), long before colonial contact (Fig. 10.2). 46 46 Claudia Rivera Casanovas, “Textiles de los grupos Qaraqara prehispánicos en las regiones de Yura y Carma, Potosí, Bolivia,” Mundo de Antes 6/7 (2009–2011): 163–92; Arnold, Los productos textiles de los Andes sur-centrales, 274.

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Figure 10.3a  Thick felted or plush mantle with a variegated effect through the natural fibre tones, from the Late Intermediate Period site (AD 1000–1420) of Killpani in Potosí. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, register MCMARQ 0400. Photo by Elvira Espejo, in the ILCA Collection.

Figure 10.3b  Detail of the head opening of a closed tunic fragment from Finca Carma, in Potosí, from the Late Intermediate Period, with speckling from the warp-thread spin effect in the greyish stripes. © Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, register MCM-ARQ 0401. Photo by Elvira Espejo, in the ILCA Collection.

Figure 10.3c  The spin effect of a thread with contrasting black and white strands, as applied in the greyish stripes of Fig. 10.3b. © Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA collection.

The third effect, a speckling produced through the use of warp threads twisted with distinct fibre tones, is called an efecto de hilado or de torsión in Spanish, and “spin effect” in English. Nevertheless, it is still ch’imi in Aymara or its Quechua equivalent. This effect, found in archaeological textiles, has a properly Andean history of use. A fragment from a thick felted or plush mantle, again from the Late Intermediate Period site of Killpani in Potosí, and now curated in the Casa Nacional de la Moneda in Potosí (Fig. 10.3a), has been made by twisting and then plying hanks of wool with a stick (in the technique called mismiña in Aymara) rather than spinning the thread more finely with a spindle. 47 The composition of another fragment, of a closed tunic (unku) from Finca Carma in Potosí, again from the Late

47 Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, register MCM-ARQ 0400.

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Intermediate Period (Fig. 10.3b), includes some stripes with this speckled effect, a result of having used warp threads in a twisted black and white yarn (Fig. 10.3c). 48 Another variant of this third speckled effect can be produced by combining threads plied to the right and to the left, in an S and Z ply respectively. This again is an Andean technique found in archaeological textiles that continues into colonial, republican and modern ones. A late colonial miniature open tunic or unku held in Musef (Fig. 10.4a), sometimes called a “saint’s tunic” (unco santo) as such miniatures covered the figurines of saints in colonial churches, applies this technique.49 Woven in camelid fibre, it replicates the shimmer of silk in the central plain section through the usual contrast between the dark red-brown warp threads and the wefts of a bright pink. But then the side sections apply a different technique, in a series of stripes created by the warp plied alternately to the right and left. Similar to this miniature, but in a normal size, is a ponchito with this variant of the technique from the lakeside province of Acoma, possibly dating to the eighteenth century, and a poncho from further inland in Sica Sica, in southern Pacajes, in Walter Siegal’s collection.50 The technique is also present in a short colonial open tunic, called a qhawa, again from the lakeside area of Acora.51 The fourth technique to obtain a shot effect, through differences in the warp counts, is found in colonial garments, but often combined with additional techniques to create a whole assemblage of shimmering accents. A late colonial woman’s overskirt or ñañaka, from northern Pacajes, again housed in Musef (Fig. 10.4b), in alpaca fibre and sheep’s wool, illustrates this use of distinct techniques throughout.52 Specific weft counts are applied in each half of the overskirt to produce varied shimmering effects. In one half, the weft is a wonderfully light golden yellow combined with violet, in a 2|1 count respectively; in the other, weft threads of dark blue are combined with violet, this time in a 2|4 count. This technique has Andean forebears. Then, in the side sections, an additional speckled technique is introduced 48 Rivera Casanovas, “Textiles de los grupos Qaraqara prehispánicos”; Arnold, Los productos textiles de los Andes sur-centrales, 333. 49 Musef, La Paz, ref. 21144, Cat. 92; Phipps, “An Andean Colonial Woman’s Mantle,” 3; Denise Y. Arnold, Elvira Espejo, and Freddy Luis Maidana, Weaving Life: The Textile Collection of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, La Paz. Following the Productive Chain (La Paz: Musef and Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, 2013), 228–29. 50 For the first example, see Laurie Adelson and Arthur Tracht, Aymara Weavings: Ceremonial Textiles of Colonial and 19th Century Bolivia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1983), 61, Cat. 5. For the second example, see William Siegal, Aymara-Bolivianische Textilien/Historica Aymara Textiles, 28–29. 51 Christiane Lefebvre, Textiles aymaras del altiplano peruano: Cambios y continuidad desde el siglo XVI, online publication as part of the Biblioteca de la Casa del Corregidor, Puno, Peru, 2009, accessed 10 January 2010, http://www.casadelcorregidor.pe/colaboraciones/Lefebvre.php. 52 Musef, La Paz, register 293, Cat. 94, in Arnold, Espejo, and Maidana, Weaving Life, 232–33.

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Figure 10.4a A late colonial miniature open tunic (unku), probably from the Titicaca lakeside area, with a tornasol effect by contrasting the warp and weft colours in the main pampa, and an additional shot effect in the lateral pink strips by combining warp threads plied to the right and to the left. © Musef, La Paz, ref. 21144, Cat. 92. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.

Figure 10.4b  Detail of a late colonial woman’s overskirt (ñañaka), from northern Pacajes, with several applied shot effects. © Musef, La Paz, register 293, Cat. 94. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.

through interspersed pink stripes, clearly visible as the warp threads are plied to the left (in Z), in another example with Andean antecedents. Another shot effect in the same overskirt is produced from the bi-spun warp threads across the main plain weave area, where red-brown and pink warp yarns are plied together to produce the shot effect by the type of thread. Combined with both of these shimmering techniques, yet another striping effect across the whole garment is achieved through the natural variation in the fibre tones. Thus, although this overskirt seems at first glance to be a simple colonial reworking of the iridescence of imported silk, there are in fact several techniques at work simultaneously in its making, some of them dating to centuries before the conquest. The result is a truly hybrid combination of Andean and colonial techniques. Shimmering effects produced by variations in the warp count were applied throughout the colonial period in other kinds of garments from the lakeside region, such as the waylla and wayllasa worn as local shawl styles by Aymara women on the northern shore, around Pampa Acora, near Chucuito.53 The composition of these garments combined broad plain weave stripes with bands of narrow coloured stripes, which the Canadian textile specialist Christiane Lefebvre associates with the Choquela hunter-gatherers of the distant past who roamed around the lakeside.54 53 Arnold, Los productos textiles de los Andes sur-centrales, 287. 54 Lefebvre, Textiles aymaras del altiplano peruano.

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Figure 10.5b  Detail of design bands in a late colonial or early republican mantle from Sica Sica (north Pacajes), with skull designs and a speckled termination. © Musef, La Paz, register 363, Cat. 97. Photo by Gabriela Escobar, in the ILCA Collection.

Figure 10.5a A colonial ceremonial wayllasa from Pampa Acora, near Chucuito, with a shot effect in the wide stripes by the warp count. © Museo Nacional de Arqueología, La Paz, MNA 82-027, etiqueta blanca, no. 11. Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA collection.

Figure 10.5c  Detail of a provincial Tiwanaku belt-bag with a band of skull designs showing their speckled termination. © Museo Arqueológico y Antropológico, San Miguel de Azapa, Arica, Chile, register Az-6 T.4 No. 12028.1. Photo by Denise Y. Arnold, in the ILCA Collection.

In many examples, the broader plain weave areas were woven to achieve the ch’imi effect through a 2|1 warp count, in warp threads of two violets to one dark blue (see the wayllasa in Fig. 10.5a). Many late colonial and early republican textiles, such as the wayllasa, from the lakeside provinces are woven with broad plain weave areas or wide stripes, but now combined with bands of figures flanked by coloured stripes (Fig. 10.5a). The plain weave areas often combine a shot effect through the contrast between warp and weft colours, with an additional shimmering accent produced through the warp thread count. Apart from stripes, there are often bands of designs, usually

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in a 2|2 count pebble weave, or else in a technique that seems similar, but is not quite pebble (Fig. 10.5b). This evidence of different Andean precedents that contributed to the later colonial experiments in shot effects shows that the lakeside weavers were already familiar with techniques to generate shimmering and speckling, long before the colonial importation of silk. Added to this, their complex history is widely disseminated, and not restricted to the lakeside region. Hence the use of contrasting warp and weft colours in the particularly fine tornasol lakeside headcloths, shawls, and tunics produced regional instances of these ongoing experiments.

Longer-Term Weaving Strategies of the Aymara Lakeside Weavers At the same time, the perseverance of some of these techniques in the emerging colonial material practices of the lakeside weavers drew on specific recognisable characteristics in their own woven past. In this sense, their tornasol techniques illustrate a much longer-term regional strategy concerned with cultural continuity, subjectivity, and memory, through the material replication of ancestral knowledge. This leads me back to my earlier question: why was this longer-term strategy so persistent among the Aymara-speaking weavers of the lakeside communities, as compared to other regions? And why did it tend to restrict the weaving repertories of these groups to small-scale designs, and the ongoing use of certain counting techniques, mainly the 2|2 granular texture of pebble weave? Gisbert and colleagues’ conclusion to their critique of Aymara weaving is that the “iconographic poverty” in lakeside textiles is probably a result of the susceptibility of these populations, living not far from the city of La Paz, to Toledo’s sixteenth-century dispositions restricting the use of figurative designs, followed by the abolition of any pre-Columbian elements in their design repertory.55 However, these scholars do not apply the same attention to the shimmering qualities of this Aymara fabric or its extreme fineness, which can reach forty-five warp threads to 1cm in some cases. Again, other elements are in play here. Even the ubiquitous lakeside designs in pebble weave, far from abolishing pre-Columbian precedents, take us back into the distant past, the earliest example of this technique dating to the Early Horizon (900–200 BC) on the central and south coasts of what is now Peru. The ongoing practice of this technique in the highlands implied long-term ties between coastal and highland weavers. By the heyday of Tiwanaku hegemony, techniques of complementary warp-faced weaves, including pebble, came to characterise textile production in the Altiplano and in Tiwanaku’s valley and coastal trading partners, 55 Gisbert, Arze, and Cajías, Arte textil, 180, 185–88.

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including distant regions such as San Pedro de Atacama, and the Interandean valleys of Cochabamba and Chuquisaca.56 In the absence of many archaeological textiles from immediately around the lake, historical evidence for the lakeside technique of pebble weave can be found in these outlying dry coastal sites where textiles have been better preserved. For example, many belt-bags from the coastal Western valleys (located now between Peru and Chile), dating to Phase V of Tiwanaku (AD 800–1000) are woven with the front panels characterised by coloured stripes intercalated with narrow design bands, in a complementary cloth that again looks superficially like the 2|2 count of pebble weave, although it is really something else.57 Their warp thread counts are in fact worked in a particular ladder design that has a speckled effect at its terminations. “Ladder” designs (peinecillo in Spanish) are usually woven as a starting or finishing technique in design bands, where the shuttle can no longer penetrate the warp shed, and it is increasingly difficult to pick out design areas. Ladder designs characterised Tiwanaku textiles from the Middle Horizon Period onwards. There are two basic kinds of ladder designs: those with the colour in rows (called patapata in Aymara), and those where the colours form a checkerboard pattern (called k’uthu). These two basic types of ladder have their own variations, and often included figures. Many design bands in the provincial Tiwanaku belt-bags were woven in ladder designs with checkerboard colours with these additional figures (called k’uthu palla), invariably of the skull design, called t’uxlu. These are woven in a half or whole design, depending on the width of the design bands (Fig. 10.5c). I have mentioned elsewhere how these designs express a death and regeneration complex, centred on the head, and how very early examples are found in woven instruments for cranial deformation.58 Other speckled patterns in lakeside textiles from the distant and the recent past are woven in another kind of checkerboard, this time called “little chain” (cadenita) or “little eyes” (ojito) in Spanish, where the narrow ladder bands express these features. These designs, too, are associated with lakeside populations until today, especially the Uru-Chipaya peoples around Lake Titicaca, and Lakes Poopo and Coipasa further south. They are woven by Uru-Chipayas weavers in storage bags and in the design bands of their men’s tunics (called ira). Like the ladder 56 Amy S. Oakland Rodman, “Tiwanaku Textile Style from the South Central 2000: Andes, Bolivia and North Chile” (PhD. diss., Austin: University of Texas, 1986), 188; Amy S. Oakland Rodman and Arabel Fernández, “Los tejidos Huari y Tiwanaku: Comparaciones y contextos,” Boletín de Arqueología 4 (2000): 119–30, fig.17; Arnold and Espejo, Andean Science of Weaving, 267–68. 57 Arnold and Espejo, Andean Science of Weaving, 285. 58 Arnold and Espejo, “Heads on the Periphery,” 286–88; Arnold and Espejo, El textil tridimensional, 242–43, 280, figs. 8–9.

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designs, these are said by contemporary weavers to indicate the regional patterns of agricultural production. For instance, “little chain” designs are still found around Acora on the western side of Lake Titicaca, where it is called qutu or lupphu, terms held by Bertonio to mean a “small heap of something.”59 For Aymara speakers, these designs indicate harvested crops piled up at the sides of fields; in the Uru-Chipaya case, harvests of fish from the lake.60 Our argument is that with the expansion of Tiwanaku civilisation, a greater area came under the sway of this common system of codification.61 The fact that the characteristic 2|2 pebble weave count, applied over centuries in the lakeside designs, has this underlying technique of ladder designs in checkerboard with figures, implies a direct link between the weavings of this region and its pre-Columbian predecessors in Tiwanaku and beyond. The ongoing practice of favouring narrow design bands and the small scale of these designs until today are further material expressions of these cultural continuities. These long-term material expressions in Aymara weavings suggest that the present lakeside populations appropriated the basis for their 2|2 counting techniques in the ladder designs with checkerboard and figures, from the pre-existing populations of Pukina and Uru-chipaya speakers on the lake shores, who had lived there since Tiwanaku times. We face an ethnic politics of identifying with the forebears of a certain region while a new group establishes itself there. The turn to fully fledged pebble weave could have been a later technical consolidation of these tendencies.

Conclusions It does seem then that this varied evidence of technical appropriations, directed at reinventing ethnic identities in new territorial settings, derives from the reiteration of long-term material practices. This evidence also seems to suggest that these reinventions may come into being during processes of “ethnogenesis,” but redefined as cultural configurations that seek continuity as much as change, and cultural “synthesis,” in which different material traditions overlap as “hybridity” when viewed from the outside, as Bhabha insists, but where complex appropriations might be operating on the inside. The case of colonial tornasol is just one such example, where

59 Bertonio, Vocabulario, vol. 2, 53; Arnold and Espejo, El textil tridimensional, 290. 60 Arnold and Espejo, El textil tridimensional, 293–94. 61 Denise Y. Arnold with Elvira Espejo, “Woven Techniques and Social Interactions in the South Central Andes: Ladder Designs and the Visualization of Productive Output,” in Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in the Andes, ed. Denise Y. Arnold and Penelope Dransart (London: Archetype Publications, 2014), 303–26.

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a colonial reworking of iridescent silk drew on centuries of previous experiments in manifestations of similar material qualities. In fact, ongoing debates in Andean studies about Aymara identity illustrate how these transforming or else consolidating processes through material practice are reiterated throughout the history of the region. For instance, the colonial experiments in tornasol as a way to replicate imported silk, but referring back to pre-Columbian forebears, have their counterparts in the twentieth century. The cultural recognition of “Aymara ethnic identity,” as opposed to the more generalised historical references to “Aymara-speaking peoples,” is a relatively recent phenomenon. It seems to emerge with the Bolivian Revolution in the 1950s, with the destruction of the large landholdings in the Altiplano and the subsequent diaspora of the lakeside populations into the new barrios of the expanding cities of El Alto and La Paz. Gradually, Aymara cultural identity was consolidated through the emissions of radio stations such as Radio San Gabriel, the “Voice of the Aymara People.”62 Concurrently, Aymara political identity was fostered through the Movimiento Revolucionario Tupac Katari, and the regional leadership of the Mallku Felipe Quispe, with his dream of re-establishing a new Aymara Republic centred in Tiwanaku. These migrant Aymara speakers brought their weaving techniques from the lakeside with them, but quickly adapted to the semi-industrialised textile production emerging in these cities. In their local barrios, they set up workshops with mechanical looms to produce bolts of semi-industrial cloth, still with the narrow lakeside designs, for the new clientele of Aymara market women seeking strong fabrics for their heavy loads of merchandise. These lakeside designs, with others directly inspired by the Tiwanaku ruins (principally the Gate of the Sun), were disseminated in this new technology of cloth production as a characteristic sign of Aymara identity. Its material manifestations in cloth expanded first into southern Peru, around the lakeside, then into the northern sierra and coastal cities of Chile, and onward as Aymara speakers became disseminated further afield. The same characteristics have since transposed into other media: architecture, computer designs, modern consumer items (bags, shoes, jumpers), and most notably in the facades of the prestigious Aymara residences, called cholet, in the city of El Alto. This is not to overlook the negative effects of colonial domination upon Aymaraspeaking peoples. The asymmetrical power relations introduced during the early Spanish colonial era caused depopulation, decreased birth rates, chronic disease, and poor nutrition. However, the reaction of these peoples was not to absorb passively the new influences on their world, but to rework them in their own image. 62 Thomas A. Abercrombie, “La fiesta del carnaval postcolonial en Oruro: Clase, etnicidad y nacionalismo en la danza folklórica,” Revista andina 2 (December 1992): 279–352, here 329.

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Denise Y. Arnold

About the Author Denise Y. Arnold, an Anglo-Bolivian anthropologist who specialises in the study of Andean textiles, is Senior Research Fellow at University College London and directs the Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara in La Paz, Bolivia. Her publications include The Andean Science of Weaving (2015), Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in the Andes (co-ed. 2014), and “Making Textiles into Persons,” Journal of Material Culture, 2018. She has curated textile exhibitions in the British Museum, MASP in São Paolo, and Musef in La Paz.

11. In-Between the Global and the Local Silk in Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century Russia* Victoria Ivleva Abstract This chapter charts the identity politics related to silk textiles in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Russia by examining silk trade and acquisition, the introduction of new practices, as well as attempts to develop silk manufacturing. The chapter discusses the early development of the Russian silk industry in the context of localised consumption and mercantilist policies. This chapter argues that silk fabrics became transformed from globally traded artefacts into tokens of local identity politics. They turned into in-between textiles negotiating and driving societal change between Self and Other, where the Other signified not only the territorial and cultural Other, but also old forms of life within Russia. These textiles helped to create the in-between space where cultural values and notions of selfhood underwent negotiation. Silk textiles were crucial tools that materialised identities at a time when Russia became embedded in an increasingly globalised world. Keywords: silks; Russia; mercantilism; global consumerism; identity politics

Introduction Silk shaped the processes of early globalisation that affected Russia, by creating networks of cultural, political, and commercial connections between the East and the West. The new “cosmopolitan material culture” of the early modern period, as Beverly Lemire suggests, “redefined material life, social practice and commercial enterprise” and became “emblematic of evolving economic, social and political systems.”1 This chapter explores these changes and charts the identity politics related * I wish to thank Stefan Hanß, Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, and Boris Maslov for commenting on earlier drafts of this chapter. 1 Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 3, 88.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch11

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to silk textiles in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Russia by examining silk trade and acquisition, the introduction of new practices, as well as attempts to develop silk manufacturing. The chapter discusses the early development of the Russian silk industry in the context of localised consumption and mercantilist policies. I argue that silk fabrics became transformed from globally traded artefacts into tokens of local identity politics. They turned into in-between textiles negotiating and driving societal change “between Self and Other,” where the Other signified not only the territorial and cultural Other, but also old forms of life within Russia. These textiles helped to create what Homi Bhabha calls “the in-between space” where cultural values and notions of selfhood underwent negotiation.2 The textiles were crucial tools that materialised identities in a time when Russia became embedded in an increasingly globalised world. Russian silk textiles do not feature prominently in the big narratives of early modern globalised textile markets, perhaps because Russian silk industry developed on a small scale.3 However, during the early modern period, many silk textiles passed via Muscovy, with the country becoming an important trading centre. The present chapter therefore seeks to contribute to the historiographic debate on global consumerism by showing how Russia became part of global processes, and how these textile encounters culturally enriched the country and offered practices of collaboration. These practices created spaces of in-betweenness, connected societies, offered moments of self-reflection, drove changes, produced new concepts of identity, and contributed to the emergence of early modernity.

Globalising Silk Textiles Trade along the Silk Roads and acquisition of textiles and technologies of silk production had a global nature in the early modern period, and silk fabrics circulated in Muscovy long before the eighteenth century. Royal and court garments, ecclesiastical vestments, and furnishings made of silks contributed to the opulence of court ceremonies and mass services. The court purchased textiles from domestic and foreign merchants in the stalls and at the Persian market in Moscow4 and abroad via foreign residents, and received gifts from visiting diplomats, petitioning foreigners,

2 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 2, 56, 72. 3 Note, for instance, the absence of Russia in Dagmar Schäfer, Giorgio Riello, and Luca Molà, eds., Threads of Global Desire: Silk in the Pre-Modern World (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2018). 4 Johann P. Kilburger, “Kratkoe izvestie o russkoi torgovle, kak ona proizvodilas’ v 1674 g. vyvoznymi i privoznymi tovarami po vsei Rossii,” in Sochinenie Kil’burgera o russkoi torgovle v tsarstvovanie Alekseia Mikhailovicha, ed. Boris G. Kurts (Kiev: Chokolov, 1915), vol. 6, 150–51.

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and monarchs and officials during their embassies abroad.5 Thus, in 1649, the Shunzhi emperor (1644–1661) sent tsar Alexis (1645–1676) 700 bolts of patterned and embroidered silk to mark the improvement of Russian-Chinese relationships.6 Such material diplomacy worked where other diplomatic languages may have failed, and alliances were forged through these gifts. Textiles were instrumental in developing global connections, “shared values and material and visual experiences,” but also underscored cultural differences and conveyed power imbalances.7 Fabrics obtained as war booty provide examples of such asymmetric relations.8 Treasury inventories contain detailed information about acquired fabrics, their sources, quantity, and prices. According to these records, in 1629 and in 1635, the Persian shah sent tsar Mikhail (1613–1645) two pieces of velvet, approximately 5 metres each at a price of 40 roubles per item, with botanical patterns on gold and silver grounds. Likewise, in 1639, the court purchased four pieces of velvet approximately 7 metres each at a price of 70 roubles from a Greek merchant. The court bought further silk from the Persian ambassador.9 The main seventeenth-century suppliers of silks were Persia, Ottoman Istanbul, Italy, and China, however, Ottoman satins and velvets were among the most affordable options. Bright in colours with large botanical images which formed geometrical patterns, velvets had a thick cotton base. Ottoman craftsmen borrowed floral elements from Persian decorative art, but without realistic details of the later. In Russia, Ottoman silks were used for furnishings and outer garments, and often had second-life repurposing. In 1678, for instance, subjects close to the Court received Ottoman velvets, which previously decorated the walls in the Palace of Facets in Moscow, for garments. Persian textiles were more often used to make clothing.10 5 Iuliia S. Rusova, “Istochniki postupleniia inostrannykh tkanei v gosudarevu kaznu dlia proizvodstva tsarskoi odezhdy v Rossii XVII veka,” Prepodavatel’ XXI vek 3 (2018): 261–71. 6 Iuliia G. Blagoder, “Formirovanie akademicheskikh i chastnykh kollektsii predmetov kitaiskogo prikladnogo iskusstva v Rossii (XVIII–XIX vv.),” Uchenye zapiski Kazanskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta: Seriia “Gumanitarnye nauki” 151, no. 2/2 (2009): 76. 7 Zoltàn Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen, and Giorgio Riello, “Introduction,” in Global Gifts and the Material Culture of Diplomacy in Early Modern Eurasia, ed. Zoltàn Biedermann, Anne Gerritsen, and Giorgio Riello (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 1. 8 Anatolii A. Ivanov, “Islamic Art in the State Hermitage Museum,” in Heaven on Earth: Art from Islamic Lands. Works from the State Hermitage Museum and the Khalili Collection, ed. Mikhail B. Piotrovsky and J. Michael Rogers (Munich: Prestel, 2004), 43; Biedermann, Gerritsen, and Riello, “Introduction.” 9 Aleksei E. Viktorov, ed., Opisanie zapisnykh knig i bumag starinnykh dvortsovykh prikazov, 1584–1725 (Moscow: Arkhipov, 1877), vol. 1, 22. 10 Maria N. Levinson-Nechaeva, “Odezhda i tkani XVI–XVII vekov,” Gosudarstvennaia oruzheinaia palata Moskovskogo Kremlia, ed. Sergei K. Bogoiavlenskii and Georgii A. Novitskii (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1954), 368, 372.

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Import of Safavid fabrics increased after the annexation of Kazan’ in 1552 and Astrakhan’ in 1556.11 These textiles also interested European merchants who hoped to have a transit trade via Muscovy, but while giving a ten-year licence in 1634 to Holstein merchants, the government allowed them to purchase only raw silk in Persia to protect Russian trading interests.12 According to Tamara Ganjalyan, “the Armenian merchants of New Julta [in Astrakhan’] dominated the Persian raw silk trade” and participated “in international trade—especially between India, Persia, and Europe.” Armenian merchants owned a monopoly on the raw silk transit trade via Muscovy between 1667 and 1719, although with some restrictions. They traded with the English Muscovy Company and exported silk via the Caspian and White Seas and from 1708 via St Petersburg.13 The land route via Astrakhan’, Moscow, and Poland gained increasing importance during Ottoman-Persian wars when imports to Europe via the Black Sea were unsafe.14 A transit route for Chinese silks was established during Ivan Petlin’s embassy (1618–1619),15 but more regular supplies arrived in Russia after the conclusion of the Nerchinsk Treaty in 1689. Yet, even before these official endorsements, silk textiles moved across borders, bringing new experiences and cross-cultural awareness, creating spaces of in-betweenness and becoming culturally re-appropriated. Seventeenth-century dowry inventories list garments and furnishings made from silk textiles, occasionally mentioning their Persian or Chinese origins. According to Vladimir Klein, in the earlier periods, kamká (patterned damask silk) “was the most widely used silk fabric,” which was imported from East Asia and Western Europe. While Venetian kamka was popular at the court, Chinese kamka was a more affordable option.16 The 1612 dowry of Epestemia, who likely belonged to a family of monastery peasants in the Vologda region, listed two women’s hats made of azure and red kamkas. The 1637 dowry of Feodor Brashchin’s daughter, probably from a “black-plough” state peasant family in Tur’ia (part of the Komi region), contained a head covering/towel (shirinka) and pillowcases made from silk-embroidered linen, and a headband (pereviazka), which was often made from brocade or with 11 Ibid., 336. 12 Sergei M. Solov’ev, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, 6 vols. (St Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za, 1851–1879), vol. 2/9, 1234. 13 Tamara Ganjalyan, “Armenian Trade Networks,” European History Online, Mainz: Leibniz Institute of European History, 2019, accessed 10 May 2021, http://www.ieg-ego.eu/ganjalyant-2016-en. 14 A. Panahi and Hassan Kohansal Vajargah, “The Importance of Guilan Silk and Its Economic Significance at Safavid Period in Caspian Region,” Caspian Journal of Environmental Sciences 10, no. 1 (2012): 127. 15 Maria L. Men’shikova and T. B. Koliadina, “Felon’,” in The Hermitage Encyclopedia of Textiles: Conservation, ed. Larisa V. Spiridonova (St Petersburg: State Hermitage Publishers, 2017), 276–77. 16 Vladmir K. Klein, Inozemnye tkani, bytovavshie v Rossii do XVIII veka, i ikh terminologiia (Moscow: Oruzheinaia Palata, 1925), 50–56.

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goldwork embroidery.17 In such cases, embroidery threads usually came from the East. Textile objects embroidered by maidens with traditional decorative patterns demonstrated their craft and artistry, but peasants could have equally purchased these items during annual fairs—both Vologda and Tur’ia were part of the northern trading routes.18 Festive garments from the collection of the Hermitage Museum (Fig. 11.1) made in the upper reaches of the Volga River, close to Astrakhan’, could have belonged to a merchant family involved in textile trade. They are made of both more expensive brocade and damask and more affordable chintz. The dowries meant to showcase a degree of prosperity. The two headdresses listed in the 1637 dowry cost almost as much as a cow.19 Their decorative functions and aesthetic appeal were other financial indicators. Imported textiles and threads domesticated through sewing and embroidery became in-between objects which participated in initiation rites and contributed to community making. Decorative towels, for instance, performed symbolic functions in life-cycle rituals—protection, donation, integration, and notification.20 Yet, in the earlier periods, the demand for high-quality silks was mainly among court nobles and clergy. In the seventeenth century, Arkhangel’sk became an important trading centre in the north. According to Rita Mazzei, vessels, particularly from Holland and Hamburg, delivered high-quality Italian silks to the port’s annual fair where ermesin taffeta and damask silk from Lucca, Venetian-type tabby (moire-like silk), and Genoise-type velours were popular. This trade was full of risks from navigation challenges in adverse weather conditions to not knowing about textile demands, from high import taxes, having to accept (sometimes reluctantly) leather yuft for silk, to losing money on sales or incurring further expenses for unsold fabrics. Nevertheless, many merchants persisted, knowing that they could lose or gain between 20 and 25 per cent. This trade also depended on shipments of Persian and Chinese silk via the Astrakhan’ route. The rebellion of Stepan Razin (1630–1671) in the Don and Volga region (1667–1671) affected delivery of Persian silks and thus Italian merchants were at a great advantage.21 This example suggests not only 17 Nikolai Kolachov, ed., Akty, otnosiashchiesia do iuridicheskago byta drevnei Rossii (St Petersburg: Imperatorskaia Akademiia Nauk, 1884), vol. 3, 287, 306. 18 Gali S. Maslova, Ornament russkoi narodnoi vyshivki kak istoriko-etnograficheskii istochnik (Moscow: Nauka, 1978), 16–55. I am grateful to Galina Ulianova for drawing my attention to this source. 19 Kolachov, Akty, 287. 20 Lidiia S. Toksubaeva, “Ritual’nye polotentsa v sisteme mirovozzreniia russkogo krest’ianstva i drugikh narodov Vostochnoi Evropy,” Izvestiia Obshchestva arkheologii, istorii i etnografii pri Kazanskom universitete 37, no. 4 (2017): 47–58. 21 Rita Mazzei, “Ital’ianskie shelka v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XVII veka: produktsiia Lukki na Arkhangel’skoi iarmarke,” in Russkii sbornik: Issledovaniia po istorii Rossii, ed. Igor’ V. Dubrovskii (Moscow: Kolerov, 2018), vol. 24, 519–68; Peter Voss, “Le commerce bordelaise et la route d’Arkhangelsk à la fin du

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Figure 11.1  Maiden’s festive costume. Russia, second half of the eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERT-13037. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.

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the impact of political and geopolitical events on trade, but also the existence of interdependent global trading networks. In 1668, Ambassador Petr Potemkin (1617–1700) started preliminary conversations with French merchants about the import of textiles such as altabas (silk brocade with silver gilt thread), velvet, gold ob’’iar (moire-like fabric), damask silk, and satin via Arkhangel’sk.22 Before departing from Paris, he purchased several watches and a selection of brocades for almost 1,000 écus. His embassy also received gifts from Louis XIV (1643–1715) including tapestries, carpets, various brocades, and high-quality red/orange fabric possibly used for bedding.23 Such purchases and diplomatic gifts contributed to the import not only of textiles, but also of decorative arts, lifestyles, and cultures. New textile products started to populate public and private spaces establishing new sensory and aesthetic experiences. Already during the Russo-Polish War (1654–1657), tsar Alexis came into contact with European lifestyle, which according to his physician Samuel Collins left a profound impact on the tsar, “since his Majesty has been in Poland, and seen the manner of the Princes houses there, and ghess’d at the mode of their Kings, his thoughts are advanced, and he begins to model his Court and Edifices more stately, to furnish his Rooms with Tapestry, and contrive houses of pleasure abroad.”24 According to Ivan Zabelin, at the end of the seventeenth century, the royal palace in Moscow had European-style furnishings—chairs and armchairs with velvet and satin upholstery and mirrors, which were usually covered with silk fabrics when not in use.25 Both royal and ecclesiastical authorities also communicated by means of silk in ceremonial practices and gift exchanges. Such exchange between the tsar Mikhail and the patriarch Joseph (1642–1652), which included satin, brocade, and silk damask, took place after the election of the latter in 1642.26 These acts solidified a political union between the state and the Church and foregrounded silk as a tool for community making, in this case, elite-making, as the royals, nobles, and ecclesiastical authorities were usually giving and receiving silks.27 Such statal-ecclesiastical exchanges remained in place until the late seventeenth century. XVIIe siècle,” in Négoce, ports et océans, XVIe–XXe siècles, ed. Silvia Marzagalli and Hubert Bonin (Pessac: Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux, 2000), 135–47. 22 Nikolai Novikov, ed., Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, 2nd ed., 20 vols. (Moscow: Kompaniia Tipograficheskaia, 1788–1791), vol. 4, 518; Klein, Inozemnye tkani, 16, 19, 40–42. 23 Monsieur de Saintot [Monsieur de Catheux?], “Appendix IV,” in La Russie du XVIIe siècle dans ses rapports avec L’Europe occidentale, ed. Emmanuel M. Galitzin (Paris: Gide et Baudry 1855), 431. 24 Samuel Collins, The Present State of Russia (London: Winter, 1671), 64–65. 25 Ivan Zabelin, Domashnii byt russkikh tsarei v XVI i XVII stoletiiakh, 2 parts (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 2000), vol. 1/1, 218–20. 26 Novikov, Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, vol. 6, 251, 255. 27 For a discussion of community making as a political project, see Bhabha, Location of Culture, 4.

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Ecclesiastical vestments and furnishings made of high-quality textiles were often products of transcultural work that incorporated traditional motifs of their native countries with some elements added later in Russian workshops. Craftsmen in the Ottoman city of Bursa and in a Safavid court workshop initially made many of these fabrics and vestment bases using “naturalistic and mythical” figural patterns. The shoulder pieces were frequently embroidered in Muscovy using abstract, floral, and religious motifs.28 Russian workshops also made ecclesiastical vestments from Chinese and later French textiles.29 Ottoman and Chinese luxury silks, used for making the robes of state and sent as royal gifts, were often re-modelled into ecclesiastical vestments to give these materials a second life.30 According to Ivan Zabelin, churches also received fabrics previously used for royal cradles, to make shoulder pieces and furnishings. These gifts were believed to bring blessings into babies’ lives,31 but also channelled wealth into useful consumption. Their re-use and focus on thrift was often a matter of moral considerations. Domostroi, a sixteenth-century book of household rules, advised Muscovites to be frugal and charitable and keep their clothes clean and tidy.32 Such focus on preservation embodied the significance of tradition and stability. Materiality also was of crucial importance for religious practices.33 Vestments and furnishings made of the repurposed fabrics became both material and immaterial objects that facilitated spiritual transcendence. In this context, it did not matter that these textiles incorporated exotic motifs such as embroidered dragons used in Chinese court robes or genre scenes woven in the Safavid court workshop.34 In Russian orthodox contexts, the emphasis shifted from these textiles’ native meanings and pictorial representations to their new nature as sanctified objects. Through their participation in religious practices, such textiles became culturally re-appropriated and re-semioticised into spiritual objects (Fig. 11.2).35 28 Piotrovsky and Rogers, Heaven, 103, 106. 29 The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, LI-606, Chasuble made in Russia from Chinese embroidered silk; the State Historical Museum, Moscow, ND TII-390, Sakkos made from French brocade, second half of the eighteenth century. 30 Piotrovsky and Rogers, Heaven, 105. 31 Zabelin, Domashnii byt, vol. 1/2, 57. 32 Carolyn Johnston Pouncy, ed., The Domostroi: Rules for Russian Households in the Time of Ivan the Terrible (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 74, 123, 127–31, 140. 33 David Morgan, “Introduction: The Matter of Belief,” in Religion and Material Culture: The Matter of Belief, ed. David Morgan (London: Routledge, 2010), 3–12; Webb Keane, “The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 14, no. S1 (2008): S123–24. 34 Sarah Cheang, “Dragons in the Drawing Room: Chinese Embroideries in British Homes, 1860–1949,” Textile History 39, no. 2 (2013): 225; Men’shikova and Koliadina, “Felon’,” 278; Piotrovsky and Rogers, Heaven, 103. 35 Keane, “The Evidence of the Senses,” S114–15, S124.

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Figure 11.2  Chasuble, with images of Majnun being comforted by animals. Sixteenth-century Persian silk; seventeenth-century shoulder piece embroidered in Russia. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number IR-2327. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.

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Travel records written by members of the embassies document the early modern Russian fascination with silks. Muscovy was keen on establishing international relations and sent diplomatic missions to Poland (1601/02), Persia (1618–1620), Imereti, Georgia (1650–1652), China (1654–1657, 1692–1695), Venice (1656/57), Florence (1658/59), Spain and France (1667/68), as well as several other European countries (1697/98) to name only a few embassies. These travellers described ethnic clothing, ceremonial dress, and textile gifts, silk fabrics used for garments and furnishing and sold in the stalls.36 Nikifor Tolochanov (before 1627–after 1663) noted that everyone in Imereti had been involved in silk trade while the Holstein merchant Eberhard I. Ides (1657–1708) mentioned Chinese manufactories specialising in silk brocades and damasks.37 As such accounts show, silk played an important role in negotiations and participated in the processes of early globalisation. While Muscovite embassies to Europe presented Persian silks as diplomatic gifts, the Buryats in Siberia at the end of the century purchased Persian silks and cloth brought from Hamburg.38 The wide range of textiles mentioned in the seventeenth- and mid-eighteenthcentury documents indicate their popularity. These documents list brocades, Venetian damaskette, baiberek (lightest silk-and-wool brocade), altabas, damask silk, taffeta, satin, gros de tours, ob’iar’, velvet-like aksamit, and Persian izorbat (both with gold and silver threads). A 1743 decree mentions various Chinese silks including gol’ (shiny fabric), kanfa (satin), and smooth, floral, and striped svistun.39 Such documents testify to the existence of global commercial networks and the development of advanced technologies that could process silk, woollen, silver, and gold yarns into sophisticated patterns. The quality of silk, which also depended on its fibre properties, was an indicator of taste and refinement. Global textile markets, with silks being among the most valued commodities, facilitated the development of a cosmopolitan material culture in which merchants performed the roles of intermediaries introducing new textiles and fashions, helping create new social and aesthetic experiences, and facilitating knowledge transfer. 40

36 Novikov, Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, vol. 4, 137–39, 346–54; vol. 5, 162–65, 172–73; vol. 8, 470–72; vol. 9, 388–89, 432–33. 37 Ibid., vol. 5, 246; vol. 9, 455, 458. 38 Ibid., vol. 4, 492; vol. 5, 316–17, 351–52; vol. 8, 410. 39 Mikhail M. Speranskii, ed., Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, 45 vols. (St Petersburg: II Otdelenie Sobstvennoi E.I.V. Kantseliarii, 1830), hereafter PSZRI, vol. 7, 370–71; vol. 11, 955–56; Novikov, Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, vol. 4, 271, 343, 354–55. For descriptions of fabrics, see Klein, Inozemnye tkani, 12–15, 45–47, 50–56; Iurii S. Sorokin, ed. et al., Slovar’ russkogo iazyka XVIII veka, 22 vols. (Leningrad and St Petersburg: Nauka, 1984–), vol. 5, 161; vol. 9, 236–37. 40 Lemire, Global Trade, 30–136.

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Localising Identity Politics: Silk Textiles in Petrine Russia In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, silk textiles helped to maintain social hierarchy, but also signif ied changes that started to take place in clothing and social orders. At the beginning of the century, Peter I (1682–1725) introduced shorter and more practical West European coats and decreed women to wear European dresses in urban areas. 41 His reform refocused the perception of dress from the concepts of tradition and stability to those of functionality, change, and fashion associated with notions of modernity. When in 1702, Peter decreed woollen French coats and camisoles made of three different brocades for ceremonial dress, his regulation showed more flexibility than a 1680 decree of Feodor (1676–1682). Peter’s edict included lower-ranking officials, and while assigning particular brocades—gold, with silver gilt thread and coloured—for different ranks, but not for specif ic occasions, allowed for variations when officials did not have certain textiles. 42 These material changes coincided with Peter’s attempts to introduce further meritocracy following the abolition of the mestnichestvo seniority system based on one’s place in the boyar hierarchy by Feodor, in 1682. In these emerging social and clothing orders, silk and woollen fabrics became in-between textiles that manifested changes in social fabric, lifestyle, and culture. Peter I started to introduce new dress coercively after his first embassy to Europe (1697/98). According to Evgenii Anisimov, the reforms led to the decisive prioritisation of secular principles over religious ones. 43 With these clothing changes came new values and practices, including the restructuring of public and private life and interest in new leisure activities and fashionable consumption. It is symptomatic that the manual of conduct The Honorable Mirror for Youth (1717), commissioned by the tsar, placed much emphasis on public behaviour attempting to redefine the boundaries of public life and privacy. In the context of cultural re-evaluations and re-appropriations, textiles became crucial items materialising change and in-betweenness. Like European-style clothing, furnishings disseminated new ideas about manners and practices. Some signs of this refocusing to secular culture and more individualistic values appeared in the seventeenth century, for instance, with the introduction of mirrors and chairs instead of benches in domestic spaces (Fig. 11.3), an interest in decorative furnishings, portraiture, scientific tools, and the appearance of private libraries and study spaces. 41 PSZRI, vol. 4, 1, 182. 42 Ibid., 189. Cf. ibid., vol. 2, 288–89. 43 Evgenii V. Anisimov, The Reforms of Peter the Great: Progress through Coercion in Russia (Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1993), 216.

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Figure 11.3  Dutch-style oak chair with brocade upholstery made in Russia, early eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERMb-6. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.

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In a 1718 decree, Peter officially introduced new gatherings, “assemblies,” in private houses modelled on European social practices. 44 This reformulation of spaces and sociability also resulted in new material. More nobles started to decorate their houses with textile wallcoverings and tapestries. One of Peter’s close associates Petr Shafirov (1669–1739) furnished his home with crimson velvet, which he brought from his mission to Istanbul (1711–1714), with fabrics with botanical patterns, European and Persian furniture, and tapestries purchased in Amsterdam in 1717. 45 Wealth and passion for conspicuous consumption of St Petersburg first governor Alexander Menshikov (1673–1729) reached such proportions that all his rural houses had velvet and damask wallpaper.46 In addition to being objects of fashionable consumption, these textiles added to physical comforts of domestic spaces by shielding drafts and created emotional ambience through their bright and warm colours. The functions of domestic spaces became better defined through textile furnishings, which reflected personal tastes, interests, and experiences of their owners. In eighteenth-century Russia, social and material flexibility increased. As Bhabha suggests, new globalised connections engendered hybridity and creativity in expressing identities and dealing with norms. 47 Eighteenth-century Russian palace furnishings show elements of such transcultural hybridity and in-betweenness. Among the objects in Peter’s bedroom in the Ekaterinhof Palace, which did not survive, Mikhail Pyliaev mentioned a simple pine bed probably built by the tsar himself with green silk cushions and a duvet cover with embroidered gold eagles, likely made on royal orders. A Flemish marine painting, a genre favoured by the tsar, and an old mirror hung on the walls. The room housed a cabinet with Chinese cups and an icon of the Theotokos of Vladimir. A wardrobe with his caftan ( justaucorps) stood at the entrance into the room.48 Peter’s bedroom contained objects belonging to three different traditions—Eastern Asian, European, and Russian—as well as to traditional and new cultures; some of these objects were also culturally re-appropriated as in the case of silk bedding, which originated in China, but could have come to Russia from Europe. Bedding fabrics, for instance, were among the gifts which Louis XIV gave to Potemkin in 1668. Peter’s silk bedding became further 44 PSZRI, vol. 5, 597–98. 45 Tatiana A. Bazarova, “Pervyi rossiiskii vitse-kantsler P. P. Shaf irov: Puti integratsii v rossiiskuiu politicheskuiu elitu,” in Praviashchie elity i dvorianstvo Rossii vo vremia i posle petrovskikh reform (1682–1750), ed. Nikolai N. Petrukhintsev and Lorents Erren (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2013), 129–33, 136; Tatiana A. Bazarova, “Puteshestvie vitse-kantslera P. P. Shafirova v Zapadnuiu Evropu (1716–1717),” Quaestio Rossica 6, no. 1 (2018): 54. 46 Evgenii P. Karnovich, Zamechatel’nyia bogatstva chastnykh lits v Rossii (St Petersburg: Plotnikov, 1874), 154–55. 47 Homi K. Bhabha, “Signs Taken for Wonders: Questions of Ambivalence and Authority under a Tree Outside Delhi, May 1817,” Critical Inquiry 12, no. 1 (1985): 144–65. 48 Mikhail I. Pyliaev, Staryi Peterburg, 2nd ed. (St Petersburg: Suvorin, 1889), 80.

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re-appropriated with an addition of imperial embroidery. One can identify many examples of such trans-culturalism that contributed to the creation of hybrid cultural spaces on the grounds of eighteenth-century palaces. Prior to the eighteenth century, fabrics and furnishings represented old luxury that strove for grandeur; in early eighteenth-century Russia, however, such textiles started to become objects of what Jan de Vries defines as new luxury striving for comfort and pleasure and restrained by taste, luxury which is linked more to Enlightenment ideas about “modernity” than to the notion of a social hierarchy. Seventeenth-century Holland was one of the first countries where this new pattern of consumer behaviour emerged, with the tsar being able to observe new practices during his European embassies.49 Similarly, Peter’s bedroom decor in the Ekaterinhof Palace was modest and functional reflecting his personal tastes and austerity during the Great Northern War (1700–1721). Through their visual language, tapestries and textile wallcoverings also performed educational functions providing cultural information about depicted places as was the case with the Four Continents Tapestry Series (1745–1747) woven in St Petersburg.50 Likewise, hand-painted Chinese silk wallpaper in the Crown Room of Peter’s Peterhof Palace, which depicts the process of porcelain production in Jingdezhen, demonstrates not only fascination with silks, but also with porcelain and its production technology.51 According to Iuliia Blagoder, nobles started to decorate houses with painted silk in a chinoiserie style, which was popular in mid-seventeenth-century Europe, during Peter’s reign.52 Such decorative choices show that consumption went beyond the Baroque fascination with curiosities, being dictated by interests in other cultures and scientific and technological advances. West European dress introduced by Peter I belonged to this new luxury as well refocusing its value from sumptuousness to comfort and functionality. The tsar was eager to learn about industries, the sciences, and the arts of different countries, and his visit to the famous Gobelins Manufactory in Paris in 1717 was productive for the development of a state-sponsored tapestry and silk-weaving industry in Russia.53 According to Nina Biriukova, Peter decided to establish a tapestry manufactory in 1716, and upon his request Jean Lefort (1685–1739) invited 49 Jan de Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 44–45, 48, 58. 50 The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, The Four Continents Tapestry Series: ERT-16787, Africa; ERT-16786, America; ERT-16785, Asia. Imperial Tapestry Manufactory, St Petersburg, 1744–1747. 51 Il’ia M. Gurevich, Vadim V. Znamenov, and Elena G. Miasoedova, Bol’shoi petergofskii dvorets (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1979). 52 Iuliia G. Blagoder, “Proizvedeniia kitaiskogo iskusstva v dvortsovykh rezidentsiiakh rossiiskikh pravitelei XVIII veka,” Kul’turnaia zhizn’ Iuga Rossii 2, no. 40 (2011): 6. 53 Afanasii F. Bychkov, ed., Pokhodnyi zhurnal 1717 goda (St Petersburg: [n.p.], 1855), vol. 1, 14.

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several Parisian masters to Russia.54 Silk industry became a focal point in the Petrine reform programme around the same time. It combined state sponsorship, reformism, and protectionism with the desire to engender the articulation of new cultural practices through textiles. These textiles became a reference for a society in transformation, a yardstick for measuring in-betweenness. With the relocation of the capital to St Petersburg in 1712, manufactories producing silk textiles, ribbons, and galloons started to appear in both capitals. Peter’s idea of economic and industrial modernisation was to replace small producers with larger companies to make industries more efficient through centralisation. These ideas were in line with European mercantilism policies and state-sponsored production partly engendered by the introduction of standing armies in the seventeenth century.55 As suggested by Wallace Daniel, the recognition of domestic needs and Peter’s trips to Europe, particularly his visit to Paris, “encouraged him to develop policies to help private entrepreneurs.”56 In 1717, Peter’s close associates—Vice Chancellor, Baron Petr Shafirov, Secret Councillor Petr Tolstoy (1645–1729) and General Admiral, Count Feodor Apraksin (1661–1728) who joined the company later—received a monopoly charter to make French and other imported fabrics in the capitals and other towns, to sell them for fifty years without taxation, and to export abroad.57 Tolstoy’s trip to Italy in 1697/98 may have sparked his initial interest in textiles. His travel notes demonstrate a refined knowledge of fabrics and a keen interest in furnishing details, as he discusses luxury textiles as well as textile and clothing production in Venice and Naples.58 Both Tolstoy and Shafirov developed a further interest in fabrics during their missions to Istanbul and during Peter’s second embassy to Europe where Shafirov visited manufactures and purchased fashionable goods for the royal family.59 Both could not have helped noticing the tsar’s enthusiasm for tapestry and textile manufacturing during this trip.60 The founders together with invited merchants invested approximately 88,800 roubles into their company, paid 10,000 roubles for an import licence and received 54 Nina Iu. Biriukova, “Western European Tapestries in the Hermitage,” The Burlington Magazine 107, no. 749 (1965): 413. 55 Cf. Alexander Gerschenkron, Europe in the Russian Mirror: Four Lectures in Economic History (London: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 62–96. 56 Wallace Daniel, “Entrepreneurship and the Russian Textile Industry: From Peter the Great to Catherine the Great,” The Russian Review 54, no. 1 (1995): 5. 57 PSZRI, vol. 5, 496–98. 58 Lidiia A. Ol’shevskaia and Sergei N. Travnikov, eds., Puteshestvie stol’nika P. A. Tolstogo po Evrope (1697–9) (Moscow: Nauka, 1992), 60–65, 101–3, 136–38, 146. 59 Grigorii V. Esipov, ed., Sbornik vypisok iz arkhivnykh bumag o Petre Velikom (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1872), vol. 2, 69; Bazarova, “Puteshestvie,” 54–55. 60 Ivan I. Golikov, Deianiia Petra Velikago, mudrago preobrazovatelia Rossii, 12 vols. (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1788–1789), vol. 5, 320–21, 329–30.

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a subsidy of 45,672 roubles and silk worth 20,230 roubles from the government.61 This was a large investment considering that in 1723, the government advised manufacturers to have smaller initial capitals.62 The company received permission to invite domestic and foreign co-owners, employ local and foreign craftsmen, and import necessary materials. In return, they planned to produce a variety of textile products including gold, silver, silk, and woollen brocades, and damasks, velvets, satins, kamkas, and taffetas, as well as various ribbons, galloons/braids, and stockings.63 The company did not own exclusive rights only on production of accessories, as greater affordability and broad applicability of these products widened their consumer pool. To further encourage their production, in 1718 the government gave Alexey Miliutin (1673–1755), who had produced textiles, silk ribbons, and braids in Moscow since 1714, a charter of privileges to make these accessories.64 As had been the case for many manufactories in Europe, Russian textile enterprises received economic incentives and protection from potential competition. The monopoly charter given to the nobles granted them land and premises freely and in permanent ownership in any towns where they intended to set up manufactories. Only the Senate had power over them, and mainly in the matters that had to do with complaints. Such terms ensured protection from bureaucratic interference that could have caused production delays.65 The government reinforced the company’s monopoly on the production and import of European textiles by several protectionist decrees issued in 1717/18. Their second aim was to curtail luxury consumption and police expenses, as in the case of the 1717 edict, which prohibited making and wearing fabrics with gold and silver threads. Merchants had to sell European supplies by 1719 or otherwise pay high fines. The decree, however, did not affect Chinese and Persian textiles and domestic silks without gold and silver.66 The rationale for these restrictions, in addition to protectionism, was the long-lasting Northern War that required much expenditure. Many countries imposed similar prohibitions. Eighteenth-century England, for instance, placed restrictions on the import of various textiles including silks from the East and products made of silk and with “gold or silver-thread.”67 As elsewhere 61 Aleksandr Lappo-Danilevskii, Russkiia promyshlennyia i torgovyia kompanii v pervoi polovine XVIII stoletiia (St Petersburg: Balashev, 1899), 30–31. 62 PSZRI, vol. 7, 172. 63 Ibid., vol. 5, 497. 64 Ibid., 548–49. 65 Ibid., 496–98. 66 Ibid., 525. 67 Susan North, “The Physical Manifestation of an Abstraction: A Pair of 1750s Waistcoat Shapes,” Textile History 39, no. 1 (2008): 97.

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in Europe and the world, in Russia, the development of textile production and in this case of silks became part of the process of acquiring national independence in terms of economy and in terms of localisation of materialised identities. As noted by Bhabha, globalisation drove this desire “to fix cultural difference in a containable, visible object,” in this case textiles which transformed from globally traded products, driving the agendas of an increasingly globalised world, into tokens of local identity politics shaping new national agendas.68 The government, however, quickly realised the adverse impact of the ban on the nascent industry and state needs. A 1718 decree allowed the company founded by the nobles (most likely based on their request) to make gold and silver ribbons and braids in St Petersburg, but using only fifty poods (1805.6 pounds) of silver annually.69 The need for uniform braids perhaps can explain this relaxation, but braids were also used for home furnishings and civilian garments. A few weeks later, another decree further extended the sale period for European textiles until 1720. After this date, merchants faced both fines and confiscations. To control the situation, customs officials were required to register and stamp all prohibited fabrics still available for sale.70 The import of European textiles was reinstated in 1719, and the company sold its import licence to Dutch merchants, as the manufacturers lacked commercial experience and faced financial shortages.71 The two-year licence allowed the Dutch merchants to sell 100,000 roubles worth of silk fabrics annually in St Petersburg. The manager of St Petersburg manufactory could still import samples of new brocades for 300–400 roubles monthly to keep up with European fashions.72 A follow-up decree relaxed geographical restrictions by permitting merchants to sell brocades in Livonia (parts of present-day Latvia and Estonia).73 By narrowing down imports geographically, the government tried to control the flow of goods and trade, ensure proper taxation, and tackle smuggling problems. No restrictions, however, affected Chinese and Persian brocades. Peter was keen on supporting well-developed trade with the Safavid dynasty and establishing regular trade with the Qing dynasty promoting material and cultural imports from these countries. While drawing on European examples in his policies, he capitalised on geographical and economic advantages of Russia’s location by purchasing more affordable raw silk and fabrics from East Asia, which had a wider consumer pool. Whereas European textiles helped to form local-national noble identity, Eastern 68 Bhabha, Location of Culture, 72. 69 PSZRI, vol. 5, 532. 70 Ibid., 544, 579. 71 Lappo-Danilevskii, Russkiia promyshlennyia i torgovyia kompanii, 29. 72 PSZRI, vol. 5, 694–95. 73 Ibid., 696.

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fabrics democratised the market and supported local industry with raw silk. In 1719, the government allowed the textile company to purchase thin silk in China for approximately 15,000–20,000 roubles as well as goods in the Siberian governorate,74 and from 1721 permitted manufacturers to import silk for a fifteen-year period, all without taxation.75 Despite the slow development of silk industry, manufactures produced good quality textiles. In the mid-eighteenth century, “luxuriant white, floral velvet” and “satin damask” decorated the walls of the Ekaterinhof Palace, with both textiles produced in St Petersburg in 1729. The palace furniture had similar upholstery.76 In the provinces which Peter annexed during his Persian campaign (1722/23), he also hoped to develop silk industry. The Gilan province alone had an annual export of approximately 1,179,360 kilograms of silk to Ottoman Istanbul before 1722, with most going to European merchants.77 In 1724, Peter planned to resettle peasant families to the region for silk-rearing. This idea remained unrealised.78 One might, however, argue that this brief colonisation of the region, which lasted until the end of the Russo-Ottoman war (1735–1739), started earlier, with the appropriation of material culture and construction of the images and spaces of otherness. Local Russian identity politics in regard to silk textiles continued to be driven by the state. The 1721 decree allowed manufacturers (nobles and merchants) to purchase villages with possessory peasants to help with labour recruitment—there was hardly any free labour in Russia.79 According to Simon Dixon, “peasants constituted over 90 per cent of the population”—with 55.8 per cent being serfs, 9 per cent court peasants, the rest were state peasants.80 Manufacturers could resell the attached peasants only with the factories and could not mortgage or loan these enterprises. In this way, the government ensured that merchants did not use the decree just to purchase peasants for themselves. In 1714, the government authorised the transfer of manufactories into private hands hoping to improve their efficiency, reiterating these provisions in 1723.81 From 1723 any willing individual could open factories and receive various incentives including an exemption from military service.82 Peter regarded manufacturing as a form of state service, which gave an opportunity for upward 74 Ibid., 724. 75 Golikov, Deianiia, vol. 8, 44–45. 76 Pyliaev, Staryi Peterburg, 82. 77 Golikov, Deianiia, vol. 8, 289–90, 399, 416. 78 Peter I, “Sobstvenno-ruchnoe pis’mo Petra Velikago,” Russkii vestnik 200, no. 1 (1889): 343. 79 PSZRI, vol. 6, 311–12. 80 Simon Dixon, The Modernisation of Russia 1676–1825 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 84–85. 81 Peter I. Lyashchenko, “The National Economy,” in Peter the Great Changes Russia, ed. Marc Raeff (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1972), 78; Dixon, Modernisation, 224. 82 PSZRI, vol. 7, 167–74.

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mobility. The state encouraged foreigners to establish factories in Russia promising them equal rights and privileges with local manufacturers and an opportunity to negotiate further terms. The government promised to give them start-up subsidies and apartments for an initial period. Russian envoys received instructions to encourage and help craftsmen to resettle.83 However, not all promises became realised. Moreover, the manufacturers hired craftsmen abroad with varying degrees of success. A few enjoyed high salaries and had comparatively affluent lives, some struggled financially and socially, and some were sent home because of poor work ethics and squandering, as happened with a pattern master de Bourno(n)ville hired in 1717 for the textile company. Bourno(n)ville brought approximately sixty workers to Moscow, many of whom were unqualified for the job.84 In some cases, craftsmen shared their knowledge reluctantly, fearing that they might lose their well-paid jobs. Boris Shablikin, who worked at the manufactory that made ribbons and worsted stockings in St Petersburg, for instance, learnt to set up ribbon looms by secretly watching his master’s work.85 Worrying that apprentices could not gain required knowledge locally, in 1723 the tsar advised to send them abroad to study.86 Yet, there were also successful examples of cooperation. An Armenian master hired by Miliutin to make yarn successfully taught four of the six apprentices, and another master from Hamburg promised Miliutin to teach fifteen apprentices to weave ribbons and braids and draw and arrange smooth and raised patterns. All these projects of forging local identities were, in fact, deeply anchored in global networks. Miliutin pursued philanthropic goals and took economically disadvantaged pupils: “I start the above manufactories not for myself alone, but for the common weal, and so that craftsmanship could improve.”87 For many apprentices, this was an opportunity to advance socially. Shablikin, for instance, was later put in charge of the manufactory where he started his apprenticeship. Many early eighteenth-century garments were products of transcultural cooperation, and Peter I’s summer dressing gown/banyan made of popular blue silk damask with a grapevine pattern and a matching smooth blue silk lining is one such example (Fig. 11.4).88 The East India Companies brought these garments, also known as Indian dressing gowns, to Europe around 1634. Worn at home, oftentimes with a waistcoat and breeches, they were suited for informal gatherings.89 83 Ibid., 172–73. 84 Lappo-Danilevskii, Russkiia promyshlennyia i torgovyia kompanii, 34–35. 85 Jakob von Stählin, Original Anecdotes of Peter the Great (London: Murray, 1788), 152–53. 86 PSZRI, vol. 7, 181–82. 87 Ibid., vol. 5, 549. 88 I am grateful to Nina Tarasova for providing these details about Peter’s dressing gown. 89 Mary D. Doering, “Banyan Dressing Gown, 1715–1785,” in American Fashion from Head to Toe, ed. José Blanco F. and Mary D. Doering (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016), vol. 1, 30–31.

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Figure 11.4  Peter I’s dressing gown from Chinese damask made by Russian and Dutch masters in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Courtesy of The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, inventory number ERT-8343. Photograph © The State Hermitage Museum. Photo by Leonard Kheifets, Alexander Lavrentyev, and Vladimir Terebenin.

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The dressing gowns likely came to Russia during Peter’s reign and became known by their German name Schlafrock or its Russian adaptation shlafor. The inventory of the property confiscated from Vasilii Golitsyn (1643–1714), head of the Foreign Affairs Chancellery between 1682 and 1689 and one of the wealthiest Muscovites, lists 138 caftans, but not a single dressing gown.90 The style of this robe that resembles that of the Dutch japonse rock and Japanese kosode, was popular in Holland and England, but the imported garment underwent some modifications.91 Peter’s robe has a trapezoidal rather than a straight T-shape. Its design is simple and modern. The patterned fabric looks light. The garment in its functionality and moderate luxury conveyed through the texture and damask-woven design is an object of a new material culture with a new angle on thrift and a focus on individualisation. Throughout its life cycle, the robe belonged only to one owner without being repurposed after Peter’s death. The dressing gown is a domesticated global garment, a product of several traditions. Another word used for a garment of similar design, but of a different function in seventeenth-century Muscovy was khalat from the Ottoman hil’at and Arabic khil’a (a caftan, “robe-of-honour”).92 This word will be later adopted for a dressing gown in Russia. The Ottoman garment was a “long, full-cut, but straight robe” usually made of silk. Many of these garments had long sleeves that almost reached the floor. Ottoman and Persian royals presented these robes as gifts, reward, and/ or a sign of distinction.93 Peter’s robe has shorter sleeves. Moreover, both in Europe and Russia, this garment became linked with domestic spaces, leisure activities, and a different timeframe for its use. One could wear it in the presence of family and friends, when reading in the library or drinking tea, a practice introduced in Muscovy in the seventeenth century. The word Schlafrock expressed this change of function and relocated these robes of East Asian origins, which were not dissimilar in their cuts and length to the banned traditional garments in Petrine Russia, to private spaces. Their presence in European and Russian wardrobes reflected fascination with East Asia and the fashionability of chinoiserie. Peter likely saw this garment during his trips to Holland, which would explain his preference for Dutch tailors. In its new local contexts, the garment signified the growing importance 90 Richard Hellie, “Great Wealth in Muscovy: The Case of V. V. Golitsyn and Prices of the 1600–1725 Period,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19 (1995): 252–55, 257–60. 91 The Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A), T.31-2012, Dutch or English night gown made from Chinese blue silk damask, c.1650–1720. 92 N. A. Stillmann, “Khil’a,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, accessed 10  May  2021, http://dx.doi. org/10.1163/1573-3912_islam_COM_0507. 93 Amanda Phillips, “Ottoman Hil’at: Between Commodity and Charisma,” in Frontiers of the Ottoman Imagination: Studies in Honour of Rhoads Murphey, ed. Marios Hadjianastasis (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 112–26; Novikov, Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, vol. 5, 132.

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of private time and engagements, leisure and intellectual activities. While it still conveyed a degree of luxury through the quality, pattern, and colour of its fabric and association with leisure, its functional design became associated with modern concepts of comfort and convenience. The grapevine fabric pattern may have hinted at local political agendas and cultural codes which Peter utilised in “bacchanalian mysteries of state” through which he enacted his reforms of ecclesiastical and state orders. The All-Joking, AllDrunken Synod of Fools and Jesters, which consisted of his supporters, orchestrated these mysteries associated with the concept of the Transfigured Kingdom.94 As in the case of Peter’s clothing reforms, with this garment, there is a refocusing from a vestimentary hierarchy with its distinctive degrees of sumptuousness to Enlightenment luxury, comfort, and individualisation. This is an in-between garment which moves from an old to a new vestimentary system. It is a global and local product with its own history and individual story, which occupies an important place in the tsar’s wardrobe. It is exemplary for a variety of Peter’s dressing gowns, housed at the Hermitage Museum, which were made by Russian and European craftsmen.

Conclusion This chapter examined the significance of silk in seventeenth- and early eighteenthcentury Russia, charting a history of societal changes that put silk textiles centrestage for the negotiation of how such shifts took place. Silks drew Russia into global textile markets, but this globalisation resulted in local and national identity politics driven by the reform programme of Peter I. Silks were pivotal for a governmental, societal, and mercantile reform programme. They linked economic production with the state, fostering the implementation of mercantilist and protectionist policies; yet, they were also pivotal for the enunciation of new cultural concepts linked with an Enlightenment reform programme. Some of these policies and agendas, however, had only limited impact on society. The business of the textile company founded by the nobles was developing slowly, and the quality of their brocades varied. In 1724, their Moscow manufactory was divided between several merchants,95 some of whom started successful enterprises including a famous silk-weaving factory in Frianovo in the Moscow region established by an Armenian merchant Ignatii Sheriman (d.1752). In 1720, a silk-rearing

94 Ernest A. Zitser, The Transfigured Kingdom: Sacred Parody and Charismatic Authority at the Court of Peter the Great (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004), 1–7, 169–76. 95 Lappo-Danilevskii, Russkiia promyshlennyia i torgovyia kompanii, 58–59.

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manufacture opened on the Akhtuba river in the Astrakhan’ region.96 According to Peter Lyashchenko, by the end of the Petrine reign there were seven silk enterprises in Russia of the total of 195 large manufactories.97 The quality of local silks and the demand did not meet expectations even at the end of the century. Russia continued to rely on imports, but Peter I laid the foundation of the industry with his successors reinstating many of his policies throughout the century. The early modern material world of silks was mobile and helped to create and defy boundaries within and beyond Russia. It facilitated the arrival of new concepts and ideas that helped to form new cultural practices, transforming silk fabrics into in-between textiles negotiating and shaping societal change in Russia. Material changes often preceded social ones, with silk textiles contributing to early processes of globalisation and the formation of concepts of nationhood both in Russia and around the world.

About the Author Victoria Ivleva is Assistant Professor in Russian Studies at Durham University. Her current research focuses on dress and material culture in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Russia and semiotics of clothing in Russian literature. She has published her research in Vivliofika: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, Costume: The Journal of the Costume Society, Clothing Cultures, EighteenthCentury Studies, Russian Review, and other journals. She is currently completing a monograph on the introduction of new clothing, bodily appearance, and social practices during Peter I’s reign.

96 Peter I. “Sobstvenno-ruchnoe pis’mo,” 343. 97 Lyashchenko, “National Economy,” 81.

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12. African Cotton: Cultural and Economic Resistance in Mozambique in the MidEighteenth Century Luís Frederico Dias Antunes

Abstract This chapter examines the power of textiles to re-negotiate local identities and global dependencies in eighteenth-century Mozambique. The plantation of cotton and its manufacturing into textiles, the chapter argues, must be considered a deliberate act of resistance against Portuguese colonial rule and Indian traders’ monopoly power. Their aim to foster the consumption of Asian fabrics among residents of the Zambezi River valley fuelled the trade in slaves and ivory, a cycle of dependencies disrupted by native cotton. Keywords: Mozambique; resistance; cotton; Portuguese Empire; African machiras

Introduction Historical scholarship of the last decades has sought to fill the enormous chronological gaps in the knowledge of the Portuguese colonial presence in Mozambique, endeavouring to investigate a set of themes of the greatest relevance and complexity of colonial relations with Africa. Mozambique was part of the Indian trading networks long before the Portuguese had settled in the region. In the early sixteenth century, the wide-ranging coast from Sofala to Mogadishu was crowded with numerous Muslim trading posts whose inhabitants, of mixed Bantu, Persian, and Arab origin, were usually referred to as Swahili. Kilwa, the capital of the most important sultanate, took benefit of the gold and ivory from the Lower Zambezi and maintained, like other Swahili settlements, a strong commercial link with a variety of Arabic and Indian ports, from where luxury products and a large quantity of multicoloured cotton textiles of different qualities and prices were imported.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch12

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The Portuguese presence on the East African coast then altered the correlation of forces in the region in favour of the Portuguese, but their presence did not cause substantial changes in commercial routes, traders involved, or the goods traded with foreign markets. The Portuguese established control over trade, however, they were not able to take over the economic dominance of the Swahili. In the mid-eighteenth century, the period under study in this chapter, the Portuguese presence was limited to the coastal area between Lourenço Marques (currently Maputo) and Cabo Delgado, as well as the Lower Zambezi region. At the same time, the mercantile supremacy of Indian traders and their textile products was nearly all-encompassing in Mozambique. Apart from this, everything else remained essentially the same; from the ways of negotiating, the players involved and products exchanged, to agricultural methods and artisanal techniques of producing Indigenous cloths. Within this cultural continuity, the main differences occurred in terms of intensity of exchange. The analysis of different forms of African resistance to eighteenth-century Portuguese domination in Mozambique remains one of the most pressing issues in scholarship on the region. The cultivation of cotton, the production of African fabrics and, above all, its trade and wider use in the mid-eighteenth century must be considered of the most effective forms of African resistance to colonial rule: economic and cultural resistance to Portuguese colonialism in general and the economic power of Indian traders in particular. This chapter will outline the extent to which both Portuguese authorities and Indian traders sought to impose the consumption of Asian fabrics onto Mozambican peoples, especially those of the Zambezi River valley, to expand slave trade and ivory exports to India. I argue that the traditional plantations of native cotton, the increase in production of African machiras, and its more widespread use during the second half of the eighteenth century should be understood as deliberate acts of resistance. This poses the question of what can be considered an act of resistance in the context of colonial Africa. A complex debate engages with this question. In the 1960s, researchers expressed their discomfort with the limits of the concept of “resistance” and broadened its meanings.1 In the contexts of this chapter, I define “resistance” a specific set of practices; a type of African reaction that refuses to submit to the will of others through the increasing cultivation of cotton in the Zambezi valley and the increased production of machiras—native cloth made of rustic cotton—as a means to preserve customs and cultural identity, as well as a response to the imposition of the consumption and use of Indian textiles. The 1 Luís Antunes, “Formas de Resistência Africanas às Autoridades Portuguesas no Século XVIII: A guerra de Murimuno e a tecelagem de machira no norte de Moçambique,” Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 33 (2017): 81–105, here 83–84.

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actions of eighteenth-century African leaders such as pointing out, recognising, and disrespecting materialised claims of foreign authority must be understood as a process of deliberate resistance to the influence of foreign powers. The decision to increase the production of local cotton and local textiles in the Zambezi valley can therefore be considered a self-confident disobedient behaviour and an explicit threat to the colonial status quo. However, it had a limited impact and never jeopardised the overall maintenance of colonial power. By examining the production of textiles and their integration in the regional exchange circuits of the East African hinterland, this chapter enriches our understanding of the economy of early modern African societies. It reveals a thus far largely neglected history of the cultural continuity of cotton production beyond the moment of the arrival of the Portuguese in circa 1500. Charting this textile-centred story of the making of cultural identity, I argue, helps uncovering the broader dynamics of cultural economic resistance during the colonial period. This chapter contributes to the broader discussion of postcolonial concepts of hybridity, intermediation, and resistance as formulated by Homi K. Bhabha in The Location of Culture,2 though the focus of this chapter is on experiences of colonial rule in a different geographical and chronological context. In Mozambique, there have always been channels of communication between colonists and colonised, most of them mediated by interpreters, in-betweeners of different backgrounds and interests, Portuguese people who lived close to African villages or the vibrant networks of mobile African, Portuguese, and Indian traders. All of them interacted and interfered in Mozambican politics, establishing new bridges between different interests and shaping the matter of colonial governance. This chapter identifies the interaction between cultures of colonised and colonists, thus illustrating the extent to which their reciprocity created something new. These dynamics were enacted when the colonists understood the utility of the production and consumption of a larger diversity of machiras, thus recognising the resistance capacity of Africans, the reinforcement of their collective identities, and potentially more powerful opportunities for political action. Acknowledging the mutual interaction of colonised and colonists is crucial to unravel the forces behind the eighteenthcentury negotiation of the production of different machiras, the price range of cloths, as well as their use as a form of currency, and the overall involvement of the colonists in the African trade of machiras, “because after being sold in neighbouring countries, they are much more valuable so as to double, and often triplicate the afore mentioned price.”3 The story of this chapter, thus, comprises two sides. The 2 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). 3 Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU), Conselho Ultramarino (CU), Moçambique, cx.42, doc.07, 7 May 1783.

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production of local cotton and textiles in the eighteenth-century Zambezi valley, I argue, was one of the many subtle but powerful forms of resistance; a means to renegotiate the realm of colonial power and cultural identities on the local ground. However, colonial authorities could enter and thus capitalise on the trade of local textiles and therefore adapt and retranslate such forms of local resistance. In the eighteenth century, Portuguese colonial speech rebuilt its own identity through the interaction and integration of Mozambican cultural markers since colonial authority was not strong enough to impose itself politically and, in this case, not even to prevent the expansion of activities associated with cotton. I will first discuss the relationship between cotton plantations and the artisanal production of machiras of different qualities in the Lower Zambezi valley in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. I will then examine local textile production as a means of resistance by situating the Lower Zambezi valley within the broader mercantile networks of wider East African economic and social processes.

The Historical Continuity of Cotton and Machiras in the Lower Zambezi during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries Cotton plantations as well as cloths produced and traded at African fairs predated the Portuguese presence in East Africa. Since the early sixteenth century, Portuguese colonial documentation allows us to locate the main regions of cotton and machiras production, and to monitor their gradual development. Both cotton plantations and the manufacturing of machiras—also called “native cloths”—dated back centuries.4 Among the information collected by António Fernandes on the first of altogether two long journeys to Monomotapa (1511–1514), we find the first reference to “cotton cloths” of African origin—from the Moziba Kingdom in the Save River, to be more precise—, which were exclusively “taken to be sold to Monomotapa.”5 This inconspicuous reference is highly significant since this has been the only commodity mentioned by Fernandes alongside gold, ivory, and provisions. In the mid-sixteenth century, the chronicler João de Barros (1496–1570), who had worked as treasurer for the Casa da Índia, collected precious oral information and written reports from all kinds of men with overseas experience returning to Lisbon after

4 Edward Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London: Heinemann, 1975), 24–25; Malyn Newitt, História de Moçambique (Lisbon: Publicações Europa-América, 1997), 27, 72; William G. ClarenceSmith, “The Textile Industry of Eastern Africa in the Longue Durée,” in Africa’s Development in Historical Perspective, ed. Emmanuel Akyeampong et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 264–94. 5 Hugh Tracey, António Fernandes Descobridor do Monomotapa, 1514–1515 (Lourenço Marques: Edição do Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, 1940), 26, 44.

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long periods of service abroad.6 His information about the machiras, recorded in 1552, described their main features. Like Fernandes, however, Barros did not mention these cloths by their local name. He only mentioned that everyone wore “the cotton cloths they make locally” at the Monomotapa Court, despite the circulation and availability of Indian fabrics which were exclusively used by “noble people and women.”7 Barros is the first author of a written source that informs about the uses of African cotton fabrics as decorative elements in various spaces of a typical Monomotapa’s household. In fact, the popularity of these cotton cloths seems to have been linked to the household where “many apparatus, vestments, or service furniture” did not exist. Locals considered such cloths as “the great ornament”—a clear sign of their functional, practical, and aesthetic importance. Such cloths had a prominent feature in common: “a lot of needlework,” probably following drawn patterns. Used as carpets, room dividers, or doors, such textiles were so large in size that Barros resembled them to European tapestries.8 In order to achieve such sizes, artisans presumably joined and sewed several machiras which thus gained a greater versatility and more functional and aesthetic autonomy in the household. Since these cotton cloths apparently took on dimensions similar to European tapestries, machiras could have also served as curtains or decorative tapestries as it was widespread, as well as usual in the Arab world. The notes of Father Francisco de Monclaro (1573) corroborate this observation, detailing the dressing customs of local people: “all of them commonly wear loosely woven cotton cloth made on the other side of the river [Bororo] in low looms but very slowly, which cloth, called machiras, I saw being woven near Sena.” He added two important details: the size of these African cloths measuring about 2.75 × 1.65 metres; and their heterogeneity. A significant part of the production consisted of thick sheets of raw cotton, while the rest was mixed with black and coloured threads from frayed Indian cloths such as bertangis and tafeciras, which could incorporate rows of coloured beads.9 6 Rui Loureiro, “Revisitando as Décadas da Ásia: Algumas observações sobre o projecto historiográfico de João de Barros,” e-Spania: Revue interdisciplinaire d’études hispaniques médiévales et modernes 30 (2018), https://journals.openedition.org/e-spania/27836. 7 João de Barros, Décadas da Ásia (Lisbon: Editora Livraria Sam Carlos, 1973), Década I, Book X, chapter 1, 382–83. 8 Ibid., 383. 9 Francisco de Monclaro, “Relação (cópia) feita pelo padre Francisco de Monclaro, da Companhia de Jesus, da expedição ao Monomotapa, comandada por Francisco Barreto [post 1573],” Documentos sobre os portugueses em Moçambique e na África Central 1497–1840 8 (1975): 381, 393. The origin of the word Bertangil is unknown, however, it denominated a cotton fabric (blue, black, red) that used to be exported from Cambay to Eastern Africa and was manufactured also in some locations there. See Sebastião Dalgado, Glossário luso-asiático (Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, 1919–1921), vol. 1, 120. Tafecira is derived from Arabic tafsilah, “upholstery of Meca.” These were striped fabrics of mixed silk and cotton, printed on the

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Priests João dos Santos (1609) and António Gomes (1648) provided further evidence and details on the court’s attire and the clothing habits of the rest of the Quiteve population. Above all, these reports chronicle unprecedentedly detailed information on the social division of labour, the technology used, and the artisanal ways of manufacturing the machiras. João dos Santos was in Mozambique between 1586 and 1595, first in Sofala (1586–1590, 1594/95), then in Sena and Tete (1591), and later on in the Quirimbas Islands (1592–1594). During his stay, a series of events changed the political landscape of the region; the military and commercial penetration of the Portuguese in the Zambezi valley in particular, as well as the migrations of Marave peoples from the regions south of Lake Niassa towards the sea alongside the northern bank of the Zambezi. Dos Santos also mentioned the uses and customs of different African ethnic groups and he confirmed Barros’s information about the Monomotapa’s court garments in regard to dressing habits at the court of Quiteve.10 These ethnic groups wore a machira girt at the waist and down to the ankles and covered their shoulders with another machira in the manner of a cloak. Textiles, as well as cattle, had a great symbolic and economic importance in the societies that occupied the vast territory of Zambezi, being recognised both as prestigious riches and as a means to accumulate wealth, as textiles and cattle were widely associated with marriage policies: the husband had to give a certain amount of clothes, which the parties had agreed on beforehand, to the bride’s father and could recover them if, for whatever reason, the marriage was not to his satisfaction.11 Dos Santos ends the description of African garments stating that the rest of the population was generally naked and without “shame,” and those best dressed would cover their bodies with monkey furs from the waist downwards.12 Dos Santos provided equally important information on gender differences regarding the social division of labour in East African societies. Although his opinions on this matter changed and are at times even contradictory, two aspects are noteworthy: the almost total absence of specialised professions and the absence of qualified people except for three groups of professions: blacksmiths, weavers, and farmers who made a major contribution to the domestic economy. Beyond doubt, the socio-economic dynamics of East African societies have helped articulate and deepen social differentiations and loom, and very much in demand by slave traders. The pattern of the stamping could be listed or with branches, and some were similar to chintz, which, according to Dalgado, is the modern word. Tafecira mostly came from Cambay, Ahmadabad, and Sind. See Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 336; John Irwin, “Indian Textile Trade in the Seventeenth Century, 1. Western India,” Journal of Indian Textile History 1 (1955): 30. 10 João dos Santos, Etiópia Oriental e vária história de cousas notáveis do Oriente (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para a Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1999), 7–11, 16–19. 11 Eric Axelson, “Viagem que fez o Padre Ant.º Gomes, da Comp.ª de Jesus, ao Império de Manomotapa; e assistência que fez nas ditas terras de Algus annos,” Stvdia 3 (1959): 207–8. 12 Santos, Etiópia, 112.

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inequalities. Many areas of African labour were characterised by many such examples of social division of labour, specialisation, and non-agricultural exchange—not only in the field of rare goods for export, such as gold, slaves, and ivory, but also in the scope of goods for domestic consumption such as foodstuffs, iron, salt, cotton, and weaving. In the Zambezi valley in particular, the work on the looms belonged to men, to “weavers who make some thick cotton cloths, the size of a median sheet, which they call machiras,” while most agricultural work and that of spinning cotton itself was up to women.13 Only a few men helped women with agricultural tasks, especially in clearing uncultivated soils and preparing them for cultivation. Furthermore, “no man make more use of their hands in sowing the land than if they had none.”14 The good fate of the sowing, in fact, depended on the women’s efforts. The gendered and social division of labour referred women to the most sedentary tasks. In addition to agriculture, they were busy with the preparation of food and drink, the manufacture of domestic pottery utensils, the excavation of soils in search of gold, and cotton spinning. Men were given the task of obtaining salt, hunting, building houses, producing weapons and iron utensils, in addition to weaving. Father Gomes provides uniquely rich information on the equipment used for and the quality of workmanship of weaving. According to him, the wooden looms were very rudimentarily built “without any skill, with long sticks divided the line, and with another they thread the line, from one side to the other.”15 Gomes considered the scarcity of “industrious” Africans, the lack of technical precision of the looms, and the slow production processes the main cause of the textiles’ rather crude quality. Therefore, machiras were generally “whole cloths (like large sheets of thick thread),” except when, due to the lack of cotton, they were made out of fine threads.16 Despite machiras being rather short, the descriptions of the looms and of the technological level used in the manufacture of machiras, as well as the discussion of objects and the everyday societal life reveal the links between the production and the use of specific cultural assets, as well as the construction of social identities in relation to textiles in certain regions of Mozambique. Production tools and machiras had thus become essential objects for understanding the way of being, the cultural habits and the behaviour of African societies in the Lower Zambezi already at the time of the arrival of the Portuguese. Woven cloth and weaving craftsmanship were pivotal for understanding the material infrastructures of daily life and patrimonial accumulation, aspects that often shape the less visible side of African economy and culture in the colonial era. 13 Ibid., 111–12. 14 George Theal, Records of South-Eastern Africa (London: Clowes, 1898), vol. 2, 65. 15 Axelson, “Viagem,” 203. 16 Ibid.

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Other seventeenth-century Portuguese authors expanded on the importance of African fabrics for the cultural identity of certain African socio-political groups. Manuel Barreto (1667), for example, while confirming that “machiras [were], thick cotton sheets,” elaborated on the meanings of these textiles for the local population, that is, how such textiles were “of great use to Mocranga [generically the current province of Tete].” He also emphasised these textiles’ economic value since machiras were, alongside iron and slaves, the main commodity of the region.17 Another author, Fernão de Queirós (1687), reiterated that “there is a lot of cotton, of which the Kaffirs for its roughness, only make machiras that are thick sheets.” Queirós also discusses the seasonal phases of cotton cultures and the use of cotton in livestock feed, when, in colder seasons, the scarcity of food in the countryside increased: “It [cotton] sprouts from some bushes, which they sow, cultivate, and prune in the way of vines; and without other work than taking out their seeds, or capacea, and, because it is hot, they give it to cattle in cold weather; what they do by shaking it with a bow and nerve string (bow string) that also serves to tangle it; it is one of the greatest riches in all of Africa.”18 Yet another author, António da Conceição (1696), is the least sparse in words. He notes that “the lands south-east of the Zambezi,” such as those of Quelimane and Luabo, “also have a lot of cotton, of which the Kaffirs know how to make cloths, which they call machiras.”19 Linguistic evidence provides further insights into the history of cotton and cotton textiles in the Zambezi valley. The origin of the word machira, in general, is linked to the distribution of the main Mozambican “ethnic” and linguistic groups as the above-mentioned sources detail. Father Prata pointed out the meanings of mashira (plural) and nshira as “machila, litter, palanquin,” and of machila as being used to describe old cloth woven by the locals from Shire.20 Likewise, Father Matos registered the word nshira, as a term originating from the Makua language with the specific meaning of “cloth that the Makua natives manufactured before the arrival of the Portuguese.” Interestingly, in the Luso-Asiatic Glossary, Father Dalgado stressed that the words machila and machira were used both in India and East Africa. Machila was associated with the transportation in a piece of tarp, attached by the ends to a thick pole, being further replaced by other more comfortable and sophisticated models. 17 Manuel Barreto, “Informação do Estado e conquista dos rios de Cuama vulgar e verdadeiramente chamados Rios de Ouro [1667],” Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa: 4ª Série 1 (1885): 45. 18 BNB, mss 1233568, Fernão de Queiroz, Conquista Temporal, e Espiritual de Ceylão […] (Lisbon: n.p., 1687), Book VI, chapter 15, fol. 298r. “Tangle” means to weave in a net. Capacea derives from the Sanskrit word Karpasa, which derives from the Konkani, Marathi, and Sinhala, Kapus, i.e. “cotton.” According to Dalgado, Glossário, 208 the etymon seems to be Kapasa-bi, which in Konkani means “cotton seed.” 19 António da Conceição, “Tratado dos Rios de Cuama [1696],” O Chronista de Tissuary 2 (1867): 43. 20 António Prata, Dicionário macua-português (Lisbon: Instituto de Investigação Científica Tropical, 1990), 109, 236.

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Machira, similar to the meaning indicated by Matos and Prata, belonged to the languages spoken in the regions of Tete and the Low Zambezi valley, and meant “thick cotton bed sheet, of Indigenous manufacture.”21 Dalgado furthermore emphasises that the word machira was primal, in the sense “that the other was derived” from it.22 Linguistic as well as sixteenth- and seventeenth-century textual evidence, thus, confirm the existence of an economic and cultural continuity in the production and consumption of machiras in the Zambezi valley prior to and beyond the arrival of the Portuguese. Accounting for this heritage of cotton plantations, technology, and other artisanal equipment that contributed to the production of textiles, the ways of manufacturing, as well as the diversity of machiras—considering the processual nature and the enormous spatial and temporal heterogeneity in the historical transformation of various African societies—matters especially if we take into account that these cultures shaped by the continuity of a set of linguistic elements, customary behaviours, individual and collective characteristics, and social hierarchies, all are in one way or another porous and permeable. It is important to preserve this tangible and dynamic heritage in order to trace the roots of specific socio-political processes in colonial East Africa, and to understand the long-term role of African societies in the construction of their own textile universe and the global totality. There is an economic and cultural continuity of textiles which, thus far, has not been studied as being an integral part of the agenda of political and economic concerns of Portuguese colonial authorities.

Economic and Cultural Resistance: Locals Produce Machiras “because They Hold Their Customs in High Esteem”23 The continuity of the cultivation of cotton and the production of cotton textiles stretched beyond the moment of colonial conquest. Over the centuries, however, such a textile continuity became deeply interwoven with the fabrics of colonial regimes. Only from the second quarter of the eighteenth century onwards, cotton plantations—whether of wild origin or from sowing—and the production of machiras were seen as harmful to trade in the Portuguese colony. In 1728, Governor Cardim Froes (1726–1730) informed the Portuguese authorities in Lisbon that he “could no longer prevent the many seedlings presently existing by the Rivers of Sena, with cotton and factories of cloths that they call machiras.” If the authorities of Goa did not impose severe penalties on offenders, Froes continues, African cloths would hamper 21 Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 5–7. 22 Ibid., 6. 23 Monclaro, “Relação,” 389.

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the profits of the import of Indian textiles.24 In order to prevent the production of machiras, which had a high esteem among the locals and caused damage to trade, the same governor advocated to “destroy all cotton trees that were planted.”25 However, nothing changed in this regard in the end, mainly due to the profound rearrangement of power in African societies and the new relationship between these and the colonial authorities; dynamics that contributed to the transformation of East African internal trade in the mid-eighteenth century. Three of such dynamics require a more detailed discussion since all of them jointly influenced the increase of cotton cultivation and the dissemination of the machiras: ethnic diversification; the increasing importation of Asian textiles; and the outbreak of military conflicts that led to a reformulation of colonial authority. First, the commercial rise of the Yaos, peoples who came from regions near Lake Nyasa and were involved in long-distance ivory trade towards the Swahili ports of Mombasa and Kilwa Kisiwani, since at least the mid-1730s.26 Since the mid-eighteenth century, the Yaos reoriented the routes of this extremely profitable trade further southwards, thus, starting to cross the Makua territories where cotton and machiras were produced (Shire valley and Bororo), towards the island of Mozambique.27 In 1753, caravans with more than a thousand Yao carriers transported and traded close to 120 tons of raw ivory; in other words, more than 85 per cent on average of the total export to Goa, Daman, and Diu, crossed “lands of cotton.”28 In 1762, the export of ivory to India was already around 140 to 165 tons, and its value, varying from 240 to 280 million réis, was six to seven times higher than that of slaves that passed through the customs in Mozambique.29 24 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.4, doc.43, 14 August 1728. 25 AHU, CU, Índia, Maço 54 (77), 25 March 1734. 26 The Yaos are Bantu-speaking peoples from East and Central Africa who consider their historical origin in the highlands between the Lujenda and Luchelingo rivers. According to their own historical memory, the Yaos spread from there through a series of migrations throughout the seventeenth century. They currently live mainly in Mozambique, Malawi, and Tanzania. See Yohnna B. Abdallah, The Yaos Chiikala Cha Wayao, ed. Meredith Sanderson (London: Frank Cass, 1973), 29–31; Edward Alpers, Ivory and Slaves in East Central Africa (London: Heinemann, 1975), 97, 104–13; Brian Morris, “The Rise and Fall of the Yao Chiefdoms,” The Society of Malawi Journal 57, no. 1 (2014): 5; Edward Alpers, “Trade, State and Society among Yao in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of African History 10, no. 3 (1969): 407–9; John Mitchell, “The Yao of Southern Nyasaland,” in Seven Tribes of British Central Africa, ed. Elizabeth Colson and Max Gluckman (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 294–96. 27 Inácio Xavier, “Notícias dos domínios portuguezes na costa de África Oriental, 1758,” in Relações de Moçambique setecentista, ed. António Andrade (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1955), 153; Alpers, Ivory, 104. 28 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.8, doc.42, 20 November 1753; Anonymous, “Breve notícia da infelicidade que teve a nossa expedição de Monçambique,” Arquivo das Colónias 2, no. 9 (1918): 106. 29 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.20, doc.83, 15 December 1761; Anonymous, “Memórias da Costa da África Oriental e algumas reflexões úteis para estabelecer melhor, e fazer mais florente o seu commercio: 1762,”

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A second process that led to a transformation of African societies’ relationships with colonial authorities is the growing import of Asian textiles since the end of the seventeenth century; a dynamic that caused their devaluation and undermined the East African markets, thus weakening the traders involved in the slave and ivory businesses. Commercial activities in Portuguese East Africa involved Indian traders and the elites of different Mozambican social backgrounds from early on, by means of a complex network of African, Indian, and Portuguese middlemen. This wellestablished trade encompassed a huge variety of Indian printed cotton fabrics, most of them from Cambay and Surat in Gujarat, and several types of Venetian and Indian beads in exchange for thousands of tons of ivory targeted at the Indian industries of luxury artefacts which were in demand worldwide.30 Most Indian textiles were of poor quality and were used as currency in exchanges with Makuas, Yaos, and the various Shona (Karanga) potentates in the Zambezian hinterland. Another part of the best quality fabrics was consumed by a small Portuguese elite and would also serve as tribute payments and gifts (saguate) offered to African leaders as a sign of courtesy and consideration, and might also be distributed among the respective retinues.31 The purchase of Indian fabrics was of great importance as it ensured the accumulation of wealth and consolidation of social status that were often associated with the trafficking of women who, according to Eduardo Medeiros, linked male owners to strategic investments into lineages, and solidarities that formed the basis of political power.32 However, the permanent influx of Indian textiles also placed African authorities in a situation of greater dependence on traders of Asian and European origins. A few numbers illustrate the volume of textiles involved in ivory barter. In the middle of the eighteenth century, when Mozambican trade was under the monopoly of the Portuguese Crown, the amount of Indian fabrics consumed in Mozambique, including their extensions towards Central and Southern Africa, was around 350 to 400 bars per year, equivalent to 125 to 160 thousand cloths.33 In the 1770s, the cloth in Relações de Moçambique setecentista, ed. António Andrade (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1955), 215–16, 219–20. 30 Luís F. D. Antunes, “O Bazar e a Fortaleza em Moçambique: A comunidade baneane do Guzerate e a transformação do comércio afro-asiático (1686–1810)” (PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2001), 132. 31 Saguate means “gift, treat, especially what is offered on festive occasions or as a tribute.” Dalgado, Glossário, vol. 2, 271–72. 32 Eduardo Medeiros, Os Senhores da Floresta: Ritos de Iniciação dos Rapazes Macuas e Lómuès (Porto: Campo de Letras, 2007), 128–37. Cf. Luís Pereira, “A dinâmica das transformações no espaço da Província de Nampula,” accessed 4 February 2020, http://www.iid.org.mz/dinamica_das_transformacoes_no_espaco_da_prov_nampula.pdf, 1–3; Benigna Zimba, “O papel da mulher no consumo de tecido importado no norte e no sul de Moçambique, entre os finais do século XVIII e os meados do século XX,” Cadernos de História de Moçambique 1 (2012): 35; Luísa Martins, “Os Namarrais e a reacção à instalação colonial (1895–1913),” Blogue de História Lusófona 6 (2011): 178. 33 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.8, doc.42, 20 November 1753.

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and ivory business provided gains of about 100 per cent in favour of Indian traders who operated in Mozambique but maintained their business centres, family, and residence networks in Gujarat. A third aspect of crucial significance for the transformation of power relationships in the Zambezi valley are the wars against a set of Makua chieftaincies led by Murimuno (1753–1754), whose main village was located inland about 50km from the coast.34 In this context, native cotton and machiras started to feature into the political and economic responsibilities of Portuguese colonial authorities in Mozambique. Governor Mello e Castro insisted in 1750 that the “many sowings that [are] in the Rivers of Sena today are made of cotton, and cloth factories that they call Machiras,” together with the so-called pannos de Pate, continued to limit the penetration of Indian fabrics in the hinterland markets, thus, they were a considerable obstacle to small businesses carried out by Portuguese residents and to customs revenues that the Portuguese authorities endeavoured to improve. The governor recognised that the rapid increase in the number of native cotton seedlings and Makua looms for the manufacturing of machiras in Bororo, as well as their spread throughout the region of the prazos, that is, on the eastern bank of the Zambezi, had already caused a sensitive loss in the traditional Indian cloth business, to such an extent that, in the opinion of the governor, “there is no business today in the rivers of Sena for any part of which the so-called machiras are traded.”35 Portuguese authorities, realising that they did not have the means to impose a legislation enforcing the prohibition of the cultivation of cotton, especially in areas belonging to the prazos of the Crown where most of the gold and much of the ivory came from, argued that a lot of machiras, the most colourful ones and those of the best quality, should be chosen to be sold together with Indian fabrics so that the latter could be more easily disposed of.36 The trade in Indian textiles and, to some extent, African fabrics was closely linked to ivory exports, slave trade, and servitude because it used the same distribution routes and export ports, and permitted the integration of East African markets into a wider commercial network. Such textiles linked goods and commercial agents from different continents, namely South and Central America, the French Islands the Indian Ocean, and from India to important commercial centres in the Far East and the Arab world. 34 José Botelho, História militar e política dos portugueses em Moçambique (Lisbon: Governo-Geral de Moçambique, 1934), vol. 1, 436; Alexandre Lobato, Evolução administrativa de Moçambique, 1752–1763 (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1957), Parte 1, 110–11; Aurélio Rocha, “Os Suaíli de Moçambique: Síntese Histórico-Cultural de uma Sociedade Africana (das origens ao f im do século XVIII)” (Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1987), 5–6; Alpers, Ivory, 113–26; Antunes, “Formas,” 87–93. 35 Francisco de Castro, Descripção dos Rios de Senna feita por Francisco de Mello de Castro: Anno de 1750 (Panaji: Imprensa Nacional, 1861), 17. 36 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.10, doc.18, 8 November 1754; Castro, Descripção, 17–19.

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The enormous dependence of Africans on Portuguese and Indian traders involved in the Asian textile trade caused a variety of responses among the peoples of Mozambique. In the eighteenth century, Makua resistance took on an economic and cultural nature through the increase of Indigenous cotton crops and the production and trade of machiras. The dissemination of machiras through the hinterland by pervading the region of the Zambezi prazos proved to be one of the most effective responses to the increasing penetration of Indian textiles in the East African coast in the mid-eighteenth century. That is why Portuguese administration was so concerned with the huge quantities of wild cotton that grew either spontaneously or through the incipient planting of wild species by the Makuas and in some cases by some low-income Portuguese residents in the regions of the Shire, on the slopes of the Morrumbala mountain range, as well as in the Bororo lands in the Lower Zambezi.37 Sources further illustrate the role of the Portuguese in local African cotton cultivation. Portuguese were considered idle;38 they were reported to produce nothing on their estates, “neither by their own hands nor through the work of their slaves.” Only in Botongas, freed from slavery and some captives were dedicated to planting and collecting cotton.39 Portuguese and African populations, thus, cannot be approached as if they were homogeneous, immutable, and coherent realities who maintained their pre-contact “original” features. The African population from the Zambezi valley, for example, was also portrayed as “not very hardworking” since they only worked to meet their immediate needs. Governor António Manuel de Melo e Castro (1779–1786) reports that local African populations just “sow and collect, each of them, cotton pieces, and have them spun, weave them into such machiras and apply some [of them] to their own dress, others are destined to pay their landowners in whose lands they live in a certain part, to which they are compelled, and others are recently used to be exchanged for slaves, cattle 37 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.10, doc.18, 8 November 1754. 38 Luís F. D. Antunes, “Como continuar a ser português em terras de África: Quotidiano e conforto em Moçambique setecentista,” in Na trama das redes: política e negócios no império português. Séculos XVI–XVI, ed. João Fragoso and Maria Gouvêa (Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2010), 506. 39 According to João dos Santos, “the lands that run alongside the river (Zambezi) in the northern part are called Bororo, and those in the southern part are called Botonga.” Santos, Etiópia, 180. Malyn Newitt, “Kinship, Religion, Language and Political Control: Ethnic Identity among the Peoples of the Zambesi Valley,” in Ethnicity and the Long-Term Perspective: The African Experience, ed. Alexander Keese (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), 72 states that “the word Tonga simply meant slave or subject and was a generic term used by the Karanga and Maravi to describe the subjugated populations of the Zambezi valley and coastal plains.” Eugénia Rodrigues, “Botongas,” E-Dicionário da Terra e do Território no Império Português, accessed 1 June 2021, https://edittip.net/2013/12/28/botongas/ in turn argues that the Botongas were the free Africans who lived within the prazos of the Crown on the right bank of the Zambezi, especially in the Tete area, as an alternative to settlers.

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and other kinds.”40 The image of “the indolent African” was one of the most used formulas in colonial speech and established a stereotype about Africans whose deconstruction continues to be important today. By referencing such a trope alongside colonial concerns, this source highlights the enormous differences between the European mercantile mindset that only sought commercial profit and the African one, which without neglecting material gains, did not resign its traditional way of life unless for strong motives, seeking to adequately manage available resources and their needs for social goods, foodstuff, and other essential merchandise. The sowing, collection, and spinning of cotton only occupied a certain amount of African labour necessary for the manufacturing of machiras. This allowed other Africans to spent time on other occupations, especially those in agriculture, required for their daily livelihood. As for the trade in machiras, “that, for their size, had a certain reputation among white men,”41 they were acquired from Africans from Bororo and Botonga who had gained fame in successfully mediating exchanges between Portuguese and the African chiefs of the region. Realising the unrestrained inner-Portuguese competition to secure goods like gold, ivory, or machiras, Africans often interfered with shrewdness evaluating “their kinds and attaching less value to those of the Portuguese.”42 The large numbers of machiras involved in the business disclose, albeit as a hypothesis, the existence of an organised trade in textiles: Africans resold to the Portuguese part of the cloths which they had previously accumulated, however, at much higher prices than established at the market. The production of machiras, though dispersed over a relatively large territory and dominated by chieftains and populations economically dependent on ivory trade and slave trafficking, was nevertheless an effective way of resisting foreign trade and preserving African societal values. As Father Monclaro observed, machiras were produced “because they [Africans] hold their customs in high esteem.”43 This kind of resistance can be compared, for example, to Africans fleeing from labour in the most productive gold mines, thus resulting in a smaller amount of gold extracted, just the necessary to purchase the cloths they considered indispensable: “They mine at certain times when they want to buy clothes to dress themselves with.”44 It can also be compared to the concealment of valuable gold mines so as to prevent 40 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.42, doc.07, 7 May 1783. António Manuel de Melo e Castro was governor of the Rios de Sena (aka Zambezi) between 1779 and 1786 when, from the village of Tete, he sent this letter to his uncle, Martinho de Melo e Castro, who served as the secretary of state for the Navy and Overseas from 1770 to 1795. Afterwards, António Manuel was the governor general of Mozambique (1786–1793). 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 43 Monclaro, “Relação,” 388. 44 Ibid., 428.

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others from exploring them, thus assuming the preservation of their lands and the defence of their sovereignty. 45 The evidence presented in this chapter also raises the question of the size and capacity of African markets in the Indian Ocean. Regardless of the level of production of native fabrics, trading in Portuguese East Africa continued to be based on Indian textiles, ivory, and slaves in the seventeenth century. Also differences in the nature of markets and the costs of goods on the east coast of Africa and in India affected the broader dynamics of economic exchange. African markets had a rather small-scale regional realm with limited competition; they were markets where supply and demand did not have large seasonal variations and where there were no major changes in the goods exchanged. Furthermore, such markets were usually open-air markets where producers traded their own products from farming, fishing, and domestic artisanal goods. African markets for the consumption of African and Indian cloths, although quantitatively vast compared to their territorial spread, were rather limited in terms of social width. With regard to the clothing of the Mozambican populations, eighteenth-century sources emphasise that only few Indigenous people used machiras to dress themselves. If so, then because machiras were cheaper and more resistant than Indian clothes. In addition, machiras could also be used as coverings, rugs, “thick yarn sheets,” or “to serve as a bed.”46 The best and most sophisticated machiras were also used as tablecloths in colonial dwellings.47 It is worth noting though that machiras were not the only fabrics that Africans wore and used. Indian textiles consumed in the territories of eastern Africa south of Cabo Delgado varied widely in nature, quality, and patterns; different cotton fabrics, silks, satins, and damasks were used by local elites at African courts. In the sixteenth century, in the region near Tete next to the Zambezi River, Diogo do Couto highlighted the presence of blue cloths […] some of them so thin, that they look like hammocks, and other sorts of striped cloths, […] and all of them are very esteemed by the Kaffirs, who slice them in some pieces with which they get dressed, and these are for them the greatest gallantries in the world. 48 45 Ibid., 391; Barreto, “Informação,” 45. 46 AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.11, doc.48, 17 August 1755; Axelson, “Viagem,” 203; Barreto, “Informação,” 451; Castro, Descripção, 17. 47 The inventory of furniture and ornaments at the residence of the Governors of Mozambique (formerly a Jesuit college, later the Governors’ Palace, and now the Colonial History Museum) on the island of Mozambique lists two machiras, the newest of which was worth 60,000 réis, a value similar to all the inventoried “table linen.” AHU, CU, Moçambique, cx.27, doc.85, 19 August 1767. 48 Diogo do Couto, Décadas da Ásia (Lisbon: Regia Off icina Typographyca, 1778–1788), Década IX, chapter 22, 170–71.

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Frei João dos Santos reported in 1591 that every year “black bertangis and small beads of glazed clay of all colours” arrived in Mozambique, coming from India.49 António Bocarro (1635) commented on the existence of “black and white canequins and cloths,” the cotton cloths most used in the purchase of ivory and all the necessary food, in the interior of Sofala.50 Most of the population in the great Zambezi plateau was dressed in black and other tinted cloths with coloured stripes. Outside the Zambezi plateau, men could dress themselves in furs and women with a very short cloth, or a net made with beads, or even with a cloth made from tree bark fibre which was beaten to make it softer.51 In addition to Indian fabrics and machiras, Africans produced “golden and silk cloths” of about two metres for the royals and their court. These textiles consisted of three satin cloths “sewn together, with gold lace in the middle,” which is reported to have been “very well done by the Kaffirs” so that such “cloths” were worth “two hundred, three hundred cruzados and more.”52 Notwithstanding the anxieties of the Portuguese colonial administration in Mozambique, the impact of local cotton production and the trade in machiras in particular on the colony’s overall economy was of a cyclical nature. This trade had strong regional characteristics—i.e. a relatively small economic dimension that was confined to the interior of central Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Thus, these locally produced textiles did not fit the global logics of the Indian Ocean trade with its historical ties originating from the old trade connecting the eastern coast of Africa with the Arabian Peninsula, Gujarat, and Kerala.

Final Remarks This chapter presents some preliminary sketches on how to unravel the cultural continuity of the cultivation of cotton and the production of cotton textiles in the Zambezi valley. It sheds light on how textiles drew this region into wider global economic flows; however, I also highlight the extent to which textiles could rupture, challenge, and subvert such connections. Focusing on the relationship between textiles and power, here, allows for a broader reflection on the place of the “local” in an increasingly globalised early modern world. Machiras, as an economic and cultural object, encompass a set of features that are specific to a particular African society insofar as they helped distinguish such a 49 Santos, Etiópia, 299. 50 Biblioteca Pública de Évora (BPE), bpe-cod-cxv-2-1, António Bocarro and Pedro Barreto de Resende, Livro das Plantas de todas as Fortalezas, Cidades e Povoações do Estado da Índia Oriental (Goa: n.p., 1632), 15, http://purl.pt/27184. 51 Axelson, “Viagem,” 209. 52 Ibid.

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society from others. The specific characteristics of machiras comprise raw materials, work tools, labour, and African social functions, but these textiles’ characteristics also include values that have endured contributing to the definition of what is considered important in Mozambican collective life. Cotton and native machiras, in their variety, could both incorporate foreign materials and themes as well as maintain the locally used patterns. In the context of pre-capitalist economies prior to the end of the nineteenth century, such textiles drove economic resistance and cultural persistence generating a continuity of knowledge that came to characterise such producing societies. The production of machiras did not continue beyond the mid-nineteenth century; however, it is important to ask whether the much-loved capulanas could be considered one of their successors. The origin of capulanas is uncertain, however, some researchers suggest that they may have been the substitute or at least a more recent version of the machiras. Capulanas may have become popular when women from the Swahili coast started to buy printed cotton scarves, probably red and blue bertangis, made in Gujarat.53 These scarves could be combined to skirts, casual colourful dresses, and headscarves; today, every Mozambican household uses such capulanas as towels, curtains, or pillows, and every dressmaker, stylist, or fashion designer relies on these textiles to create sophisticated colourful clothing. The large-scale production of scarves pre-dating such capulanas, thus, integrated global techniques into local settings, thus, creating new, hybrid fabrics. It therefore seems plausible that capulanas became substitutes for machiras insofar as these textiles share the same material attributes and aesthetic vocabulary. In fact, machiras used in the coastal zone, an area with more contacts with the Indian world, are made from a combination of local threads as well as threads taken from Indian bertangis, to which, sometimes, beads were added. Only under the Portuguese colonial domination in the twentieth century, Mozambique started to produce and export large quantities of raw cotton responding to the economic interests of many Portuguese and foreign colonialists. Carlos Fortuna, the author of an important study on cotton production in Mozambique, suggests, maybe too enthusiastically, that the sudden increase of exports of locally cultivated cotton integrated the colony of Mozambique into the “world economy” and led to the internationalisation of the colony’s commercial relationships.54 In any case, these processes occurred at an advanced stage of the production process when Mozambique had already faced an intensification of the exploitation of African 53 Maria de Lourdes Torcato and Paola Rolletta, “Capulanas,” Capulanas e Lenços, accessed 10 March 2020, http://mosanblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/capulanas.pdf, 21. 54 Carlos Fortuna, “De que cor é o algodão branco de Moçambique? Análise Sócio-Histórica do Estado, Capital e Trabalho, no período entre guerras,” Oficina do Centro de Estudos Sociais 15 (1990): 2.

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labour, thus, processes that turned the lives of thousands of black families, who were forced to work according to the dictates of the markets, into a nightmare for an (ephemeral) success of white people. To point out the diversity, complexity, and materiality of the machiras helps in recovering and restoring the memory and imagination of individual and collective pasts, as they are carefully protected by the oral tradition of the peoples of the Zambezi valley. In this chapter, I argue that the study of machiras enables us to examine the broader cultural values and behaviours of the Macuas from the Bororo region in the mid-eighteenth century; in short, the focus on such textiles helped in contextualising and revealing social relations and the cultural universe of machiraproducing societies. These textiles’ social universe highlighted the relationship between the specialisation of labour, gender division, and social hierarchies, and emphasised the activities of African and Portuguese intermediaries active in the dissemination and sale of fabrics, as well as the complex dependencies and solidarities among all persons involved. Machiras-producing societies embody a story of continuity; however, these societies also changed due to the gradual increase in means of production and actual products, namely the growing number of plantations, looms, and import and use of threads of Indian fabrics and colourful beads that transformed locally produced Mozambican cotton textiles from the nineteenth century onwards. Restoring the history of machiras in all its variety, and especially in terms of their economic value and their functioning as tools of resistance, allows for a broader discussion of how such textiles of high symbolic value helped to define the social condition of everyone within the community.

About the Author Luís Antunes is Professor in History and Senior Researcher at Lisbon University. He is an expert in East African history and in the early modern Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean. His most recent publications on issues of material life include “The Social Life of ‘Colchas’ and other Indo-Portuguese Assets: Uses and Value beyond Trade (16th–18th Centuries),” Anais do Museu Paulista: História e Cultura Material 26, https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-02672018v26e05d1 and “The Production of Indian Cotton Fabrics of the Real fabrica de Combarjuá (Goa), 1782,” a forthcoming chapter in a book in honour of Lotika Varadarajan.

Part IV Material Translation and Cultural Appropriation

13. Mediating Mediterranean Cultures Silk Embroidery and the Design of the Self in Early Modern Algiers Leyla Belkaïd-Neri Abstract This chapter examines seventeenth- till early nineteenth-century embroidery to present a thus far unknown material and gendered history of vernacular cosmopolitanism and in-between hybridity shaped by the women of early modern Algiers. Based on the analysis of textiles surviving in Algerian and French collections, as well as on ethnographic inquiries with female embroiderers in Algeria, this essay provides an anthropological recontextualisation of a multivalent gendered form of vernacular art in early modern North Africa. Keywords: embroidery; vernacular cosmopolitanism; gender studies; Algiers; Mediterranean Studies

Introduction As early as in the Phoenician period, the Mediterranean has been one of the most dynamic spheres of the production and trade of fibres, dyes, and fabrics in the world.1 Exploring the creative and material processes underlying the design and the making of clothing and textiles in North African coastal cities sheds new light on the still largely neglected study of the everyday life of communities overshadowed by the belligerent events of a predominantly male-centred conventional history. This chapter examines seventeenth- till early nineteenth-century embroidery to present a thus far unknown material and gendered history of vernacular cosmopolitanism and in-between hybridity shaped by the women of early modern Algiers.2 Based on 1 Beatriz Marín-Aguilera, Francesco Iacono, and Margarita Gleba, “Colouring the Mediterranean: Production and Consumption of Purple-Dyed Textiles in Pre-Roman Times,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 31, no. 2 (2018): 127–54. 2 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch13

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the analysis of textiles surviving in Algerian and French collections, as well as on ethnographic inquiries with female embroiderers in Algeria, this essay provides an anthropological recontextualisation of a multivalent gendered form of vernacular art in early modern North Africa.3

The Objectification of Gendered Histories For centuries, Algerian tarz or tiraz embroidery embodied a quintessential expression of individual and collective identity for both rural and urban female populations. 4 Women of all generations, who worked autonomously and never belonged to any kind of professional corporation, produced silk thread embroideries in domestic settings. These women transformed the empty undyed surfaces of a broad variety of bath wear, underwear, bedwear, curtains, hangings, and other everyday and ritual articles. Professional female embroiderers existed in Algiers and could be commissioned embroidery artefacts by wealthy families; however, the production of most of the embroidery usually happened at home. It was not meant to constitute a commercial activity, but embroidering could generate consistent incomes to women. Whether made to satisfy their personal and family needs or as commissioned work, embroidery provided conditions of self-expression and self-realisation to women in every social category. Italian Renaissance cities’ economic vibrancy also prompted the rapid growth of the port of Algiers due to its strategic location between Africa and Europe, and turned domestic silk embroidery into one of the most visible expressions of the interconnectedness of urban Algerian women and other female embroiderers around the Mediterranean Sea. A broadened range of stylised patterns at the intersection of intricate Mamluk and Italian references intertwined on the domestic looms of these women. Once the Kingdom of Algiers was under the authority of the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century, women dealt creatively with a multi-layered heritage that added a new stratum to its already hybrid background. Algiers became 3 Most of the surviving pieces of Algerian domestic embroidery can be seen at the National Museum of Antiquities and Islamic Art and National Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions in Algiers, and at the Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. Following my early field inquiries in Algiers in the mid-1990s, I conducted ethnographic studies in northern Algeria between 2009 and 2013. See Leyla Belkaïd, “A Repository of Mediterranean Memories: How a Ritual Dress Has Become a UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity,” in Textiles as National Heritage: Identities, Politics and Material Culture, ed. Gabriele Mentges and Lola Shamukhitdinova (New York: Waxmann, 2017), 293–308. 4 Tiraz derives from Persian and means embroidery in Arabic. It indicates both embroidery and medieval luxury silks and embroideries in the Islamic cultures of Central Asia, the Middle East, and the Southern Mediterranean.

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the capital of the most western province of the Ottoman Empire in 1534, eighty years after the Ottoman capture of Constantinople.5 During the next three centuries, the style of fine domestic embroideries showed more similarities with Eastern Mediterranean embroideries while preserving their local stylistic features. It is important to stress that such correlations were not the consequence of a massive displacement of Anatolian families towards the West. In fact, Ottoman administrators were essentially imposing military and financial control onto their provincial governments.6 Although very few women from the Ottoman heartlands seem to have settled in Algeria, the circulation of embroidered artefacts between Istanbul and Algiers certainly contributed to the hybridisation of local embroidery repertoires. From the finely embroidered coverings used to wrap and protect precious objects, jewellery, caftans, ceremonial turbans, or military articles sent from Istanbul to the provinces, to the gifts exchanged between women of high rank such as embroidered shawls, napkins, handkerchiefs, and larger textile pieces, the circulation of luxurious textiles and embroidery made in the intimacy of the Levantine harems further stimulated the already sophisticated Algerian art of silk embroidery.

Embroidering Intersubjective Surfaces and Objects Algerian women’s production echoes the cosmopolitan milieu in which the art of silk embroidery fully blossomed during the golden age of Algiers in the seventeenth century, when the city became “one of the richest cities in the Mediterranean, one of the most disposed to transform this wealth into luxury.”7 Divided between the intimate sphere of the body and the private but visible sphere of the home, fine embroidery embodied the multiple physical and emotional frontiers of a woman’s skin and space. From adorning the walls of the bridal room to wrapping the bodies of newborn children or covering the shoulders of older family members, embroidery visually transposed the life cycle. The multiple everyday uses of undyed linen and 5 Following the construction of the Peñón Spanish military fort on an island in the bay of Algiers by Pedro Navarro to block the city in 1510, Algiers’ King Sélim Ettoumi requested the assistance of Arudj and Hayreddin Barbarossa. The Peñón was demolished by the troops of Barbarossa in 1529. Hayreddin received the official caftan from Suleyman the Magnificent and declared the placing of Algiers under Ottoman authority in 1534. 6 Ottoman administrators were appointed by the sultan at the Topkapi Palace. Most of them were converts from Italy, Sardinia, Provence, or Corsica. They never established a colonial system in North Africa. 7 Fernand Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l’époque de Philippe II (Paris: Colin, 1990 [1949]), vol. 1, 66.

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cotton artefacts embroidered with silk threads extended to all kinds of rituals like accompanying the food associated with religious festivities or marking the passage between childhood and adulthood. Women embroidered the interstitial material membranes that delineated the porous and nonporous territories of the domestic space; activities which had repercussions for the subjective, sensorial, and cognitive experiences of every individual in the household. Beyond the personal technical and human skills of each woman, embroidery revealed the social structures and ritual practices of the Algerian society in relation to conjugality, religion, age, and the passage of time. Material and technical features such as the quality of the silk yarns, the size of the embroidered piece or the quantity of embroidered items provided for each ritual also functioned as indicators of social status and inequalities. In Algiers, public bathhouses were the epicentre of crucial social interactions for urban women since the Roman times. Bathers spent half a day, or more often a full day, moving from one room of the hammam to the other with specific towels and cloth accessories for each step of the washing and drying operations, but also for meals and tea ceremonies held inside the bathhouse. Women shared a public space in which the sensorial merged with the social. Within this convivial platform where marriages were arranged and other important social transactions were agreed upon, displaying quantities of beautifully embroidered towels, napkins, and cloth accessories was a way to signify distinction and impress the audience.8 Bathers used rectangular or square tenchifa linen towels of various proportions in the hot wet rooms and fresher dry rooms of the hammam (Fig. 13.1). The headdress called bniqa was usually worn during and after the tea ceremony at the bathhouse (Fig. 13.2). Its appearance resembled a pointed bonnet made of two long panels or tails of loose hand-woven linen stitched together along their largest extremity. Women placed the bniqa onto their head, divided their wet hair in two long plaits and wrapped each of them in one of the two embroidered linen tails, before arranging them around the forehead like a turban, leaving the top of the bonnet visible. Prior to its function as an essential bathing accessory, the bniqa was a medieval headdress made of loose satin silks, damasks, or wool muslins, widespread among urban women prior to the settlement of the Ottomans in northern Algeria.9 A few decades after Algiers had entered the realm of the Ottoman Empire, Diego de Haëdo (dates unknown) praised the “piece of cloth in which women place their hair” for their embroidery 8 The sets of towels, stoles, and head kerchiefs were components of the bridal trousseau that every woman had to provide. They were unveiled during the one-week wedding ceremony, before joining the husband’s family. The quality of the embroideries was thus indicative for the bride’s education, skills, status, and personality. 9 Among the broad variety of embroidered domestic everyday objects shared with the Mediterranean women in the rest of the Ottoman Empire, only the bniqa does not have an equivalent in Greece, Asia Minor, and the Balkans.

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Figure 13.1  Tenchifa towel, detail. Algiers, eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

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Figure 13.2  The pomegranate pattern on a bniqa headdress. Algiers, seventeenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

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with colourful silk threads. The Spanish Abbot noticed that “women usually shave their hair around the neck where the Albanega (Benika) cannot reach, and remove some hair around their forehead, leaving short and neatly combed hair tufts hanging on each side of their head, along their temples.”10 The bniqa is also discussed in the early eighteenth-century’s accounts of British traveller Thomas Shaw (1694–1751), who spent twelve years in Algiers and observed how women braided their long hair before pulling them up on their head adding an embroidered triangular piece of cloth strongly tightened around the head.11 The bniqa was a bathing accessory as well as an everyday easy-to-wear bonnet and sleep cap to protect women’s long hair and keep it braided during the night. Similarly, embroidered shawls were used at the hammam, but some variants could also be worn by women to cover their shoulders on the terrace or in the courtyard. Also, all linen and cotton nightwear and underwear had embroidered hems. Under the baggy brocade sarouel, women and men wore a pair of cotton trousers with a large crotch. The panels of the garment were embroidered with coloured silk. In the cold season, embroidered cotton shirts were worn under the large qmedja shirt adorned with lace, brocade, and silk ribbons.12 Night shirts were often embroidered around the neck and on the chest, and so were the underwear and nightwear, night sashes for men, as well as bedding items, sheets, cushion and pillow covers. In the domestic space, unless they were in brocaded silks and velvets, all the objects in direct contact with the body and its skin such as cushion covers, sitting mattresses pillows, tablecloths, napkins, hand towels, and handkerchiefs were embroidered by women in the household, and so were the protective cloth dividers used to store garments and bed articles in wooden trunks. Cake boxes, tea boxes, glasses, and silver or copper objects like teapots, small bowls, ewers, cafetières, and sugar bowls always had an embroidered linen piece that went with them. Disseminated on curtains hung vertically before each door or all around the porch with columns that characterise the Algerian west-eddar patio house, silk embroidery mediated between two worlds. Embroidered hangings were used as dividers between one room and another and between the rooms and the porch with columns around 10 Haëdo Diego, Topografia e História de Argel (Valladolid: n.p., 1612) translated as Diego Haëdo, “Topographie et histoire générale d’Alger […] traduit […] par MM. le Dr Monnereaù et A. Berbrugger,” Revue Africaine 14, no. 81 (1870): 414–33; no. 82 (1871): 364–75, 109. 11 Thomas Shaw, Travels, or, Observations relating to Several Parts of Barbary and the Levant (Oxford: At the Theater, 1738), 380. 12 Venture de Paradis, Tunis et Alger au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Sindbad, 1983), 120–39 mentions the important consumption of silk ribbons for women’s clothing and home decoration in the Kingdom of Algiers, especially for the giant sleeves of “unreasonable width” of female shirts. The diplomat noted that they were composed of three panels with a silk ribbon to stitch them together following the same technique as for embroidered curtains.

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Figure 13.3  Door curtain made of three panels and silk ribbons. Algiers, early eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

the open space of the patio. Mostly, the richly decorated wood doors were kept open all day to facilitate air circulation.13 Long curtains embroidered with flower motifs were therefore placed on top of each doorway. Similar large hangings with ribbon junctions were also applied on the ceramic tiles of the walls in the living rooms and bedrooms, especially for festivities like weddings or religious ceremonies. Loose curtains served as decorative shelters on the roof terraces and in the countryside gardens to protect women and children from the sun. In the wealthiest families, adults slept in luxurious canopy beds entirely made of metallic arabesques, covered on the inner side with embroidered curtains to preserve the intimacy of the couple. Because the width of standard hand-woven linen and cotton cloths was too narrow, three panels were put together to assemble a door curtain or a wall hanging. The stitch that gathered the embroidered panels was reinforced with silk ribbons of various widths and colour tones (Fig. 13.3). Locally produced silk ribbons could be coupled with brocade braids or larger ribbons imported from Lyon. One hanging often required ten to fifteen strips of silk ribbon stitched together. 13 The layout of the rooms, patios, doors, corridors, and windows served to promote the ventilation in Algiers houses and palaces. See André Ravéreau, La Casbah d’Alger, et le site créa la ville (Paris: Sindbad, 1989), 89–99.

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A Connective Interface in the Making In the Algerian capital, women embroidered at home with their own looms, tools, and materials. During the golden age of the city in the seventeenth century, privileged urban dwellers had a peaceful room entirely dedicated to silk embroidery with a permanent installation of looms. However, most women worked on their private patios or roof terraces under natural light. They enjoyed gathering to embroider together while socialising, speaking, singing, and reciting poems. Silk embroidery was elaborated on the gourgâf, a horizontal wooden loom with a rectangular base placed on four feet, carved, and decorated with ivory and mother-in-pearl incrustations. It was adapted to the crossed-legged position of the embroiderer who was comfortably seated on a mattress or cushion. This form of loom, called gergef in Asia Minor, was shared with the female embroiderers of the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Domestic embroidery required a ground in natural linen, unbleached cotton, or a mix of linen and cotton. Loosely woven muslins and etamines provided an ideal weight and texture for most embroidered items. Local women were able to spin yarns and weave narrow ground fabrics at home using natural fibres, but they usually purchased them from local textile workshops or at the market. Once the ground was chosen and placed on the loom, the embroiderer could draw the floral motifs of the composition on its surface and transfer the pattern’s outlines with templates. The most experienced women often practised freehand drawing. Before the Ottoman era, Algerian craftspeople produced raw silk yarns and dyed them locally. This industry kept growing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and encouraged the development of silk velvets for everyday and ceremonial dress, as well as satin ribbons for the ornamentation of female shirts and embroidered hangings and curtains. In the eighteenth century, ribbons made in Algiers were famous for their vibrant colours, especially their intense reds and purples, and they were regularly exported to Western Europe and Asia Minor.14 Silk thread producers and ateliers of silk twisters and spinners provided families and independent embroiderers with high-quality yarns. Some of these producers were based in neighbouring coastal cities like Cherchell and Dellys where the descendants of the Morisco silk producers, spinners, dyers, and weavers, who had fled Granada, Almería, and other silk manufacturing centres in Spain, were specialised in the production of different qualities of yarns essential to the art of domestic embroidery.15 In every Algerian 14 See Paradis, Tunis et Alger. 15 About the Moriscos in the city and province of Algiers, Abbot Haëdo explains that “they came here, and come continually via Marseille and other French ports where they easily embark, the French taking them very willingly on board of their ships. They are divided in two categories: the Mudejares of

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Figure 13.4  The chromatic scheme of Algiers embroidery on a linen stole. Algiers, detail, late eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

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city, dyers had their own guild that sourced materials and controlled the quality of mineral, animal, and vegetal substances. The formula of the Algiers purple was kept secret and its origin is still unclear, although it seems that the mix between the calcareous water of the city and the mordant used in the dyeing process could explain its particular vividness. The chromatic scheme of Algiers embroideries’ primary motifs focused on purple, red, and blue.16 These three colours were displayed in various tones and combined with gold and silver. Much smaller patterns were filled with subordinate colours, mostly soft pastel shades of olive or almond green, sky blue, pale salmon pink, light orange, or yellow (Fig. 13.4). Narrow black lines highlighted the contours of both primary and secondary patterns. In technical terms, embroidering with silk yarns never depended upon too complicated operations. A gergaf  loom, a cloth ground, a basic metal or bone needle, and a few silk yarns were enough to start practising. It is more the regularity, precision, and quality of the needlework execution that required a long apprenticeship. The education of young embroiderers usually started around the age of five with their mothers, aunts, grandmothers, or maids. Small domestic schools run by renowned mistresses existed in bigger Algerian cities. The wealthiest families could also hire experienced instructors to teach their younger daughters. Girls of all social backgrounds were trained to produce personal samplers with the help of templates and blocks. This repetitive exercise allowed them to experiment with the placing of motifs, traditional floral shapes, and various stitches, before being able to reinterpret the traditional repertoire following their own taste and personality. The girls learnt to become active agents of a large feminine community of domestic embroiderers thanks to an educational plan adapted to each girl’s artistic skills and manual dexterity. By the age of eleven, usually around puberty, the transmission of the basic knowledge and techniques allowed the adolescent to start preparing the hand-embroidered components of her trousseau. Algerian women designed sensuous abstract landscapes by the interplay of different stitches, some creating a flat shiny surface, others a more granular relief. In fact, the technique of shading never existed in Algiers embroidery whereas stitches could be laid in different directions to generate contrasted textures. Embroiderers composed regularly laid and couched stitches, as well as running stitches in diagonals and steps. These stitches had Algerian names. Among the most frequent ones were the mterha, a quilted couched, dense, and tight stitch, and the maâlqa, a diagonally running and double running stitch often used on the double-faced Granada and Andalusia; and the Tagarins from the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia and Catalonia. Many rear silkworms and own shops where they sell all sorts of haberdashery.” Haëdo, “Topographie,” 495. 16 The comparative stylistic analysis of seventeenth-century eastern Ottoman and Algerian embroideries shows that beyond the analogies with Asia Minor productions, the red and blue scheme was also predominant in Aegean, Cycladic, and Cretan embroidery.

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extremely well-finished compositions for which Algiers women had great expertise. Both stitches were used to fill in the biggest masses of volutes and floral medallions. Another vernacular stitch that did not exist in any other Ottoman repertoire was the eyelet star stitch (zeliledj).17 This Algerian eyelet stitch was worked in parallel diagonals composing small squares in which the undyed ground remained visible.18 Other techniques like the stem stitch (mnezzel) enhanced the sophisticated texture of the embroidered surface. In British and American old needlework samplers and more recent directories, the regular stitches with a circular hole created by eight or more branches pulled outwards are called “Algerian eye” or “Algerian eyelet.”19 The Western repertoire of handmade embroidery borrowed other techniques from Algiers silk embroidery heritage such as the Algerian border stitches, the Algerian plaited and the Algerian filling with couching stitch (point de couchure algérienne) used to fill in embroidered patterns with a dense and tight stitch.

The Transcultural Patterns of a Vernacular Art The style of Algiers f ine embroidery is recognisable by its typologies of stitch techniques and distinct chromatic features (Fig. 13.5). Despite the possibility of mixing natural dyes and creating apparently limitless combinations of colours, local women followed precise aesthetic equations within which they expressed their own pictorial language. This stylistic framework was also determined by the shape and proportions of dominant floral patterns filled with one of the three distinctive dominant colours: purple, blue, and red. On the other hand, the pomegranate and the scrolling arabesque motifs were omnipresent in most urban Algerian embroideries. Foliated scrolls were already largely represented in the Andalusian textiles that distinguished the dress of Maghrebi elites during the Almohad era, when North Africa and a large portion of Spain belonged to the same caliphate. However, there is little evidence that the pomegranate pattern could have derived from any Andalusian heritage. In the fourteenth century, when Algiers was a province of the Zayyanid Kingdom of Tlemcen, precious silks were imported from eastern 17 Zeliledj derives from zellij, the ceramic tiles used in Northern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula. 18 Rodrick Taylor, Ottoman Embroidery (London: Studio Vista, 1985), 166: “The violet curtains are quite unusual in Ottoman embroidery in that the main stitch used is a small eyelet stitch worked in eight stitches and set out in diagonal lines.” 19 This stitch, traditionally an eight-leg star with a central hole inscribed in a square, can turn into a rectangular, oval or circle in its modern interpretations. Many embroidered pieces made with this stitch used to be archived as “Algerian XVI century” at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London (henceforth V&A), which could explain the origin of the name assigned to the technique. Cf. Alan J. B. Wace, Catalogue of Algerian Embroideries (London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1915).

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Figure 13.5  The Algiers purple on a linen stole, detail. Algiers, eighteenth century. © Musée du quai Branly – Jacques Chirac.

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neighbours such as Sicily, Italy, and Egypt. Italian weavers who inherited the Fatimid art of silk from Palermo,20 especially those in Lucca but also in Florence, Venice, and Genoa, were influenced by the silks woven in the Mamluk royal workshops in Egypt and Syria. Mamluk Kings, who had Mongolian origins, in turn developed strong diplomatic, cultural, and commercial ties with Persia, India, and China. Mamluk textile patterns therefore incorporated a rich variety of Asian designs and inspired the pattern of silks produced in Italy and Asia Minor.21 The emphasis on the cross-sectioned pomegranate pattern in Italian velvets, damasks, and brocades was presumably the result of this ceaseless hybridisation of the art of silk between Asia and the Mediterranean world. During the Italian Renaissance, pomegranate patterns with big lobed petals and a pistil shaped like a three-pointed little crown were repeatedly woven into the most precious silk textiles.22 Wealthy Algerian families purchased these silks to make their costumes and decorate their homes. As thousands of Italian merchants settled in Bejaia, Tlemcen, and Algiers, luxury textiles were regularly shipped from Genoa, Venice, and the Tyrrhenian ports of Livorno and Pisa to the north Algerian cities.23 The Renaissance pomegranate, artichoke, thistle flower, and pinecone probably became widespread motifs in Algiers male and female wardrobes, and from there in local domestic embroideries, in the dynamic contexts of the sixteenth-century Mediterranean. Because Italy was the Western world’s centre for the production of luxury velvets between the twelfth and eighteenth centuries, it had intense commercial and cultural exchanges in both the western and eastern Mediterranean basins. This supremacy explains why the pomegranate design, placed between stylised artichoke leaves, was also common on locally produced luxury silks in both Asia Minor and Spain.24 20 Fatimid silks represented a unique synthesis of Byzantine, Chinese, Persian, and Syrian influences. 21 The stylised medallions and palmettes that inspired Italian weavers are visible on Chinese silk damask fragments as in V&A, 333-1896 and 209A-1893. Made in late thirteenth- till mid fifteenth-century Egypt, these textiles might have been woven by Islamic craftsmen for the Mamluk elites following Chinese samples. 22 Italian weavers increasingly replaced animal representations that were common in the Byzantine, Sassanid, and Fatimid silks, with vegetal ones. See Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings, 1300–1550 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), and Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 23 Italian merchants relied on the northern cities and ports of Algeria to have access to gold sourced in Africa—trade agreements were established between the Almohads and the Genoans in 1153 and with the Pisans in 1168 and 1211. Thousands of Italian traders were active in Tlemcen in the fourteenth century and in Algiers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. See Romain H. Rainero, Italia e Algeria: Aspetti storici di un’amicizia mediterranea (Milan: Marzorati, 1982). 24 Velvets made in Bursa and Istanbul showed evident similarities with Venetian silks. During the centuries of Spanish expansion in Italy and Western Europe, Italian and Iberian luxury textiles shared the pomegranate, artichoke, and pine motifs.

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In Catholic Italy and Spain, the pomegranate furthermore functioned as a religious symbol of resurrection and infinity represented in many sacred scenes, but it was also endowed with other meanings, most of them shared with nonChristian Mediterranean cultures since ancient pagan times. It embodied royalty because of its crown-shaped calyx, as well as fertility and abundance in reference to its myriad of red seeds. The fertility symbol seems to have prevailed in Algerian urban traditions as attested by the predominance of the pomegranate motif in the embroideries produced by women and its absence in the heavy embroideries made by male craftsmen.25 In female compositions, the pomegranate medallion was always represented like a symmetrical container, filled with smaller stylised flora, often embroidered with vivid red threads. Its large round base resembles the shape of a flower gynoecium’s carpels. The flower’s ovary could therefore be interpreted as a metaphor of the embroiderer’s ovary, hence the symbolism of fertility. The proliferation of voluptuous pomegranates and scrolls embroidered with dense red, blue, or purple stitches was brightened by secondary flower motifs, buds, and leaves filled with lighter tones, as well as sprays of fruit blossoms, wild roses, carnations, hyacinths, and small tulips. Many secondary patterns were borrowed from the Ottoman inventory of flowers and leaves. However, the Ottoman emphasis on the elongated tulip and on the carnation that held a central role in Asia Minor ceramic tiles, textiles, and embroideries did not seem to have durable repercussions on the Algerian decorative herbarium.

A Metaphorical and Material Substitution The Algiers repertory of embroidered silk designs focused on the universal idea of women’s fertility as a component of a broader universal cycle of life, perpetuated through reproduction and transmission in nature. The vitality of the graceful but vigorous scrolls that proliferated around the external envelope of the stylised pomegranate suggests the idea of an imaginary fruit of life, similar to the tree of life symbol. The polysemous red ovary or womb and its ramifications extended the pomegranates’ symbolic universe to the vitality and renewal of a society through the act of giving birth and growing a family. The profusion of arabesques and 25 Heavy metal thread embroideries associated with couched braids were made by male professional craftsmen with gold or silver beaten metal strips couched on the surface of the fabric with small stitches worked from the back. They were applied on velvets, brocades, and other thick textiles for ceremony attire and for the luxurious waistcoats, jackets, and caftans worn by officials and wealthy civilian men and women. They also spread on all kinds of leather items and accessories, from saddles, harnessing, and horse trappings to wallets, belts, bags, boots, and slippers. This category of embroidery adorned the large surfaces of tents and banners, as well as religious items such as hangings for mosques or prayer carpets.

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volutes blossoming from the central embroidery motifs to fill in the empty parcels of the ground fabric, in the midst of a myriad of small flowers and buds, therefore depicts a lush natural environment that resonates as a metaphor of the vital social networks built and nurtured by each woman throughout her life. Local inventories of embroidered flora excluded animal, human, and figurative motifs. Linked to the Qur’anic prohibition of the representation of the human f igure and animate life on decorative objects, this limitation existed in North Africa a long time before the Ottomans. In Asia Minor, Muslim weavers and embroiderers experimented with more figurative flower compositions and foliations, before including also tridimensional patterns of objects, vases, wells, little houses, and palaces in the eighteenth century. In Algiers, the prohibition on portraying humans encouraged the development of metaphorical substitutive forms for the representation of each woman’s emotional perception of her natural environment. In the early sixteenth century, Leo Africanus (c.1485–c.1554) noticed the considerable number of fruit trees in the private gardens around the city of Algiers.26 About a century later, Abbot Haëdo saw Algiers’ women going to their gardens in the outskirts of the city “in every season of the year, especially during the fruit season.”27 Joao Mascarenhas (b. c.1589), a Portuguese military official who was held captive in Algiers, wrote that in all his travels around the world, from Brazil and Mozambique to Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France, he never saw a city with such impressive gardens and abundant fruits.28 Still in 1820, Filippo Pananti (1766–1837) reports that twenty thousand gardens were cultivated in the periphery of the city, comparing their beauty with the lush gardens of Chantilly in France or Fiesole in Tuscany.29 Before the French colonisation, the wealthiest Algerian families had luxurious countryside residences in the middle of dense vegetation not far from the city, some of which still exist today.30 The garden was called djenina, which means little paradise in Algerian language, was a substitute on earth for the paradise or djenna described in the Qur’an. These different layers of heavenly imaginary and earthly paradise gardens, with their many varieties of pomegranate, orange, lemon, apricot, almond, and pine trees, implied a primarily natural source of inspiration for the women of Algiers who subjectively conjugated nature and culture by reinterpreting the cyclical regeneration of both flora and kinship in their embroidery work. Another function of substitution seems to have boosted the extraordinary growth of domestic silk embroidery in early modern Algiers. Despite the existence of silk 26 27 28 29 30

Leo Africanus, Description de l’Afrique, trans. Alexis Epaulard (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1981), 348. Haëdo, “Topographie,” 203. Paul Teyssier, ed., Esclave à Alger: Récit de captivité de Joao Mascarenhas (Paris: Chandeigne, 1993), 28. Filippo Pananti, Relation d’un séjour à Alger (Paris: Le Normant, 1820), 161. Lucien Golvin, Palais et demeures d’Alger à la période ottomane (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1988).

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workshops created by Muslim and Jewish craftsmen who flew Spain, the variety and quality of locally produced velvets, damasks, and brocades never reached the perfection of Venetian or Tuscan silk textiles, and only a privileged minority of women and men could afford wearing or adorning their homes with these precious Italian fabrics. The analogy between the proportions and shapes of the core floral motifs of the Renaissance woven silks and of Algiers embroideries suggests that hangings, curtains, covers for cushions and other furniture items with floral embroidery provided cheaper substitutions for unaffordable velvets and brocades. In many Mediterranean cultures, fine embroidery aimed at the replacement of more expensive woven textiles reproducing them on a broader set of domestic objects and surfaces. Besides these economic and pragmatic parameters, the warm weather of North Africa discouraged the display of heavy silk velvets and brocades at home all year long. While efficient natural ventilation systems facilitated the cooling of the rooms during the long summer season, they required fresh light linen hangings and curtains to let the doors open during the day and allow optimal air circulation. In this climatic context, the substitutive roles of domestically embroidered cloth objects significantly contributed to their popularity and widespread dissemination.

The Mutability of a Composite Style According to Alan J. B. Wace, Algiers embroidery formed a category distinct from all other Mediterranean embroideries in terms of its stylistic and functional aspects—from colours and motifs to stitches and uses.31 The archaeologist highlighted one of its main characteristics, that is the “strange hue of mauve” or purple of the silk threads used by local women.32 Algiers purple remained unparalleled in the Eastern territories of the Ottoman Empire, but other stylistic features support Wace’s assumption—from the uniqueness of the pomegranate shapes to the diversity of the embroidery stitches and the symmetrical compartmentalisation of primary and secondary motifs in each pictorial composition. Beyond the identification of the physical specificities and artistic qualities of these embroideries, their evolution over time appears as another important distinctive feature.33 Despite the 31 Alan J. B. Wace, Mediterranean and Near Eastern Embroideries from the Collection of Mrs. F. H. Cook (London: Halton & Company, 1935), 11. 32 Ibid. 33 While some curators favoured the hypothesis of a ramification between more recent red and blue embroideries on one side and older purple ones on the other, the analysis of eighteenth-century pieces reveals the existence of more intricate temporalities and chromatic combinations: purple foliated scrolls can run alongside red pomegranates and blue leaves, while dominant purple patterns can live side by side with golden arabesques and foliages.

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textile interchanges between the various coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, stylised motifs inherited from earlier periods, especially from Italian Renaissance velvets, persisted longer in Algiers than in any other place. In addition to the longevity of the pomegranate pattern, it is noteworthy that the Ottoman tulipomania never crystallised in the Algerian repertoire. Furthermore, realistic designs introduced by the Rococo style in eighteenth-century Western European and Ottoman embroidery never spread on the surfaces embellished by Algiers women. Although Algerians were familiar with Lyon woven silk textiles, they seemed reluctant to adopt the much in vogue tridimensional Rococo-style representations of polychrome fruits, bouquets of flowers, birds, trees, landscapes, or coffee pots and trays that proliferated on the domestic embroideries made in Istanbul. When Ottoman embroidery could combine up to fifteen colours to create a shade effect with soft pastel tones, the preeminence of the bidimensional purple, red, and blue motifs did not decline in eighteenth-century Algiers embroidery. The longevity of the pomegranate and arabesque style foliations, as well as the overall chromatic scheme, should therefore be considered a sign of cultural autonomy. Such material continuities reflected the fragmented political context of the Ottoman Empire in a century in which the sultan’s power and its influence on north Algeria were inexorably weakening. In light of the growing hegemony of the British Empire and France in the western Mediterranean basin during the early nineteenth century, Algiers faced the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and more frequent attacks from major North European fleets. In such a disrupted context, the proliferation of English wools led to a more sober use of gold embroideries and trimmings in Algerian costumes. This less opulent decorative style influenced the gradual simplification of local embroideries in which the artistic contrast between the proportions of the main motifs and the smaller secondary ones started reducing. Local women progressively abandoned the tradition of the central stylised medallion and created less impressive pictorial compositions with impoverished flora and colours—changing political and material dynamics in the broader Mediterranean led to a deterioration of embroidering skills in Algiers. The bniqa headdress of the first decades of the nineteenth century, for instance, shows small flowers in pastel tones encapsulated in thinner and less vigorous scrolls, often embroidered with golden threads. While a new variety of Westernised designs and chromatic palettes caused the revival of Ottoman embroidery, the occupation of Algiers by the French troops in 1830 was detrimental to the domestic art of embroidery. The practice of silk embroidery declined due to the exodus of the wealthiest Algerian families who escaped the massive destruction of their city between 1830 and 1832 and in the following decades. Before the end of the nineteenth century, the closure of local silk workshops and guilds by the French authorities accelerated the decimation of traditional crafts in a country that fell under a long period of colonial rule until 1962.

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Conclusion The functional, artistic, and relational qualities of silk embroideries as artefacts and images empowered local women to redraw the domestic space and imbue it with gendered subjectivities, while bridging the cultural disjunctions between the private and the public. Because they mediated people’s interactions with their social and material environment, Algerian female embroiderers were “vernacular cosmopolitans of a kind, moving in-between cultural traditions, and revealing hybrid forms of life and art that do not have a prior existence within the discrete world of any single culture or language.”34 Bhabha’s paradigm of the vernacular cosmopolitan subject acknowledges the intricate political momentum and entangled subjectivities that contributed to the construction of the Algerian woman’s self in the unstable political contexts of the early modern Mediterranean. The study of the creative material production of Algerian silk embroiderers reveals how women were innovating in between disjunctive historical times and spaces, expressing their own intimate and subjective present with prolific designs beyond the hegemonic boundaries of supposedly antagonistic cultures and religions. The silk embroidery produced in Algiers acted as a binding agent between North and South, East and West, Christian and Muslim, Latin and Arab, the Spanish and Ottoman Empires, transcending artificial polarities and narratives of division embedded in the Western concept of modernity and in the project of colonisation that became its corollary.

About the Author Leyla Belkaïd-Neri, Professor of Design Anthropology and Head of the Master of Arts programme at Institut Français de la Mode, Paris, served previously, among others, as programme director at Parsons Paris, the European branch of  The New School, New York. She conducted the inquiry and implemented the safeguard measures that led to the registration of the first vernacular costume ever acknowledged as an element of the UNESCO Representative List of Cultural Heritage of Humanity (2012) and is the author of Algéroises: histoire d’un costume méditerranéen (1998) and Costumes d’Algérie (2003).

34 Bhabha, Location of Culture, xiii.

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14. The Material Translation of Persian and Indian Carpets and Textilesin Early Modern Japan Yumiko Kamada

Abstract This chapter argues that Persian and Indian carpets and textiles helped negotiate new signs of identity in Edo Japan. It is argued that practices of commercial exchange, gift-giving, diplomacy, and ceremonial as well as spiritual aesthetics channelled the translation of textiles and carpets in-between the Indian subcontinent and the islands of Japan. These carpets crossed borders and, by doing so, they defined and negotiated cultural connections. When arriving in Japan, acts of cultural translation were required to ensure the acceptance of such in-between textiles. When translated into Edo society, Indian and Persian carpets could stage hierarchies, legitimise authority, embody wealth, and materialise Japanese spiritual and symbolic aesthetics. Keywords: Indian textiles; carpets; Edo Japan; material translation; Dutch East India Company

Introduction In pre-modern Japan, woollen fabrics were uncommon due to the country’s humid climate and the absence of sheep. Recent research has revealed, however, that despite Japan’s seclusion policy from the seventeenth till the nineteenth century, a number of Indian carpets was brought to Japan by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) during exactly that period. Still today, Japan holds a total of three starmedallion Indian carpets from the eighteenth century. This type of carpet was often depicted in seventeenth-century Dutch paintings but there are no extant

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch14

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Figure 14.1  Carpet, India, eighteenth century. Collection of Mr. Kojiro Yoshida (Kyoto Living Craft House Mumeisha). After Kokka 1505 (2021), pl. 5.

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examples elsewhere.1 Moreover, a star-medallion Indian carpet has recently been discovered in Kyoto (Fig. 14.1). As discussed in this chapter, the Dutch presented Indian and Persian carpets as gifts to Japanese rulers and elites to maintain good relations from the seventeenth century onwards.2 Such imported gifts circulated exclusively among a limited number of people such as shoguns and other elites. Rulers, high officials, and powerful merchants enjoyed the privilege of using carpets from overseas. From the eighteenth century onwards, however, a larger variety of people across the social spectrum was able to get access to Indian and Persian carpets. Since the mid-eighteenth century, wealthy Kyoto merchants decided to use imported Indian carpets also as covers for the floats of the Kyoto Gion Festival (Fig. 14.2). This annual festival, which originated in the tenth century to protect people from the plague, celebrates the Yasaka Shrine in Kyoto. From the fourteenth century onward, when merchants increased their economic power, those residing in the Shimogyo area in Kyoto organised parades of large floats on the occasion of the Gion Festival each June. In Japanese society, thus, Indian carpets were not used as household furnishings but consumed in special settings, such as Shinto festivals, and it is this process of adaptation that further raised their value. Similar processes of cultural adaptation can be observed for Indian textiles imported to Japan. In the seventeenth century, imported Persian and Indian textiles were highly valued and a limited number of people could acquire and use them. The Dutch paid close attention to the choice of design in order to suit the taste of their Japanese clients. According to a Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (Dutch East India Company; VOC) letter from Batavia, Indonesia, and sent to the VOC factory in Japan in 1644, the VOC factory in Batavia sent several types of Indian textiles as well as forty-two rare dresses, some of which were made of floral-design chintz, in order to identify what kind of textiles were in high demand in Japan.3 Indian chintz was very popular at that time and several feudal loads and elites had coats made from such novel textiles. 4 In the eighteenth century, when Indian chintz became accessible to a wider range of the Japanese population, people not only used them to 1 Yumiko Kamada, “Woven Flowers: Persian and Indian Carpets in Early Modern Japan,” Orientations 44, no. 3 (2013): 56–57. 2 This chapter expands on Yumiko Kamada, “Flowers on Floats: The Production, Circulation, and Reception of Early Modern Indian Carpets” (PhD diss., New York University, 2011); Yumiko Kamada, Jūtan ga Musubu Sekai—Kyoto Gion Matsuri Indo Jūtan e no Michi [Carpets that Connect the World: Indian Carpets and Their Journey toward the Kyoto Gion Festival] (Nagoya: University of Nagoya Press, 2016). 3 Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo, ed., Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki. オランダ商館 長日記 [Diary of the Head of the Dutch Factory], 12 vols. (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1975–2015), vol. 8/1, 206–7. 4 Yumiko Kamada, “The Use of Imported Persian and Indian Textiles in Early Modern Japan,” Textiles and Politics: Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium Proceedings (2012): 2, fig. 2.

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Figure 14.2  Kyoto Gion Festival. © The author (17 July 2013).

make clothes and bags, but also used them as covers of utensils during the Sencha tea ceremony.5 Both their rarity and their adoption into an authoritative setting such as the tea ceremony elevated the value of such imported textiles. 5

Kamada, “Use.”

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As Homi Bhabha has outlined for other contexts in more general terms, Persian and Indian carpets and textiles used in Japanese society were culturally positioned “in-between” spaces; the local cultural translation of such globally circulating Indian textiles and carpets helped negotiating “new signs of identity” in Edo Japan.6 This chapter presents a discussion of the processes and practices of translation of early modern global material culture in Edo Japan, and globally traded Indian and Persian carpets and textiles in particular. It is argued that practices of commercial exchange, gift-giving, diplomacy, and ceremonial as well as spiritual aesthetics all channelled the translation of textiles and carpets in-between the Indian subcontinent and the islands of Japan. These carpets crossed borders and, by doing so, they defined and negotiated cultural connections. When arriving in Japan, however, acts of cultural translation were required to ensure the acceptance of such in-between textiles. This chapter thus presents what Bhabha called “a more […] translational sense of the hybridity of imagined communities,” and the place of in-between textiles in the negotiation and elaboration of their social imaginary.7 When translated into Edo society, Indian and Persian carpets could stage hierarchies, legitimise authority, embody wealth, and materialise Japanese spiritual and symbolic aesthetics.

Trade between Japan and Siam by Muslim Merchants Early modern Japan witnessed a changing history of foreign trade. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Japan; from 1543 onward, they imported various trade goods including textiles. In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康) founded the Tokugawa Shogunate and became the first Shogun (r.1603–1605). He encouraged foreign trade, and not only Portuguese, Dutch, and English, but also Chinese and Korean merchants arrived in Japan. In 1609, commercial exchange between the Netherlands and Japan began off icially and a VOC factory was established in Hirado in Nagasaki Prefecture. Shortly thereafter, in 1613, the first English trading voyage arrived in Japan, and the English established their own factory in Hirado. At that time, Indian textiles seem to have already been popular. A letter from 28 September 1615, written by the English East India Company (EIC) factor, Richard Wickham (dates unknown), in Kyoto and sent to Richard Cocks (1566–1624), head of the EIC factory in Hirado, stated that Indian textiles sold well in Kyoto.8 However, the EIC’s trade in Japan turned out less profitable than expected and England closed 6 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 1. 7 Ibid., 7. 8 Osamu Kondo, “Mugal-chō jidai no Indo-yō to Nihon.ムガル朝時代のインド洋と日本 [The Indian Ocean and Japan in the Mughal Period],” Ōtemon Gakuin Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyō 追手門学院大学文 学部紀要 [Bulletin of the Department of Literature, Otemon Gakuin University] 29 (1994): 137–53.

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its Hirado factory and left Japan in 1623. Then, from 1639 to 1854, Japan entered a period of national seclusion during which the Japanese government of Edo (bakufu) controlled all aspects of commerce and diplomacy, and only the Dutch and the Chinese were allowed to conduct trading activities in Japan. The VOC closed its Hirado factory in 1640, shortly after the introduction of the seclusion policy, and built a new factory on the island Deshima in Nagasaki Prefecture. Based on an analysis of the sailing routes of Dutch ships to Japan, Keisuke Yao has divided Dutch-Japanese trade into three phases: the first period (1641–1659), VOC trade in Asia was based at the Taiwan factory and VOC ships connected Taiwan, Tonkin, Siam, and Japan. The main merchandise consisted of Japanese silver and Chinese silk. In the second phase (1660–1715), the VOC established a prospering triangular trade between India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. The company sold Japanese silver and gold in India and exported Indian textiles and Siamese dyes such as sappanwood to Japan. In the third phase from 1716 onward, because of the restrictions placed on the number of ships that were allowed to enter Japan and the decreasing number of VOC ships in Asia in general, the Dutch made commercial voyages back and forth between Batavia and Japan.9 While extensive research has been conducted on Dutch-Japan commerce, it is not well known that, from the seventeenth century onwards, Muslim merchants from Siam likewise came to Japan for trading purposes. In 1627, for instance, twenty-three Muslims arrived in Japan in a Chinese ship that had set sail from Siam. These Muslims were not sailors working for the Chinese, but merchants transporting goods entrusted to them by the King of Siam, Songtham (r.1611–1628), as well as by Japanese and Muslim merchants residing in Siam.10 Despite its seclusion policy, thus, the Japanese government overlooked trade arriving by ship from Siam.11 Evidence documents the arrival of further Muslim merchants from Siam in Japan in 1635/36.12 Throughout the 1630s, Muslim merchants from Siam brought silk from China and sugar from Vietnam. After the death of the leader of this Muslim 9 Keisuke Yao, Kinsei Oranda Bōeki to Sakoku. 近世オランダ貿易と鎖国 [Dutch-Japanese Trade and the Seclusion Policy in the Early Modern Age] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1998), 302. 10 Tadashi Nakamura, “Kinsei ni okeru Nihon, Chūgoku, tōnan Asia kan no sankaku bōeki to Muslim. 近世における日本・中国・東南アジア間の三角貿易とムスリム [Triangle Trade between Japan, China, and Southeast Asia and Muslims in the Early Modern Period],” Shien 史淵 [Journal of History] 132 (1995): 51–52. 11 Fukuya Kurihara, “17, 18 seiki no Nihon-Siam bōeki ni tsuite. 十七・十八世紀の日本＝シャム貿易 について [Japan-Siam Trade in the 17th–18th Centuries],” Tokyo Joshi Daigaku Shakaigakkai Kiyō Keizai to Shakai 東京女子大学社会学会紀要 経済と社会 [Bulletin of the Society of Sociology, Economy and Society, Tokyo Women’s Christian University] 22 (1994): 12–13. 12 Hiromu Nagashima, “Iranians Who Knocked the ‘Closed Door’ of Japan in the Edo Period,” in Population Movement beyond the Middle East: Migration, Diaspora, and Network, ed. Akira Usuki et al. (Osaka: National Museum of Ethnology, 2005), 307.

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merchant community in Siam in 1639, however, no Muslim trader arrived in Japan for the next two decades. Instead, Chinese and Dutch ships connected Siam and Japan. From 1660 onwards, Muslim merchants in Siam then resumed their trading activities with Japan bringing Indian cotton textiles, silk textiles, and shark leather from the Coromandel Coast in southeastern India as well as Southeast Asian goods such as sappanwood. These merchants returned from Japan with silver, copper, porcelain, and lacquerwork.13 According to Hiromu Nagashima, this commerce prospered most in the 1660s; Muslim merchants from Siam are documented to have engaged in trading activities in Japan between 1660 and 1663, as well as in 1667 and 1680.14 For this reason, the Japanese government established the position of Moor-tsūji (モウル通詞) in 1672, a special interpreter to communicate with Muslims in Nagasaki.15 Muslim merchants were particularly active in Siam from the mid-1650s to the beginning of the 1680s, during the reign of Narai at Ayutthaya (r.1656–1688). During this period, Muslims also became ever more influential in Siamese politics.16 The Safavid diplomatic emissaries sent to Siam by Shāh Sulaimān in 1685 reported that a succession of Persian Muslims had been appointed as political leaders under the Ayutthaya dynasty.17 Muslim merchants based in Siam had also established strong connections with parts of the Indian Subcontinent such as Bengal and Coromandel.18 Ships from Siam also brought Indian carpets to Japan. According to an entry in the diary of the VOC Deshima factory, Muslim merchants from Siam arrived in Japan on 10 September 1660 bringing with them shark leather from the Coromandel Coast, several kinds of Indian cotton and silk textiles, 136 small carpets, and six large carpets.19 According to this diary entry, the Dutch were worried that the textile trading activities of these Muslim merchants from Siam might be harmful to VOC trade on the Coromandel Coast and in Bengal.20 On 15 October 1660, another 13 Hiromu Nagashima, “17 seiki ni okeru Muslim shōnin no Nihon raikō ni tsuite. 17世紀におけるムス リム商人の日本来航について [Muslim Merchants’ Visits to Japan in the Seventeenth Century],” Journal of East-West Maritime Relations 1 (1989): 13, 20–23; Nagashima, “Iranians,” 307–8. 14 Nagashima, “17 seiki ni okeru Muslim shōnin,” 13–29; Nagashima, “Iranians,” 308–12. 15 Nagashima, “17 seiki ni okeru Muslim shōnin,” 25. 16 Sanjay Subrahmanyam, “Iranian Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern State Formation,” in Merchant Networks in the Early Modern World, ed. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1996), 80–82. 17 John O’Kane, The Ship of Sulaimān (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), 94–104. 18 Nagashima, “Iranians,” 316. Plenty of Indian goods circulated in Siam. Sinnappah Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650–1740 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 103 suggests the possibility that seventeenth-century Indian merchants brought animal skins to Thailand, a famous marketplace for skins that were then exported to Japan. 19 Nagashima, “17 seiki ni okeru Muslim shōnin,” 20–21. 20 Ibid., 13.

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letter from the Deshima factory sent to Batavia reported that Muslim merchants had brought a variety of textiles from the Coromandel Coast and Bengal as well as other goods to see what commodities would sell best in Japan. The letter also stated that Muslim merchants had agents in Coromandel and Bengal, hence their ability to obtain these goods at a cheaper price than the VOC.21 The Moor-tsūji used mostly Persian, a common language of the Indian Ocean region, along with some Hindi, as research by Nagashima has shown.22 According to Sinnappah Arasaratnam, the Dutch records of the 1660s and 1670s often mention that an increasing number of Muslims from Golconda and south Coromandel were travelling to and from Siam for commercial purposes. These merchants brought Indian textiles to Siam and obtained Chinese and Japanese goods in return, which were sent back to India.23 In light of this evidence, some of the 142 carpets imported into Japan by Muslim merchants in Siam in 1660 might have been produced on the Coromandel Coast or in the Deccan.24

Carpets Imported to Japan by Dutch Traders While carpets were occasionally brought to Japan through the official VOC trade channels, they were far more often acquired by the Japanese through private trade. From the beginning of the seventeenth century onwards, the VOC had prohibited its employees to engage in private commercial activities. At the same time, however, the Japanese government permitted VOC employees to trade privately in Japan within certain limits.25 According to Yoko Nagazumi, in the 1660s and 1670s, private trade constituted 25 to 50 per cent of the total transaction volume of trade between the Dutch and the

21 Ibid., 14. 22 Hiromu Nagashima, “Yakushi chōtanwa no Moor-go ni tsuite: Kinsei Nihon ni okeru Indo ninshiki no ichisokumen. 『訳詞長短話』のモウル語について‐近世日本におけるインド認識の一側面 [The Moor Language in Yakushi Chōtanwa: An Aspect of the Japanese Recognition of India],” Nagasaki Kenritsu Kokusai Keizai Daigaku Ronshū長崎県立国際経済大学論集 [Annals of the Nagasaki Prefectural University of International Economics] 19, no. 4 (1986): 164. 23 Sinnappah Arasaratnam, “The Chulia Muslim Merchants in Southeast Asia, 1650–1800,” in Subrahmanyam, Merchant Networks, 164–65. 24 For the production of carpets in the Deccan at that time, see Yumiko Kamada, “Early Modern Indian Carpets as Media for Cross-Cultural Interaction,” in Asian Encounters: Exploring Connected Histories, ed. Upinder Singh and Parul Pandya Dhar (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 203–5. 25 Teijiro Yamawaki, “Wakini bōeki zakkō. 脇荷貿易雑考 [Some Thoughts on Private Trade],” in Sakoku Nihon to Kokusai Kōryū 鎖国日本と国際交流 [Japan during the Seclusion Policy and International Exchanges], ed. Kenji Yanai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1988), 99–100.

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Japanese.26 Since the VOC had clearly not been able to control private commercial activities despite frequent interdicts against it, in 1667 the VOC changed its policy. Henceforward, goods that fell into the categories of commodities with which the VOC did not trade could be imported privately to Japan if cargo space permitted so. Those engaged in such private trade had to pay duties as required.27 Moreover, in 1670, the Japanese government allowed the Japanese lower-ranking interpreters (naitsūji内通詞) working for the Dutch to set up a guild that offered a range of benefits for VOC private trade. This guild received commissions from Japanese purchasers.28 The VOC governor in Batavia therefore issued an edict in 1670 ordering VOC officials not to take European and Asian textiles, fragrant wood, corals, ceramics, lacquerware, glass objects, turtle shells, books, paintings, clocks, Dutch coins, medicine, surgical apparatuses, and carpets (alcatyven) to Japan.29 This edict, it seems, was of no avail. It provides further evidence that carpets along with a variety of other items were imported to Japan as private trade goods during this period. The amount and range of private trade undertaken by VOC employees seems substantial; according to Hendrik Cansius, head of the Deshima factory in 1681/82, the amount of private trade exceeded substantially the official turnaround of goods in Japan at that time.30 The scale of private trade as well as the amount of contraband activities undertaken by VOC officials in Japan increased dramatically from around the mid-eighteenth century.31 Among the goods privately brought to Japan were carpets. An entry in the 1741 diary of the VOC Deshima factory states that local Nagasaki officials personally ordered carpets from the Dutch. According to this diary entry, when the Nagasaki official, Takagi Sakuemon (高木作右衛門), asked about six “Bengali” carpets that were imported in the previous year (1740), the Dutch replied that because the Japanese had offered to pay less than one third of the cost price of 26 Yoko Nagazumi, “Kaisha no bōeki kara kojin no bōeki e: 18 seiki nichiran bōeki no henbō. 会社の貿易 から個人の貿易へ―十八世紀日蘭貿易の変貌 [From Official Trade to Private Trade: The Transformation of Japanese-Dutch Trade in the Eighteenth Century],” Shakai Keizai Shigaku社会経済史学 [Studies in Socio-economic History] 60, no. 3 (1994): 322–23. 27 Yamawaki, “Wakini,” 102–3; Cynthia Viallé, “Company Trade and Private Trade in Japanese Porcelain in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century,” Kyushū Sangyō Daigaku Kakiemon-yōshiki Kenkyū Center Ronshū 九州産業大学柿右衛門様式研究センター論集 [Journal of the Center for the Study of the Kakiemon Style, Kyushu Sangyo University] 3 (2007): 146. 28 Yamawaki, “Wakini,” 100. 29 Jacobus A. van der Chijs, ed., Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek 1602–1811, 17 vols. (Batavia: Nijhoff, 1885–1900), vol. 2, 509–12. I would like to thank Dr Anna Koopstra for her kind help in reading this document. 30 Charles R. Boxer, The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600–1800 (London: Hutchinson, 1965), 228. 31 Nagazumi, “Kaisha no bōeki,” 321; Kamada, “Flowers on Floats,” 301–2.

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such carpets, they were now to be returned to Batavia. Sakuemon said that he was desperately in need of the carpets as gifts for high officials in Edo, and he asked that their price may be reduced as a personal favour.32 The Dutch accepted this request “in view of the fact that Sakuemon is a true friend of the Company and that a refusal could have very unfavorable consequences,” and sold “the carpets but not at their real cost price.”33 According to another VOC document from 1742, Sakuemon had finally purchased six out of 12 “Bengali” carpets (Bengaalse alcatieven) and the VOC had achieved an 8.5 per cent profit on the sale.34 This incident reveals that in the mid-eighteenth century, local officials in Nagasaki considered Indian carpets as suitable gifts for high officials in Edo. Given the fact that Bengal was not famous for carpet weaving and that most of the eighteenth-century Indian carpets in Japan can be attributed to the Deccan, some of these so-called “Bengali” carpets were probably woven in the Deccan and exported via Bengal.35 Contraband trade was also carried out throughout the eighteenth century until the end of the Edo period, and textiles and medicines were the most prevalent contraband goods at that time.36

The Distribution of Imported Indian Carpets in Japan In the late Edo period, routes for the distribution of imported goods were firmly established. According to Tadashi Nakamura, official commodities were first collected in Nagasaki Kaisho, a kind of customs clearing house, where certain merchants could bid on them. These goods were then sold to other merchants in Nagasaki or transported to wholesale dealers in Osaka and Kyoto, and then further distributed by brokers to markets throughout the country. Contraband goods, however, arrived through a variety of routes. In general, merchants in Nagasaki

32 Leonard Blussé et al., eds., The Deshima Diaries, Marginalia, 1740–1800 (Tokyo: Japan-Netherlands Institute, 2004), 16. 33 Ibid., 16. 34 J. van Goor, Generale Missiven van Gouverneurs-Generaal en Raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, 13 vols. (The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1960–2007), vol. 10, 875. 35 Kamada, “Early Modern Indian Carpets,” 202–5. 36 Teijiro Yamawaki, Nukeni: Sakoku Jidai no Mitsubōeki. 抜け荷‐鎖国時代の密貿易 [Contraband Trade during the Period of the Seclusion Policy] (Tokyo: Nikkei, 1965), 160–65. Cf. Koichi Shimizu, “Nukeni-kō: Kyōhō-ki no nukeni taisaku o chūshin toshite. 抜荷考－享保期の抜荷対策を中心として [The Control Policy against Contraband Trade in the Kyōhō-Period],” Chuō Daigaku Bungakubu Kiyō, Shigakka 中央大 学文学部紀要 史学科 [Journal of the Faculty of Literature, Department of History, Chuo University] 24 (1979): 21, 38; Tadashi Nakamura, Kinsei Taigai Kōshōshiron. 近世対外交渉史論 [International Exchange in the Early Modern Period] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2000), 155.

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purchased such goods illegally and then sold them on.37 In the late eighteenth century, ordinary people in Japan took a growing interest in imported objects and purchased foreign goods from retail shops known as karamonoya (唐物屋).38 With respect to Indian carpets used as float covers for the Kyoto Gion Festival, the city’s dominant emporium, Mitsui (or Echigoya), seems to have played a crucial role in their distribution. The founder of the emporium, Mitsui Takatoshi (1622–1694) started as a draper in Kyoto in 1673, founded a branch in Edo in 1674, and eventually established himself as a money dealer in the area of Kita-kannon-yama, Kyoto, in 1686. He then expanded into trading activities in Nagasaki at the beginning of the eighteenth century.39 Mitsui also engaged in reselling gifts or ordered goods brought by the VOC for high officials. 40 Some of the Indian carpets in Kyoto thus may have been obtained by Mitsui or other dominant merchants since the Kita-kannon-yama area is located within a larger area known as Rokkaku-cho (六角町), where Mitsui had his base from 1686 onwards. 41 Throughout the Edo period, Mitsui was involved in the preparation and celebration of the Gion Festival as a member of the Kitakannon-yama Association. 42 In light of these contexts, Indian carpets preserved by the Kita-kannon-yama Association and used as float covers may actually have been acquired by Mitsui.

Carpets as Gifts or Commissioned Commodities Gift-giving has long been an important practice in Japanese society and imported carpets and textiles were regarded as appropriate gifts among the well-to-do. In 37 Nakamura, Kinsei Taigai Kōshōshiron, 166–67, 169. 38 Isabel Tanaka-van Daalen, “Popular Use of Imported Materials in Japan,” in Bridging the Divide: 400 Years, the Netherlands-Japan, ed. Leonard Blussé, Willem Remmelink, and Ivo Smits (Leiden: Hotei, 2000), 151. 39 Yoshiko Morioka, “Kinsei kōhanki ni okeru Nagasaki bōeki no henshitsu: Rakusatsu o meguru futatsuno mondai. 近世後半期における長崎貿易の変質－落札をめぐる二つの問題 [Transformation of Trade in Nagasaki in the Late Modern Period: Two Issues Regarding Bidding],” Gakushūin Shigaku 学 習院史学 [Gakushuin Historical Review] 3 (1966): 20–21; Yoshiko Morioka, “Mitsui Echigoya no Nagasaki bōeki keiei (1). 三井越後屋の長崎貿易経営 (1) [Management of Trade in Nagasaki by Mitsui-Echigoya (1)],” Shigaku Zasshi 史学雑誌 [Historical Studies in Japan] 72, no. 6 (1963): 868, 870; Shigehisa Hibino, “Kyoto to bunkazai tenjishitsu ni tsuite. 京都と文化財展示室について [Kyoto and the Exhibition Room for Kyoto Culture],” Yamamachi Hokochō 山町鉾町 special issue (1991): 159. 40 Kazuo Katagiri, “Kapitan no shinmotsu to zanpin o hanbai shitanowa dareka. カピタンの進物と残 品を販売したのは誰か [Who Sold the Gifts from the Dutch and Their Remains?],” Nihon Rekishi 日本歴 史 [Japanese History] 670 (2004): 90–91; Kazuo Katagiri, Soredemo Edo wa Sakoku Dattanoka. それでも 江戸は鎖国だったのか [Did Japan Have a Seclusion Policy?] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2008), 185. 41 Reiko Hayashi, Edo to Kamigata: Hito, Mono, Kane, Jōhō. 江戸と上方－人・モノ・カネ・情報 [Edo and Kamigata: People, Commodities, Money and Information] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2001), 109. 42 Hibino, “Kyoto,” 159.

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a report of 1577, the Portuguese missionary Luis Fróis (1532–1597), who stayed in Japan from 1563 to 1597, stated that it was necessary to bring gifts whenever visiting Japanese dignitaries. 43 In fact, the Portuguese gave a tapestry-woven silk carpet typical of sixteenth-century Persia as a gift to Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1536–1598). In order to demonstrate and embody the splendour of this imported luxury item, Hideyoshi had it made into a coat (Fig. 14.3) that is still preserved in the Kōdai-ji (高台寺) temple in Kyoto. 44 Carpets rated among the most popular imports at that time. In the above-mentioned report of 1577, Fróis also listed Portuguese hats, sand clocks, glasses, leather, velvet purses, embroidered cloth, sugar confectionary, raincoats, Flemish woollen fabrics and, above all, carpets as popular gifts presented by the Portuguese to the Japanese.45 In 1573, Fróis himself gave a carpet to the warlord Takei Sekian as a diplomatic gift. 46 Due to the establishment of the Portuguese in India (Estado da India), it was comparably easy for the Portuguese to obtain Persian and Indian carpets in the sixteenth century, and thereby to cater to the Japanese luxury taste and diplomatic demands for such globally traded textiles. Still, most Persian and Indian carpets that found their way to Japan were brought by the Dutch. In 1610, the Dutch merchant, Jacques Specx (1585–1652) reported in a letter sent to the Heren Zeventien (VOC Board of Governors in the Netherlands) that “every year we shall have to present many gifts, for, in my opinion, there is no country under the sun where one has to make as many presentations as one does here. It is hardly possible to visit anyone, even a commoner, without taking him something.”47 From 1609 onward, in fact, the VOC annually went to Edo to present gifts to the Shogun and other high officials—among such gifts were also carpets.48 The audience with the Shogun was an important opportunity for the Dutch to pay homage and to show their gratitude to the Shogun for allowing the Dutch to continue their commercial activities in Japan. 43 Naojiro Murakami, Yasokaishi Nihon Tsūshin. 耶蘇会士日本通信 [Jesuits Reports on Japan], 2 vols. (Tokyo: Yushodo, 1966), vol. 2, 386, Luis Fróis to Alessandro Valignano, 10 August 1577. 44 Toh Sugimura, Jūtan: Silk Road no Hana. 絨毯: シルクロードの華 [Woven Flowers of the Silk Road] (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun, 1994), 147–48. 45 Yukihiro Tsunoyama, Chūgoku, Waran Yōmō Gijutsu Dōnyū Kankei Shiryō. 中国・和蘭羊毛技術導入 関係資料 [Documents Related to the Introduction of the Technology of the Woollen Industry from the Netherlands and China in the Late Edo Period] (Osaka: Kansai University Press, 1987), 240; Murakami, Yasokaishi, vol. 2, 387–88, Luis Fróis to Alessandro Valignano, 10 August 1577. 46 Murakami, Yasokaishi, vol. 2, 269, Luis Fróis to Francisco Cabral, 27 May 1573. 47 Cynthia Viallé, “In Aid of Trade: Dutch Gift-Giving in Tokugawa Japan,” Tokyo Daigaku Shiryō Hensanjo Kenkyū Kiyō 東京大学史料編纂所研究紀要 [Bulletin of the Historiographical Institute, The University of Tokyo] 16 (2006): 61. For gift-giving, see also Cynthia Viallé, “To Capture Their Favor: On Gift-Giving by the VOC,” in Mediating Netherlandish Art and Material Culture in Asia, ed. Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann and Michael North (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2014), 291–319. 48 After 1790, in order to reduce VOC expenditure on travel to Edo, such trips were restricted to once every four years.

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Figure 14.3  Coat made for Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Kōdai-ji Temple. © Kōdai-ji Temple.

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At the same time, the Dutch brought a variety of other foreign commodities to Japan to fulfil the demands and commissions placed by rulers and high-ranking officials. These orders (eisen) could be of an extensive nature.49 According to Cynthia Viallé, the first eis (order) was made by Jacques Specx in 1610; it listed a wide range of items including woollen textiles, glass objects, mirrors, matchlocks, and carpets.50 In 1634, the Dutch paid homage to Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu (r.1623–1651) by presenting many rarities including a Persian carpet with gold and silver threads, a fine carpet with a deer hunting scene, a Persian dress, a Persian tablecloth with a floral design on silver and gold velvet foundation, and a fan with a silver handle from Surat.51 The “Persian carpet with gold and silver threads” must have been a so-called Polonaise carpet that were very popular diplomatic gifts at that time. Also some Japanese high officials received gifts, among them were several Persian carpets.52 In 1636, the Dutch presented further gifts to the Shogun, consisting of two Persian carpets, textiles, pistols, and an enormous copper chandelier that is still preserved in Nikkō Tōshōgū in the Tochigi Prefecture that enshrines Tokugawa Ieyasu.53 A year later, in August 1637, the Nagasaki governor then asked the head of the VOC’s Hirado factory to obtain three fine Persian carpets sized 6 el by 12 el (414 × 828cm) for the Shogun.54 Another year later, in September 1638, two Persian carpets with gold threads and a large Persian carpet without metal threads were brought to the Hirado factory.55 Again the following year, in 1639, when the VOC attended an official audience in Edo, two Persian carpets with gold threads were presented to

49 Viallé, “Aid of Trade,” 65; Viallé, “Capture Their Favor,” 296. 50 Viallé, “Aid of Trade,” 66. 51 Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 1/1, 40–42; Eiichi Kato, “Hirado jidai ni okeru Oranda shōkan no kenjōhin to zōtō-kōi. 平戸時代におけるオランダ商館の献上品と贈答行為 [Gift-Giving by the Dutch Factory in Hirado],” in Bakuhansei Kokka no Seiritsu to Taigai Kankei 幕藩 制国家の成立と対外関係 [The Establishment of the Edo-Bakufu System and External Relations], ed. Eiichi Kato (Kyoto: Shibunkaku, 1998), 415; Yoko Nagazumi, Hirado Oranda Shōkan no Nikki. 平戸オラン ダ商館の日記 [Diary of the Dutch Factory in Hirado], 4 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1969–1970), vol. 3, 34, 120. The Persian carpet with metal threads measured 6.5 × 3.25 el (448.5 × 224.3cm) and cost 510 gulden. The second carpet was 4 × 2.5 el (276 × 172.5cm) and cost 127 gulden 10 stuyver. 52 Kato, “Hirado jidai ni okeru Oranda shōkan,” 416–17; Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 1/1, 44–47; Nagazumi, Hirado Oranda Shōkan, vol. 3, 38–40, 125–27. 53 Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 2/1, 20–21; Nagazumi, Hirado Oranda Shōkan, vol. 3, 309–10. 54 Nagazumi, Hirado Oranda Shōkan, vol. 3, 455. 55 Hirado City Historiography Committee, ed., Hirado Shishi Kaigaishiryōhen 平戸市史－海外史料編 [The History of Hirado City, Historical Documents in Foreign Languages], 3 vols. (Hirado: Hirado City Historiography Committee, 1998–2004), vol. 2, 284. Each Persian carpet with gold threads cost 500 gulden. Another large Persian carpet cost 51 gulden.

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the Shogun, along with other rarities including three quilts from Surat.56 In 1640, the Dutch went again to Edo for an audience with Shogun Tokugawa Iemitsu. This time, they presented among others two Persian carpets with gold and silk threads, cannons, large paintings, Dutch velvets.57 According to a Hirado factory diary entry, the Shogun was glad to receive these gifts and rariteijten (rarities).58 Also in 1640, in order to show gratitude to Matsura Shigenobu, the Lord of the Hirado Domain, for acting as an adviser, the Dutch presented him with a small carpet with gold threads, a Persian horse, and textiles including chintz, and in 1641, a Persian coat.59 Thus, Persian carpets were used as appropriate gifts for shoguns, feudal lords, and high officials. Occasionally, also Indian mats were chosen as gifts to be presented to the Shogun. In 1651, Shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna (r.1651–1680) ordered “10 to 20 elaborate mats from Ceylon,”60 which might have been dhurries. A few months later, in February 1652, on behalf of the Shogun and other high officials, Inoue Chikugonokami passed a list of goods to the VOC factory for the delivery of the following year. Among other things, Inoue Chikugonokami asked for the arrival of coloured carpets and “five rare and beautiful Ceylon mats with figural design, 3 el by 1.5 el [207 × 103.5cm]” for the Shogun and himself.61 In addition, a Persian textile with gold threads and a tiny floral motif, as well as two carpets, were ordered by other officials.62 From the mid-eighteenth century onward, not only the Shogun and high officials in Edo but also people in Nagasaki close to VOC officials, among them governors, magistrates, and official interpreters, ordered goods.63 From the eighteenth to the 56 Hirado City Historiography Committee, Hirado shishi, vol. 2, 356; Nagazumi, Hirado Oranda Shōkan, vol. 4, 194. 57 Naojiro Murakami and Takashi Nakamura, eds., Batavia-jō Nisshi. バタヴィア城日誌 [Diary of the Dutch Factory in Batavia], 3 vols. (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1970–1975), vol. 2, 44; Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 4/2, 38. According to the trade journal of the Hirado factory, the larger carpet cost 500 gulden and the smaller one cost 148 gulden. See Hirado City Historiography Committee, Hirado Shishi, vol. 3, 217. 58 Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 4/2, 67. 59 Ibid., 155–59. According to the 1640 trade journal of the Hirado factory, this was a Persian carpet with metal threads that cost 250 gulden. See Hirado City Historiography Committee, Hirado shishi, vol. 3, 258; Historiographical Institute, Oranda Shōkanchō Nikki, vol. 5, 14. 60 Naojiro Murakami, ed., Nagasaki Oranda Shōkan no Nikki. 長崎オランダ商館の日記 [Diary of the Dutch Factory in Nagasaki], 3 vols. (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1956–1958), vol. 3, 54. 61 Kazuo Hasegawa, “長谷川一夫. Ōmetsuke Inoue Chikugonokami Masashige no seiyō igaku e no kanshin. 大目付井上筑後守政重の西洋医学への関心 [The Interest of the Official Inoue Chikugonokami Masashige in Western Medical Science],” in Kinsei no Yōgaku to Kaigai Kōshō近世の洋学と海外交渉 [Western Studies and International Interaction in the Early Modern Period], ed. Seiichi Iwao (Tokyo: Gannando, 1979), 213–14; Murakami, Nagasaki Oranda Shōkan, vol. 3, 146–51. 62 Ibid., 149–50. 63 Yoko Nagazumi, “Shōgun Ieharu ga chūmon shita kōmō fukushoku. 将軍家治が注文した紅毛服飾 [European Costumes Ordered by Shogun Yoshiharu],” Nichiran Gakkai Kaishi日蘭学会会誌 [Bulletin of the Japan-Netherlands Institute] 19, no. 2 (1995): 67.

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Figure 14.4  Tokugawa Yoshikatsu sitting on an Indian carpet, 1866. © The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry.

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nineteenth century, because of their closer connections with the Dutch, various officials and interpreters in Nagasaki ordered goods from VOC officials more often than high officials in Edo, and it is known that some officials in Nagasaki were engaged in reselling such objects traded from abroad.64 From the early eighteenth century onward, the practice of collecting objects brought by the Dutch gradually became prevalent among feudal lords and wealthy merchants. It seems that carpets were among such widely collected objects.65 At the same time, carpets continued to be brought to Japan by the Dutch as appropriate gifts for the Shogun and high officials. According to the diary of the head of the Deshima factory, Hendrik Godfried Duurkoop, the Japanese official Gisabro told him in September 1777 that a carpet (alcatief) should be part of the main gift presented to the Shogun, Tokugawa Ieharu (r.1760–1786).66 As indicated by a photograph taken in 1866 (Fig. 14.4), also the Lord of the Owari Domain, Tokugawa Yoshikatsu (1824–1883),67 presented himself sitting on an Indian carpet. Over the centuries, Japanese rulers had established a practice that translated imported Indian and Persian carpets into new contexts: these carpets now served as status symbols to be displayed on special occasions.

Contexts of Translation and Appropriation: The Use of Indian Carpets as Float Covers in Japan The most striking use of imported Indian and Persian carpets is as covers for floats of the Kyoto Gion Festival. This festival originated in the tenth century to celebrate the Yasaka Shrine.68 Later, from the fourteenth century onward, when merchants had greater economic power, those residing in the Shimogyo area in Kyoto built large floats called Yama-hoko and paraded them during the Gion Festival in June. 64 Minoru Omori, “Edo jidai ni Nagasaki Deshima Oranda shōkan ni shukō sareta chūmonsho ni tsuite: Oranda kokuritsu sōgō monjokan shozō shiryō no shōkai o chūshin toshite. 江戸時代に長崎出島オランダ 商館に手交された注文書について－オランダ国立総合文書館所蔵史料の紹介を中心として－ [Documents of Orders Issued to the Dutch Factory in Deshima, Nagasaki: Introduction to Documents in the Dutch National Archive],” in Sakoku Nihon to Kokusai Kōryū 鎖国日本と国際交流 [Japan during the Seclusion Policy and International Exchanges], ed. Kenji Yanai (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 1988), 245–46. 65 Several eighteenth-century Indian carpets from the houses of feudal lords and wealthy merchants were sold in art auctions held in the early twentieth century in Japan. For the images, see Kamada, Jūtan ga Musubu Sekai, 352. 66 Paul Van der Velde and Cynthia Viallé, The Deshima Dagregisters: Their Original Tables of Contents, 13 vols. (Leiden: Leiden Centre for the History of European Expansion, 1986–2010), vol. 8, 165; Blussé et al., The Deshima Diaries, 408. 67 Kamada, “Flowers on Floats,” pl. 605a; Kamada, “Woven Flowers,” 59, fig. 8. 68 Isao Tokoro, Kyoto no Sandai Matsuri. 京都の三大祭 [Three Major Festivals in Kyoto] (Tokyo: Kadokawa, 1996), 138. The Kyoto Gion Festival continues to this day.

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The procession of floats was originally in addition to the sacred Shinto parade of the three palanquin-like mikoshi. In the course of time, however, Kyoto merchants established the parade of floats as an independent event.69 Several contemporary screen paintings and documents indicate that from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, textiles imported from China and Korea decorated Gion Festival floats. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, Persian and Indian carpets were used as float covers as well.70 The vivid red colour and floral pattern of the Indian carpets would have added an air of festivity to the event and, therefore, these carpets must have been especially attractive to Kyoto merchants who would also have appreciated them as luxury artefacts. They used such carpets not only as a display of their wealth, but also because they regarded these rare foreign carpets as appropriate objects to embellish what they considered their most important Shinto festival. From the Edo period onward, Indian carpets featured in two other Shinto festivals, the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival and the Omizo Festival, both in the Shiga Prefecture, where Indian carpets still continue to be used as covers for floats.71 Nagahama was closely connected to Kyoto in terms of trade and culture. In fact, the Flemish tapestry used for the Houou-zan (Hō-zan) float in the Nagahama Hikiyama Festival is said to have been one of a pair of tapestries, with the other one used for the Niwatori-boko float of the Kyoto Gion Festival.72 The citizens of Nagahama purchased this tapestry through merchants in the Muromachi area of Kyoto, who were in charge of organising the Kyoto Gion Festival.73 The Indian carpets that decorate two floats in the Nagahama Festival were probably sold by merchants in Kyoto as well. The Omizo Festival is a festival for the Hiyoshi Shrine (日吉神社) located in Takashima City in Shiga Prefecture. Takashima and its surrounding area have been connected to Kyoto by trade routes since medieval times. Still today, the Tomoe float uses an eighteenth-century Indian carpet as decoration, and carpets of the same type are used as float covers for the Iwato-yama and Kita-kannon-yama floats 69 Ibid., 153–54. 70 For a detailed discussion, see Kamada, “Flowers on Floats,” 388–89. 71 Kamada, “Woven Flowers,” 61, figs. 9–10; Kamada, Jūtan ga Musubu Sekai, pls. 174–75. 72 Koiyama Preservation Association, ed., Gion Matsuri: Koiyama. 祇園祭－鯉山 [Gion Festival: Koi-yama] (Kyoto: Koiyama Preservation Association, 2006), 32–33. 73 Shojiro Katagiri, “Houou-zan saiken kiroku o kaidoku shite. 鳳凰山再建記録を解読して” [Reading Documents Related to the Reconstruction of the Houou-zan],” in Nagahama Hikiyama Houou-zan Saiken Shiryō o Yomitoku 長浜曳山鳳凰山 再建資料をひもとく [Documents Related to the Reconstruction of the Houou-zan], ed. Houou-zan Yamagumi (Nagahama: Houou-zan Yamagumi, 1991), 20. For the purchase document, see Ken Kirihata, “Yamahoko no kakesō. 山鉾の掛装 [Decoration of Floats],” in Gion Matsuri, ed. Gion Festival Preservation Associations (Tokyo: Chikuma, 1976), 121–22.

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in the Kyoto Gion Festival.74 It is likely that the merchants of Takashima emulated the tradition of the Kyoto Gion Festival to emphasise their own power and prowess. Japanese notions of the spirit of furyū (風流), Yukinobu Ueki points out, were crucial for the translation of Indian carpets into Japanese celebratory and symbolic practices.75 Furyū is one of the aesthetics that developed in Japan from the medieval period onward. In contrast to wabi and sabi, which are based on serene aesthetics, furyū seeks to employ extravagant and eccentric designs to surprise people. According to Ueki, the spirit of furyū materialises in the decorations used in the Kyoto Gion Festival. The designs of Indian and Persian carpets, thus, spoke towards such Japanese aesthetics and allowed for a translation of these in-between textiles into new spiritual and symbolic contexts. Since textiles and carpets are portable and easy to be replaced, people can display a variety of tastes through the flexible combinations of these decorative items. This is the most significant characteristic of the Kyoto Gion Festival because, while there are many festivals that use floats in Japan, most of the floats are decorated with metalwork or wood carvings and show no flexibility in their decoration.76 Another possibility for why Persian and Indian carpets became used as float covers is the Japanese fascination for material novelties and rarities. Jacques Specx, who arrived in Japan in 1609 to establish Dutch-Japan trade relationships, observed this tendency: Because of the abundance of silver in this country, they [the Japanese] do not hesitate to pay handsomely for anything that is unavailable here, comes at the right moment, and is strange and curious; for as soon as someone has obtained a novelty, the others will strive to have it as well.77

Similarly, Johan Frederick van Overmeer Fisscher, VOC factor in Japan (1820–1829), mentions that the “Japanese tend to be easily fascinated by something curious 74 Gion Festival Preservation Associations, Kyoto Kinkō no Saireimaku Chōsa Hōkokusho. 京都近郊の 祭礼幕調査報告書 [Report on Textiles Used as Float Decoration] (Kyoto: Gion Festival Preservation Associations, 2013), 10, 14. 75 Yukinobu Ueki, “Yamahoko no zōkeiteki tenkai: Keiseiki no gion-e yamahoko o megutte. 山鉾の造 形的展開―形成期の祇園会山鉾をめぐって― [Structural Development of Yamahoko: Yamahoko for the Kyoto Gion Festival in the Formative Period],” in Tsukurimono no Bunkashi 造り物の文化史 [Cultural History of Man-Made Artifacts], ed. Toshio Fukuhara et al. (Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan, 2014), 95; Shigaken Nagahama-shi Kyōiku Iinkai et al., Nagahama Hikiyama Matsuri Sōgō Chōsa Hōkokusho. 長浜曳山祭 総合調査報告書 [Nagahama Hikiyama Festival: Survey Report] (Nagahama: Shigaken Nagahama-shi Kyōiku Iinkai, 1996), 256. 76 Ueki, “Yamahoko no zōkeiteki tenkai,” 114; Shigaken Nagahama-shi Kyōiku Iinkai, Nagahama Hikiyama Matsuri, 256. 77 Viallé, “Aid of Trade,” 66.

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and they purchase any rarities that satisfy their taste.”78 Living on an island, the Japanese had a tendency to place a high value on objects from overseas. They seem to have identified foreign objects as something culturally more sophisticated. This perception of foreign objects as refined also fed into the use of Indian carpets as float covers. These Indian carpets were carefully transformed into a part of the Japanese-style embellishment for the traditional float to thereby enjoy the skilful combination of foreign textiles and domestic settings.

Conclusion The early modern Indian textile craze is a global story, yet it has been thus far told predominantly with a focus on Indian-European-American interactions.79 While the circulation of Indian and Persian carpets across early modern Europe is well known, their Japanese appreciation has not been sufficiently studied.80 This chapter presents a new history of the cultural translation of Indian and Persian carpets into the economic, social, and religious contexts of Edo Japan. Rulers and elites valued and displayed these rare carpets, which were first introduced to Japan at the end of the sixteenth century by Europeans who presented them as gifts. While these Persian and Indian carpets were exclusively owned and used by the ruling class and elites in the seventeenth century, from the eighteenth century onward imported carpets, especially Deccani carpets, became available to the wealthiest merchants in Kyoto and the surrounding areas. Those in Kyoto, Nagahama, and Takashima used Indian carpets as decoration for the annual float parades. The decoration of festival floats with splendid carpets was not only an indication of the merchants’ wealth; such in-between textiles also manifested these merchants’ sense of sophistication, subtlety, and taste, as influenced by the aesthetics of furyū. As textiles crossed the borders of the area of production and entered into new cultural contexts, acts of material translation were required to channel these goods, transform their significance and functions, and allow for them to be consumed in novel ways in new contexts. The story of Indian and Persian carpets in Japan 78 J. F. van Overmeer Fisscher, Nihon Fūzoku Bikō. 日本風俗備考 [Manners and Customs in Japan], 2 vols. (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1978), vol. 2, 178; Yoko Nagazumi, “Oranda shōkan no wakini bōeki ni tsuite: Shōkanchō Meijlan no setsuritsu shita kojin bōeki kyōkai (1826–1830). オランダ商館の脇荷貿易につ いて‐商館長メイランの設立した個人貿易協会 (1826–1830) [Private Trade by the Dutch Factory: A Private Trade Organisation Established by Meijlan, the Head of the Dutch Factory, 1826–1830],” Nihon Rekishi 日本歴史 [Japanese History] 379 (1979): 70–71. 79 Giorgio Riello, Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 80 Kamada, “Flowers on Floats,” 343–92.

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Figure 14.5  Ito Jakuchu, Mosaic Screens of Birds, Animals, and Flowering Plants (detail), late eighteenth century. © Idemitsu Museum of Arts.

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features in the domestication of foreign goods which, as Beverly Lemire has observed, characterised the material culture of Edo Japan.81 Studying published VOC records and further historical documents from Edo Japan, this chapter has examined how Indian carpets and other types of foreign textiles were imported to Japan, as well as the extent to which they circulated in global and local contexts. In addition, as argued above, commerce, gift-giving, diplomacy, ceremonies, and aesthetics shaped the extent to which the significance of these foreign textiles changed as they were adapted and re-appropriated in Japanese society. Persian and Indian carpets used in the Kyoto Gion Festival in particular engendered creativity, also among artists in Kyoto. These carpets probably inspired the famous Kyoto-based painter Ito Jakuchu (1716–1800) to create screen paintings consisting of numerous minute squares indicative of the reverse side of carpets (Fig. 14.5).82 Hence, despite the seclusion policy that was in force during the Edo period, a wide range of Japanese were able to enjoy carpets and textiles from India and Persia and to translate them into a variety of Japanese contexts.

About the Author Yumiko Kamada is an Associate Professor at Keio University. She received her PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University in 2011. She specialises in Islamic art history. After the publication of her book, Jutan ga Musubu Sekai: Kyoto Gion Matsuri Indo Jutan e no Michi (Carpets that Connect the World: Indian Carpets and Their Journey toward the Kyoto Gion Festival, University of Nagoya Press, 2016), she received several awards including the Japan Academy Award.

81 Beverly Lemire, Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c. 1500–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 95. 82 The crenellated border on Ito Jakuchu’s folding screen is identical to the crenellated border design of Persian and Indian carpets.

15. Globalisation and the Manufacture of Tablet-Woven Sanctuary Curtains in Ethiopiain the Eighteenth Century* Michael Gervers and Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux

Abstract This chapter examines tablet-woven sanctuary curtains in eighteenth-century Ethiopia, arguing that the translation of Indian silk relied on the mobility of textile matter and textile experts. In this case, presumably Egyptian weavers processed Indian silk under royal patronage in Ethiopia. The chapter also includes a weave remaking experiment that reveals the astonishing degree of innovation and creativity resulting from such transculturally translated textiles. Keywords: tablet-weaving; Ethiopia; Indian silk; material translation; remaking

Context and Historical Background Five tablet-woven hangings from Ethiopia are an obvious example of global trade, exchange, and knowledge transfer in the eighteenth century. They are made of silk apparently of Indian origin and were woven in Ethiopia under royal patronage by what were most likely to have been a weaver or weavers from Egypt. Consisting of panels measuring approximately 70 centimetres in width and just over 5 metres in length, they also represent the largest tablet-woven textiles ever known to have been produced anywhere on the face of the globe at any time in human history.1 Three of the five are today located in Western museums: two, each consisting of a single panel, are in the British Museum (BM) (Fig. 15.1) and another, made of * “Context and Historical Background” by Michael Gervers; “Technical Considerations” by Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux, translated and edited by Carolyn Gossage. Technical terminology verified by Marie-Hélène Guelton, Technical Secretary of the Centre International d’Étude des Textiles (CIETA). 1 Peter Collingwood, The Techniques of Tablet Weaving (London: Faber and Faber, 1982 [1996]), esp. 12–18.

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch15

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Figure 15.1  Two eighteenth-century Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hangings in the British Museum. Left: upper figural portion; entire length 520 × 60cm (BM, 1868.10-1.22). Right: section of a geometrically patterned example with hanging straps; entire length 536 × 60cm (BM, 1973 Af 38.1). © Michael Gervers.

Figure 15.2  Tri-panelled eighteenthcentury figurative Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hanging in the Royal Ontario Museum (Toronto), measuring 535 × 212cm (reg. no. 926.26.1). © Courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum.

three panels, is in the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (ROM) (Fig. 15.2).2 Two other triple-panelled examples are preserved in the ancient monastery of Abba Gärima, in Tǝgray Province, Ethiopia (Figs. 15.3–4).3 Their origins are entirely 2 Ewa Balicka-Witakowska and Michael Gervers, “Monumental Ethiopian Tablet-Woven Silk Curtains: A Case for Royal Patronage,” The Burlington Magazine 138, no. 1119 (June 1996): 375–85; Michael Gervers, “Four Imperial Ethiopian Silk Hangings from 18th-Century Gondar,” in Sacred and Ceremonial Textiles: Proceedings of the Fifth Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of America, Chicago, Illinois, 1996, ed. Textile Society of America (Minneapolis: Textile Society of America, 1997), 270–79. A cross from the ROM hanging is illustrated in Collingwood, Techniques, 263. 3 Michael Gervers, “The Tablet-Woven Hangings of Tigré (Ethiopia): From History to Symmetry,” The Burlington Magazine 146 (September 2004): 588–601.

Globalisation and the Manufacture of Tablet-Woven Sanctuary Curtains in Ethiopia 

Figure 15.3  Tri-panelled eighteenth-century figurative Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hanging with figurative and geometric patterning from the monastery of Abba Gärima (Tǝgray Province, Ethiopia), measuring 410 × 212cm. © Michael Gervers.

Figure 15.4  Tri-panelled eighteenth-century Ethiopian tablet-woven silk hanging with geometric patterning from the monastery of Abba Gärima (Tǝgray, Province Ethiopia), measuring 375 × 198cm. Conserved by Eva Burnham of Montreal, Canada. © Michael Gervers.

undocumented, although the iconography apparent on the BM and ROM pieces associates them with the reigns of the Gondärine Kings Bäkaffa (r.1721–1730) and his son Iyasu II (r.1730–1755). Since the time they were acquired during the British punitive expedition to Ethiopia in 1868, they have frequently been referred to as “Gondär” hangings and are thought to have hung in royal foundations in that capital town. The patronage of the hangings from Abba Gärima is attributed to Ras Mika’el “Sǝḥul,” governor of Tǝgray Province from 1759 to his death in 1777 and, from 1768, the son-in-law of Mǝntǝwwab, the consort of King Bäkaffa. The monks of Abba Gärima claim that their hangings were made by a foreign people known as Seglin or Sehlin working in the village of May Zbi south of Adwa. 4 Similar tablet-woven hangings made of undyed cotton and displaying related but poorly understood 4 Information concerning the history of these hangings is oral tradition preserved by the monks of Abba Garima.

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iconography are known from a number of sites in the Tämben region of Tǝgray and are generally referred to as seglin.5 The silk used in these tablet-woven hangings is non-indigenous. It is made of short staple fibres spun into heavy threads. The short staple suggests it was a by-product of broken cocoons, presumably less costly than unbroken fibres but, woven, more able to support warp tension in a dry climate than would have been required in the humid conditions experienced in a place like India. It was the prerogative of royalty to possess, wear, and gift silk but, with the exception of the eighteenthcentury tablet-woven hangings, there is little indication that silk was ever more than occasionally woven in the kingdom.6 Rather, it was imported, or transported, as ready-made goods. Already in the mid-sixth century it was reported by Procopius of Caesarea (c.500–570) that the Emperor Justinian (r.527–565) proposed to King Kaleb of Ethiopia that Ethiopian [traders] bypass Persian merchants by providing silk directly to the Byzantines.7 This early, close association with the trade would appear to have led to its widespread use as, when European travellers visited the territory a thousand years later, they made frequent reference to the fabric. The priest, Francisco Alvares, who accompanied the Portuguese mission which resided in the country from 1520 to 1526, writes of the extensive quantities used as church furnishings including curtains which hung before the sanctuary, for tents serving as churches and communion houses, of the curtains behind which the king sat, of the clothing worn by royalty and the nobility, and of the covering for royal tombs.8 He also cites silk used as tribute payments made, or taxes paid, by the nobility and Muslim communities, and records the lavish gift made in 1516 by aṣe (“[His] Majesty”) Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, of a sufficient quantity of silk to cover its walls.9 Again according to Alvares, the royal 5 The village of Säglamen is located to the south-west of Aksum. Rodolfo Fattovich, “Post-Aksumite Culture,” in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, ed. Siegbert Uhlig (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010), vol. 4, 187b. Stuart Munro-Hay, Ethiopia, The Unknown Land: A Cultural and Historical Guide (London: I.B. Tauris, 2002), 252, 350 mentions a “Seglamen” west of Aksum and an archaeological site “associated with south Arabian characteristics” at “Seglamien,” located “between Aksum and the eastern escarpment.” 6 Writing in 1524, the Venetian Alessandro Zorzi records that highland women spin silk and cotton, but the nature of the silk is questionable as he goes on to describe “a great tree […] which makes balls as big as pomegranates, full of a certain silk as fine as silk and more lustrous and fair, whereof they make embroideries for the Presta and also for the great lords.” Osbert G. S. Crawford, ed., Ethiopian Itineraries circa 1400–1524 (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1958), 171. 7 Procopius, The History of the Warres of the Emperor Justinian in Eight Books written in Greek by Procopius of Caesarea translated by Henry Holcroft (London: Humphrey Moseley, 1653), Book 1, 20, 24. 8 Charles F. Beckingham and George W. B. Huntingford, eds., The Prester John of The Indies: A True Relation of the Lands of the Prester John; being the Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Ethiopia in 1520, written by Father Francisco Alvarez (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961 [1881]), 75, 89, 116, 125, 188, 203, 283, 296, 304. 9 Ibid., 117, 173–74, 228, 429, 448.

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inventory was kept in baskets and stored in caves under the administration of the governor of Šäwa, who bore the title, “keeper of the silk caves.”10 If this were raw short-staple or spun silk, rather than woven silk fabric, one might question how it was made into cloth and whether tablet weaving was an option. For the time being, the only extant examples we have of tablet weaving in Ethiopia are the silk and cotton hangings previously described, and for which there is absolutely no physical evidence prior to, or after, the eighteenth century. Oral history associated with the BM and ROM hangings relates their association with the then capital town of Gondär, while we know that those silk examples in situ are housed some 375km away in the Tǝgraen monastery of Abba Gärima and the cotton ones in the Tämben region a further 100km to the south. The association with Gondär is based upon an account of the acquisition of the ROM hanging made in 1914 by its donor, Colonel George Augustus Sweny, and by its publication by the Museum’s director, Charles Trick Currelly, in 1956.11 King Theodore, whom the British defeated in 1868, had sacked Gondär, the country’s capital from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, in 1854, and taken many of its ecclesiastical treasures to furnish his own church of Mädḫane ‘Aläm at Mäqdäla (Wällo Province). It was simply assumed that the tablet-woven hangings, which the British acquired at Mäqdäla, had come from the same source, which indeed they may have. The question is, were they made there? Since Gondär was the capital, and since the first half of the eighteenth century corresponded to the time when there was a great outpouring of manuscript illumination known as the “Second Gondär School,” it can be expected that royal patronage sponsored a wide range of artistic endeavours, including tablet-woven silk hangings.12 If tablet weaving was then current in the land, they would have continued it; if it did not exist, they could have introduced it at the hands of foreign craftsmen. Whatever the case, if the silk hangings described here were made in Gondär, those which reside today in the monastery of Abba Gärima would have had to have been carried there. A possible context for such a transfer lies in the person of Ras Mika’el “Sǝḥul” who, we recall, was the donor of the silk tablet-woven hangings to that monastery.13 Mika’el gained the reputation of being a ruthless administrator who took full control over Tǝgray Province between 1748 and 1759. Taking advantage of weak leadership in both church and state, he managed to ally himself to the Gondär dynasty through an alliance with King Bäkaffa’s long-reigning consort and subsequently empress-dowager, Mǝntǝwwab. She provided one of her daughters as a 10 Ibid., 448. 11 Charles T. Currelly, I Brought the Ages Home (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1976 [1956]), 288. Sweny’s report is in the Registration Department of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto. 12 Marilyn Heldman, “III. Miniature Painting,” in Uhlig, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 4, 94–97, 96. 13 Jon Abbink, “Mika’el ‘Sǝḥul’,” in Uhlig, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 3, 962–64.

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wife to his son in 1765 and, in 1768, another daughter in marriage to himself. From the start, Mika’el established his capital at his residence in Adwa, a trading town located just 5km west of the monastery of Abba Gärima. From there, he extended his power southwards and, following the fall of the Ǝndärta region in 1765, he moved his residence to ‘Abi ‘Addi, the capital of the Tämben region which, as we know, is where virtually all of the surviving cotton tablet-woven hangings have been found (Fig. 15.3).14 We have seen that these seglin were purportedly made by the foreign Seglin people in or around the village of Säglamen, situated southwest of Adwa and consequently on or beside the northern fringes of Tämben.15 These conditions might lead us to the conclusion that this same area was the centre of tablet-weaving activity in eighteenth-century Ethiopia. There is, however, the possibility that the knowledge did not originate in the region, but rather that it was brought from Gondär by none other than Mika’el Sǝḥul himself. While the two triple-panelled silk tablet-woven hangings which he is said to have given to the monastery of Abba Gärima might have come from there, he could also have imported the expertise required to weave them. The death of King Bäkaffa in 1730 started the decline of the Gondärine dynasty into what was to become the “Era of Princes,” of which Mika’el was a significant progenitor. The tablet-weaver(s) responsible for the BM and ROM hangings, and/or their successors, finding themselves surrounded by increasing political turmoil during the reigns of Iyasu II and his son Iyo’as (r.1755–1769) and possibly in need of renewed patronage, could have emigrated to Adwa, or directly to ‘Abi ‘Addi, and continued their craft in the absence of the royal supply of silk and, apparently, the templates used to reproduce the royal family as they appear on BM and ROM. It is noteworthy that neither the shift from silk to cotton thread, nor the postulated transfer of the artisan(s) from Gondär to ‘Abi ‘Addi, interfered with the quality of the weavers’ technique. If there is any truth in this conjecture, undocumented other than through the survival of the tablet-woven cotton hangings in Tämben and the immediately surrounding areas, one might provisionally date them to c.1765–1770, when the region came under the direct control of Mika’el and when he established a residence in ‘Abi ‘Addi. There is another consideration in the hunt for the nature and origin of the tablet weavers, which is that the area south of Aksum–Adwa, where they are thought to have worked, is known from local oral testimony to have been a centre of craft industry which may well have preceded their arrival by centuries. In this case, they would have been introduced to an existing production centre. Credence for the 14 Ignazius Guidi, ed., Annales Iohannis I, Iyāsu II et Iyo’as (Louvain: Peeters, 1960/61 [1910–1912]), 226. 15 Martha Henze, “Imported Textiles in Ethiopian Traditions,” in The Indigenous and the Foreign in Christian and Ethiopian Art: On Portuguese-Ethiopian Contacts in the 16th–17th Centuries, ed. Manuel João Ramos and Isabel Boavida (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 144, n.4.

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previous existence of such a centre gains support from an unpublished manuscript describing the vita of a local, fifteenth-century priest by the name of Abunä Peṭros of Däbrä Sǝkurti; Däbrä Sǝkurti being the site of an ancient monastery on the eastern limits of ‘Abi ‘Addi. There is repeated mention in this manuscript of the villages of Anbǝra, Mätäka, and Däbrä Allamot, all in Tämben, where people lived who made curtains for the naves of churches, and clothes “that clergymen throughout Tǝgray wear during sacred ceremonies.”16 Further field research in these now out-of-the-way places could offer additional clues about the nature of the weaving which was performed there. The priests who provided the manuscript about Abunä Peṭros were from this very region, but were only familiar with the pit-treadle loom, itself undoubtedly a considerably earlier import from India.17 That Ethiopia’s tablet weavers may have derived from (Coptic) Egypt is largely premised on the fact that there is clear evidence for the craft being carried out there professionally at the turn of the eighteenth–nineteenth century, and that the two regions had been closely linked since the fourth century through the Alexandrian Church. What is obviously different is the size of the hangings compared to the product of most tablet weaving, which is confined to belts, straps, and edgings. We remain ignorant of the details, but we may conclude in this survey of global interaction in the eighteenth century that while India or points east provided the material, and Egypt the knowledge and expertise to weave it, Ethiopia contributed the context and motivation to turn a technology used for miniature works into the monumental silk and cotton examples that have survived to the present day. The silk hangings in particular represent clear examples of Bhabha’s “Third Space,” their hybridity created by knowledge, technics, technologies, and materials gathered from three distinctly different geographic and cultural regions, while remaining entirely unique to the place where they were woven. Through them, aspects determined by the “Third Space” are “appropriated, translated, rehistoricized and read anew.”18

Technical Considerations Tablet weaving, one of the oldest weaving systems in the world, was used to produce these hangings. They, however, were the result of significant innovation, due to their unusual dimensions of several square metres. This size stands in sharp contrast to 16 The author is grateful to Mezgebe Girmay, Mäqälä, Tǝgray, Ethiopia, for translating relevant passages from this manuscript. 17 Michael Gervers, “Cotton and Cotton Weaving in Meroitic Nubia and Medieval Ethiopia,” Textile History 21 (1990): 13–30, esp. 21–24. 18 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 55.

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the tablet weaving used on furnishings, which traditionally comprises strips sewn as edgings on curtains, tablecloths, or cushions, or at times onto ornamental garments. The unpublished theoretical analysis undertaken in 1993 by Mary Frame on the silk wall hanging from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto prior to its cleaning and restoration by the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, was followed by a comprehensive examination in 1998 by Michael Gervers, Peter Collingwood, and Claire Gérentet of its counterpart in the British Museum in London (Fig. 15.1).19 A manual study was subsequently undertaken in order to evaluate how a particular technique could be modified to suit a very specific context. Experimental Investigation The hanging in the British Museum (BM1) was the basis of an experimental investigation which led to a specific study of these objects. The initial experiment, a narrow wool weaving consisting of eighty-four tablets, enabled the study of a succession of weaves employed to represent various motifs and encompassing twists and double face weaving to achieve the pattern. In addition, the test piece made it possible to establish the weaving sequence which was derived from a comprehensive series of photographs. The second detailed examination involved a silk weaving of unusual proportions in terms of its tablet weaving: 8 metres of warp length, and 1,384 threads for production using 346 tablets (Fig. 15.4). Subsequently, other details of silk or cotton hangings were reproduced, for a better understanding of the way in which they had been created. Weaving with Tablets20 Essentially, the system is very simple. Three elements are necessary, namely (1) two fixed points, (2) threads for warp and weft, and (3) tablets in variable numbers which have been perforated in the corners and through which the warp threads pass. The tablets replace the shafts of a loom. The selection of threads is produced by the forward or reverse rotation of the tablets.

19 Mary Frame, “The Gondar Hanging: Fabric Structure and Construction” (Unpublished report, The Canadian Conservation Institute, 1993); Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, inv. no. 922.26.1; Canadian Conservation Institute, Department of Canadian Heritage, “Treatment Report: Conservation Treatment of the Gondar Hanging for the Royal Ontario Museum” (Unpublished report of the Textile Section Conservators, Conservation Services, Canadian Conservation Institute, Ontario, n.d. [c.1994]); British Museum, London, inv. no. 1868.10-1.22. 20 Cf. Collingwood, Techniques.

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Figure 15.5  Claire Gérentet weaving a 230cm section of the Ethiopian tablet-woven hanging in the British Museum as seen in Fig. 15.1, using 346 tablets on an improvised tension loom. © Jacques Mérigoux.

The simplicity of the loom has nothing to do with the finished product. Classified in the category of tablet twined fabrics (warp effect), other weaves are possible. Through experimentation on the threads (materials, qualities, thicknesses), on the different colours, and even on the direction of threading of the S or Z tablets, the possibilities are endless. There is, however, one restriction: namely the narrow width of the end result. The Ethiopian hangings, on the other hand, remain in distinct contradiction to this restriction. The Loom (Fig. 15.5) Tablet weaving does not use a particular standard loom, aside from the tablet two fixed points for the warp, which depend on the various positions available to the weaver: sitting on the ground, on a chair, or standing; even the body can itself serve as one of the fixed points. The weaving of a hanging required an adaptation of this nomadic process into a more sedentary-based system. For an experienced weaver, it is easy to transform a traditional loom with an approximately 80cm width on two beams, into a functional tablet-weaving loom for weaving hangings by removing

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the shafts and the comb. This is what was done in the case of the British Museum (BM1) example (Fig. 15.1), but it may not be the only solution and an experiment on a simple frame is currently underway. The salient question, however, remains the loom itself. Was it vertical or horizontal? Given that it is impossible to weave silk with so many tablets on a vertical loom since the tablets slide onto the warp threads, it is clear that the framework for the loom must be horizontal. A Question of Methodology The precise method for the creation of the hangings in question currently remains unknown because the technique appears not to have been used in Ethiopia for several centuries and the vocabulary associated with it has been forgotten. The acquisition of further knowledge might well guide research toward the origins of the weavers themselves. In North Africa, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, the tablet has been known as ourqa (plural ouräq), meaning “leaf” in Arabic, or werqa (plural ûrâq) or qesra (plural qsûr).21 The designation “leaf” is significant. In effect, it would appear to designate a thin and flexible material such as parchment or skin; wood or bone would not be referred to in this manner. From these elements, a line of research is emerging to seek in Old Ethiopic (Ge’ez) or Amharic the name of a weaving system with thin objects which would make it possible to name the tablets and perhaps, define the material(s) from which they were made. They would not necessarily be made of the same material if used for weaving silk or cotton. Since leather tablets and tablet-woven textiles from the nineteenth century have been found in the Sudan, as also in Egypt where tablet weaving is known to have been practised towards the end of the eighteenth century, it could be beneficial if relevant linguistic studies were extended to these African countries from the region.22 Weave Structures Among the vast choice of weaves offered by tablet weaving, the eighteenth-century weaver of the “Gondär” hangings selected two: the tablet twisted weave and the 21 Alfred Bel and Prosper Ricard, Le travail de la laine à Tlemcen (Alger: Jourdan, 1913), 15. 22 The Textile Research Centre (TRC) in Leiden has several nineteenth-century tablets and ribbons from the excavations of Grace Crowfoot in the Sudan (inv. nos. 2012.322.a > k); Edme F. Jomard, ed., Commission d’Égypte: Description de l’Égypte ou recueil des observations qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l’expédition de l’Armée Française (1798–1801), 23 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1809–1829), vol. 2, appendix; Planches 2, pl. XIV, no. 4.

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double-faced weave. This selection was linked to the iconographic model, associating geometric figures (chevron twill, stripes, zig zags), and figurative drawings (characters, animals, architecture). Only by threading a combination of light and dark colours could this dual process be realised. Indeed, the light/dark contrast achieved by these twists, enabled the weaver to obtain varied geometric figures. In addition, the more delicate double face allowed for freehand creations, provided that the light and dark threads were positioned in the tablets adjacent to one other—as opposed to diagonally. In other words, technique was the key factor in the production of a tablet-woven hanging.23 Colours Beyond the technical aspect of the light/dark contrast, the choice of colours is also a matter for consideration. In weaving the silk, yellow and red predominate with the addition of complementary blue and blue/green selvedges and vertical stripes. In the cotton examples, beige and brown threads of varying intensity are employed. This point raises the question of whether this restriction of colours is due to a simple matter of availability or of special requirements such as royal colours or liturgical symbols. In terms of supply, it is clearly easier and more economically viable to order a colour in large quantities and it is also simpler to project in terms of the length of threads needed for the work. The splendour of the BM1 and ROM hangings is largely due to the fact that the colours of the silk complement the context of royal and religious representations.24 Such representations on the Abba Gärima hanging are limited to two repetitive registers of priests holding prayer sticks and crosses, making it more difficult to determine their historical context and purpose. For cotton, the light/dark contrast is even more accentuated. In both cases, the constant “shadow effect” allows for a simple and essentially perspective-free result presented in a minimalist manner. Finally, one must recognise that with the passage of time, luminosity and human presence have undoubtedly combined to modify the original colours. The ones seen today, especially in the case of the hangings woven in silk, may well present the viewer with a false illusion of the original version. For example, it is highly probable that the different dye baths did not all involve the same concentration of dyes, or possibly the fibres underwent different periods of immersion, all of which would cause the yarns to react differently.

23 Gabriel Vial, conversation with the author, 15 August 2003. 24 Frame, “The Gondar Hanging,” 8–10.

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Figure 15.6 Four-panelled tablet-woven curtain made of cotton which hangs in situ in the Ethiopian church of Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen (Tǝgray Province, Tämben region, Ethiopia). © Michael Gervers.

Warping For the initial investigation, the circular warping of the eighty-four tablets was carried out between two fixed points before the warp was stretched on the loom; whereas, for the second examination, the warping was carried out from a creel and the warp was installed simultaneously on the loom. The warp fixed to the back beam

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Figure 15.7  Table indicating the number of tablets required for weaving each of the panels which comprise the three large hangings extending across the entire width of the church of Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen (Tǝgray Province, Tämben region, Ethiopia). Table prepared by Jacques Mérigoux.

was then entered thread by thread into the tablets, respecting scrupulously the order of the threads and the colours. The time required by one person for threading the tablets was approximately seventeen hours. The threads were then attached by linking or tying to the front warp beam by means of a cord. The three-hour process of adjusting the tension required the communal efforts of three craftsmen. Warp The examination of the hangings in question clearly indicates an individual warping of their respective panels. The approximate number of tablets varies from 140 to 380, different for each panel of the same hanging. In the case of those in situ at Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen (Fig. 15.6), hanging no. 1 panel A would have required 278 tablets; panel B, more than 372; panel C, more than 284; and panel D, 208. It should, however, be noted that for panels B and C, the condition of the hanging does not allow a precise count (Fig. 15.7).

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The bottom of some hangings, when they are not too worn, show loops and not knots.25 This evidence indicates a circular warping, including simultaneously the preparation of the warp and the threading of the tablets.26 In terms of length, the weaving of BM1, which measures 5.20 metres, required an 8 metre-long warp, including the starting and finishing attachments. Wefts A particular singularity of these hangings is their exceptional dimensions combined with the simultaneous use of two independent wefts passed in the same shed.27 One goes from right to left while the other goes from left to right in the same pass. Their function is to stabilise the fabric which would otherwise tend to roll up on itself horizontally. This situation is due to the relationship between the forward or backward rotation of the tablets which amplifies or reduces the initial S or Z twist of the spinning. Recording Details of the Original Hangings In order to be as close as possible to the original, the preparation of a detailed record was imperative. Counting the number of tablets on a panel with damaged threads required checking at several points to ascertain whether or not the count was exact. Photographs and measurements of the patterns rendered it possible to reproduce the drawing on squared paper and thus indicated the direction of rotation of each tablet. Weaving At any given point in the process, only one person is able to weave, since the width of the loom does not allow for two people to work together. The art of tablet weaving also requires exacting vigilance with respect to the forward or backward movement of the tablets. The introduction of the wefts into the shed does not always correctly select the threads of the upper or lower layer. In spite of this need for precise attention, errors do occur, either on the original or on the reproduction, but not on both at the same point. Depending on the pattern, the time required to make a single turn of the 346 tablets of a stitch varies from 20 to 45 minutes. 25 For this image, see Michael Gervers, “Mäzgäbä Sǝǝlat: Trasury of Ethiopian Images,” accessed 18 May 2021, http://ethiopia.deeds.utoronto.ca/ (username and password: student), MG-2005.031:016. 26 Collingwood, Techniques, 60–65. 27 Gervers, “Mäzgäbä Sǝǝlat,” MG-2004.100:013.

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The most crucial element of the tablet-weaving technique involves the management of the twining which occurs on the warps on each side of the tablets and poses considerable difficulty. The process is undertaken between the weaver and the tablets, and between the tablets and the warp reserve where the same twists are reflected. If the twists are not cancelled, they block the weaving. Analysis of the BM1 chevron twill provides a perfect example of the “compensation technique” employed by these weavers. The computer simulation on the 1,500 passes required to weave BM1, shows that at the end of the weaving process, there remain, depending on the tablets, between two and thirty-eight residual twists. This is an insignificant number and attests to the skill of the original weavers. This is, in fact, one of the most important elements that this experimental investigation has brought to light. The weaving is highly mathematical. Nothing has been left to chance. Duration of the Process The weaving time required is linked directly to the choice of weaves. The twists are quickly executed, allowing the work to move forward, by handling bundles of tablets going in the same direction over the width of a pass. The double face requires a longer selection of rotations, sometimes limited to only one tablet at a time (e.g. King Bäkaffa’s crown on BM1) to create a design. The use of two wefts lengthens the weaving time. The experimental reproduction of a 230cm length for BM1 on the 520cm of the original (Fig. 15.1) made it possible to estimate the time required to weave this panel completely as approximately two months. Relative Cost The English proverb “Time is money” directly illustrates these technicalities. The structure of the hanging—whether silk or cotton—reveals a perceptible economic reality, not only through the selection of the material, but also by the iconographic technique employed, as well as by certain unknown factors. The question of who financed the creation of these hangings, and who were their patrons, has been addressed in the first section of this chapter. A further consideration in this regard is that, while the great outpouring of artistic activity in the so-called “First” and “Second Gondärine” styles has been largely attributed to the monarchy, all productivity was limited to the technology available to the artists. The material evidence suggests that, in the absence of any other than the pit-treadle loom, the patrons were obliged to find another solution for producing the silk hangings they desired. The most versatile, accessible, and inexpensive option for weaving

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the spun short-staple silk available was tablet weaving. When the technique was applied to cotton, the quality of the weaving remained the same, while the design was compromised for lack of experienced instruction. The Function of the Tablet-Woven Church Hangings Initially, tablet-woven ties sewn on top of the panels were used to suspend the hangings on a rod in front of the sanctuary, separating it from the nave. Between the top of the hanging and the roof of the church, the space remains empty. Because of their use in a specific location, the hangings take the Ethiopian name of mänt’ola, compared to those used elsewhere in the church known as mägaräǧa.28 In effect, they become textile walls.29 In the case of BM1 and ROM, they depict to the faithful a selection of royal, religious, civil, or military events, in the form of short, well-defined sequences, in the manner of cartoon strips. This iconographic aspect provided these hangings with both a pedagogical and a historical function. The question remains: how were these woven images perceived by the faithful? For several decades now, historians have been attempting to reconstruct the relative historical significance of these unique textiles.30 Relative Significance These hangings cannot be regarded as realistic reflections of Ethiopian court life as a whole. They do, however, fleetingly evoke the acquisition of an external contribution to local knowledge by a small group of people in the service of a particular ideology. On the other hand, if the technique is foreign to that practised by the traditional native weavers, the history becomes a selected reflection of the country’s royal and religious elite. It has also borrowed pre-existing motifs (especially crosses) to reproduce them. In general, the tablet-weaving process is a simple, inexpensive system to implement. As a result, some of those involved in producing the hangings wove narrow tablet-woven widths to serve as suspension ties. The question remains: why did the technique fail to be more widely assimilated by Ethiopians for common use (especially for carrying straps or harnesses such as those used in North Africa and widely elsewhere)? 28 Emmanuel Fritsch, “Mägaräǧa,” in Uhlig, Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 3, 629–31. 29 Claire Gérentet and Jacques Mérigoux, “Technique nomade pour des tentures d’églises en Ethiopie,” in Architecture et Textile: Aménager l’espace. Rôle et symbolique des textiles dans les cultures nomades et sédentaires, ed. Bernard Jacqué and Danièle Véron-Denise (Paris: Sépia, 2017), 39–48. 30 Balicka-Witakowska and Gervers, “Monumental Ethiopian Tablet-Woven Silk Curtains”; Collingwood, Techniques, 263; Gervers, “Four Imperial Ethiopian Silk Hangings from 18th-Century Gondar”; Gervers, “The Tablet-Woven Hangings of Tigré.”

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For Leroi-Gourhan, a lack of widespread use can generally be seen to derive from:

(1) lack of technical expertise; (2) persistent lack of motivation to use the technique; (3) an over-abundance of available techniques.31

For Ethiopia, a fourth factor, namely ideology, could be taken into account. Outside its use within the confines of the Ethiopian Orthodox church, tablet weaving may have been universally prohibited and hence came to fulfil an exclusively religious purpose. Ideological Conceptions The above observations relating to technical and iconographic quality provide clear evidence that nothing was left to chance. Nonetheless, it should be noted that tablet weaving and related data remain atypical within Ethiopia, giving rise to particular reflection with regard to the commissioners and executors of these works. Either the weavers possessed the technique to employ this particular iconographic style, but did not know how to modify it, or they lacked an understanding of the ideological and stylistic conceptions being imposed by their royal or religious patrons. Hence the lack of future proliferation of woven hangings employing this particular technique within Ethiopia. The Origin of the Weavers The question also arises as to who, precisely, wove these hangings? Having no tangible historical and archaeological evidence beyond the textiles themselves, technical and iconographic comparisons must serve as the basis of our knowledge for presenting a hypothesis. By first eliminating Persia with its allegorical and dramatically charged drawings, and subsequently Yemen, whose intricate brocade does not correspond to the technique of the hangings, Egypt remains the most logical place of weaver origin.32 A persuasive factor is Van Gennep’s 1916 thesis, “Card Weaving and Its Use in Ancient Egypt,” which, through a f ine analysis of the paintings decorating 31 André Leroi-Gourhan, Milieu et techniques (Paris: Michel, 1973 [1945]), 373–76. 32 Otfried Staudigel, Der Zauber des Brettchenwebens: Bildmuster aus dem Orient und 25 Muster in Schnurtechnik (n.p. [Norderstedt]: Libri Books, 2000), 61–94; Aviva Klein, “Tesig-Bandweberei mit Goldund Silberfaden in San’a’,” Baessler Archiv: Beiträge zur Völkerkunde 22 (1974): 425–45; A[viva] Klein, “Tablet Weaving by the Jews of San’a (Yemen),” in The Fabrics of Culture: The Anthropology of Clothing and Adornment, ed. Justine M. Cordwell and Ronald A. Schwarz (The Hague and New York: Mouton, 1979), 425–39.

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the stelae/facades of the Old Empire, presents the reproduction of textile motifs specific to tablet weaving in large dimensions on the walls of tombs.33 Added to this hypothesis is the long-established practice of the Patriarch of Alexandria to appoint Coptic bishops to Ethiopia, a factor which necessarily established religious and royal links between the two neighbouring countries. This practice was also undoubtedly a continuing source of varying forms of cultural exchange. A drawing from Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt shows a man in front of a loom with tablets and provides a visible demonstration that the tablet weaving technique was known and practised in Egypt at that time. Subsequently, a “genetic iconographic relationship” can be found in the children’s weaving patterns of the workshop created by Wissa Wassef in 1952 in Harriana near Cairo.34 The iconographic similarity, especially of the characters, with their representations on the hangings, is particularly noteworthy. Then, too, there is the royal prerogative exercised by Queen Mǝntǝwwab (r.1722–1773) in her desire to mark her reign in a sumptuous way. It may be noted in this context, however, that a queen does not copy. She innovates. And in this particular instance the tablet weaving technique evolves from relatively small precursors to hangings of unique and unparalleled dimensions specific to this period in Ethiopia’s history. Tablet weaving requires minimal technology beyond the provision of suff icient tension to allow for the consolidation of warp and weft, and of the tablets themselves. It is to the credit of what may have been a lone craftsman to have accomplished the weaving of a single panel measuring approximately 500 by 70cm in 300 hours of work. There is no evidence in the weaving of the fabric itself to suggest that more than one person was involved. The fact that the technique is unknown in Ethiopia either before or after the making of these hangings in the eighteenth century argues that those involved in the weaving process were brought to the Gondärine court from abroad, rather than that Ethiopians were sent to the most likely foreign land, Egypt, to learn it. The heddles used for the traditional weaving of cotton on the pit-treadle loom could have been easily adapted to tablet weaving, obviating the need for the weaver to carry his tools with him. Dying and spinning could well have been performed locally by Ethiopians, but the f inal product represented by these unique, monumental tablet-woven silk hangings epitomises the cultural hybridity of a manufacturing process in which the skilled labour most likely came from over 3,000km to the north and the raw material from over 4,500km to the east, both largely by sea. 33 Arnold Van Gennep and Gustave Jéquier, Le tissage aux cartons et son utilisation décorative dans l’Egypte ancienne (Neuchatel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1916), 61–90. 34 Werner Forman, Bedrich Forman, and Ramsès Wissa Wassef, Fleurs du desert (Prague: Artia, 1961).

Globalisation and the Manufacture of Tablet-Woven Sanctuary Curtains in Ethiopia 

About the Authors Michael Gervers is Professor of History at the University of Toronto where he specialises in medieval and social history with a particular interest in material culture and ancient textiles. In addition to his work on the tablet-woven hangings from Ethiopia, he has published on the felts of India, Central and Inner Asia (Pazyryk), and Egypt; the Chinese inscribed silks from Noin Ula; the early appearance of cotton in Nubia and Axumite Ethiopia; and the Indian Ocean textile trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Claire Gérentet de Saluneaux is an experienced tablet-weaver from Lyon, where she studied with Messrs Pierre Fayard and Gabriel Vial at the Musée Historique des Tissues. To better understand tablet-weaving techniques, she experimented extensively by multiplying the materials used and the options they provided. In 1993, she received her diploma from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) for her study of the seventh- to eighth-century tablet weavings of Queen Bathilde and Abbess Bertille from the French abbey of Chelles.

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16. Cochineal and the Changing Patterns of Consumption of Red Dyesin Early Modern European Textile Industries*1 Ana Serrano

Abstract This chapter presents the results of a decade-long study on the appropriation of American cochineal in early modern European textile industries. The comparative study is based on in-depth archival research and a new scientific approach that allows, for the f irst time, the accurate distinction of insect dyes in historical textiles. Revealing the gradual adoption of New World dyestuff, the chapter shifts established narratives and calls for attention to the very material composition of in-between textiles. Actual matter inhabited these fabrics’ Third Space, whose material composition changed in response to early modern colonialism and consumerism. Keywords: cochineal; insect dyes; natural dyestuffs; scientific analysis; Third Space

Tracing American Cochineal: An Interdisciplinary Approach In 1520, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, King of Spain and Lord of the Netherlands (r.1519–1556), received in Tordesillas two representatives from the expedition of Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) in Mexico. Besides news of their first landing in the territory, they brought a plentiful of presents, many of them offered one year before to Cortés by the Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II (r.1502–1520). It is impossible to tell if bags of cochineal were among these first “New World” presents to the Spanish Court, but this could have been present as a * This research was made possible by the Migelien Gerritzen Fund/Rijksmuseum Fund; the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed; the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa; the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, Portugal (grant SFRH/BD/73409/2010); and the European consortium CHARISMA (ARCHLAB Access).

Marín-Aguilera, B. & S. Hanß (eds.), In-Between Textiles, 1400–1800: Weaving Subjectivities and Encounters. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2023 doi: 10.5117/9789463729086_ch16

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red pigment colouring some of the offerings, such as cotton cloths, featherwork, or codices.1 Cochineal was certainly noted by the expedition of Cortés in Mexico City one year before, and shortly after the conquest of the city in 1521, the Emperor himself ordered Cortés and other royal officials in Mexico to ship insects to Spain, as well as information about their potential use for dyeing, local exploit, and trade.2 Charles was undoubtedly right about the prospects of the Mexican insect, for no more than one century later, cochineal would become one of the most lucrative American revenues for the Spanish Crown.3 Dactylopius coccus COSTA, also known as American cochineal, breeds on the surface of prickly pear cactuses endemic to Central and South America, and it appears to be the product of centuries of selective breeding by pre-Colombian Mexican people. 4 In colonial Mexico, its production was entirely in the hands of the indigenous people. They would tend to the growth of the insects, their harvest from the cactuses (two to three times a year), and their drying under the sun or in warm ovens, which gave them a grainy appearance.5 They were then sold under repartimiento, or paid as a royal tribute to officials of the Spanish Crown, since as early as the 1530s.6 To ensure the monopoly of production and export of the insect dye, the Spanish Crown kept tight control on European foreigners visiting the Spanish colonies and imposed severe regulations against its contraband. According to a 1569 decree, anyone caught red-handed would lose anything already purchased, as well as half of their belongings and the licence to buy and contract in the Spanish colonies.7 From 1503, Seville, and 1717, Cádiz, were the only official ports allowed to communicate with the Spanish Americas. There, the Casa da Contratación registered and taxed all the products sent to and received from the Americas, including 1 George Folsom, ed., The Despatches of Hernando Cortes (New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1843), 35–36; Bernal Diaz de Castillo, The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico, 1517–1521, ed. Sir E. Denison Ross and Eileen Power (London: Routledge, 1928), 216; Elena Phipps, Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color (New York: The Metropolitan Museum, 2010), 12. 2 Diaz de Castillo, Discovery, 299; Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos (Madrid: Rodiquez Franco, 1726), vol. 5, 153. 3 Julián de Paredes, ed., Recopilacion de leyes de los reynos de las Indias (Madrid: De Paredes, 1681), vol. 2, 279. 4 Alex van Dam et al., “Point of Origin: Genetic Diversity and the Biogeography of the Cochineal Insect,” in A Red Like no Other, ed. Carmella Padilla and Barbara Anderson (New York: Skira Rizzoli and Museum of International Folk Art, 2015), 90–92. 5 R. A. Donkin, “Spanish Red: An Ethnogeographical Study of Cochineal and the Opuntia Cactus,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society: New Series 67, no. 5 (1977): 11–18. 6 Raymond L. Lee, “Cochineal Production and Trade in New Spain to 1600,” The Americas 4, no. 4 (1948): 454; Jeremy Baskes, “Colonial Institutions and Cross-Cultural Trade,” The Journal of Economic History 65, no. 1 (2005): 187–88. 7 De Paredes, Recopilacion, vol. 4, 12.

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cochineal.8 This began to be registered only in the 1550s, but consignments were already reaching Spain some decades earlier.9 Once in Seville, cochineal was sold to European merchants, who oversaw its international distribution by sea and by land. References about its demand and supply, shipping volumes, or price fluctuations can be found in numerous letters exchanged between merchants based in Seville, Antwerp, Genoa or Livorno.10 These references on the different aspects of the cochineal trade illustrate its importance for European markets, but it is the comparison with other American dyestuffs brought in the transatlantic convoys that truly reveals how valuable cochineal was for global trade. For example, cochineal entering Seville in 1608 was valued at about 104 pesos per arroba; indigo brought from the Americas in the same year was valued at half this price (47 pesos per arroba); and brazilwood and logwood harvested in the Spanish Americas, were thirty-five times cheaper (2.9 pesos per arroba).11 No doubt the elevated price of cochineal was directly related to the monopolistic system of production and trade run by the Spanish, which could only work because the insect could not be found anywhere else outside the Spanish Americas. On the contrary, indigo and brazilwood were generally exploited in several American and Asian regions controlled by the English, the Dutch, the French, or the Portuguese. As a result, they displayed a higher availability and competition in Europe, thus being sold at lower prices.12 This paper presents new interdisciplinary research that combines history, art history, and analytical science to present a fresh study of the adoption of American cochineal in early modern European textile industries, and its influence on the traditional consumption of red dye sources. For over a decade, this research focused on the revision of historical written sources; the examination of 300 extant textiles belonging to several European museum collections; and the chemical analyses of the red, purple, orange, or pink yarns present in these textiles. To provide reliable identifications of insect dyes in historical textiles, a new scientific approach was 8 Juan Carlos Garavaglia and Juan Marchena, América latina de los orígenes a la independencia (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005), vol. 1, 295–96. 9 Eufemio Lorenzo Sanz, Comercio de España con América en la época de Felipe II (Valladolid: Institucion Cultural Simancas, 1979), vol. 1, 550. 10 Carlos Marichal, “Mexican Cochineal and European Demand for a Luxury Dye,” in Global Goods and the Spanish Empire, 1492–1824, ed. Bethany Aram and Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 204–6. 11 One Spanish arroba slightly corresponds to 11.5kg. Huguette Chaunu and Pierre Chaunu, Séville et l’Atlantique 1504–1650 (Paris: Centre de Recherches Historiques, 1956), vol. 6/2, 980–1001. 12 Ana Roquero, Tintes y tintoreros de América (Madrid: Instituto del Patrimonio Historico Español, 2006), 119–21, 151–56.

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developed for the analysis of the red silk and wool yarns.13 The outcome of this interdisciplinary research is presented here, giving examples of red dyes identified in extant objects belonging to the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This chapter is an important corrective for both historical and scientific studies. Historians have systematically aff irmed that, as soon as American cochineal arrived in sixteenth-century Europe, it was swiftly assimilated in textile centres, replacing other insect sources of red dye.14 However, such literature is exclusively based on historical records, often those related to trade, and does not consider actual material evidence for how the application of American dyestuff by European artisans changed over times; nor that other red dyes continued to be part of the dyers’ repertoire. Sadly, owing to method limitations in the chemical analyses, research on dye identification of extant European textiles was not able to distinguish American and Armenian cochineal varieties. Hence, interpretation of the results was uncertain and tended to rely on the historical literature, which gives preference to American cochineal.15 Presenting results from a newly developed scientific method that allows for more reliable identification, this chapter recalibrates our understanding of the material evidence of early modern European textiles dyed with American cochineal. Moreover, the early modern global circulation and European appropriation of American cochineal, as detailed in this chapter, changed the very material composition of in-between textiles. In-betweenness, a term coined by Homi Bhabha, is considered in this context above all in material terms, i.e. a Third Space inhabited by the fibres and the dye ingredients of which textiles are made.16 In the early modern period, the material world of European textiles changed dramatically due to colonialism and consumerism, which also engendered the global mobility and diversification of dyestuffs, and dyeing knowledge. Conceptualising this Third Space as not exclusively discursive helps examining, in material terms, the shifting practices and meanings of a changing material world.

Crimson and Scarlet in Medieval Europe In medieval Europe, textiles were seen as luxury items, often transmitted by inheritance or donated to the church, and frequently adapted to meet the necessities of 13 Ana Serrano et al., “Investigation of Crimson-Dyed Fibres,” Analytica Chimica Acta 897 (2015): 116–27. 14 Donkin, “Spanish Red,” 37; Raymond L. Lee, “American Cochineal in European Commerce, 1526–1625,” The Journal of Modern History 23, no. 3 (1951): 224. 15 Phipps, Cochineal Red; Judith H. Hofenk de Graaff and Wilma Roelofs, “Occurrence of Textile Red Dyes 1450–1600 AD,” American Dyestuff Reporter 65, no. 3 (1976): 32–34. 16 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2004), 55.

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new owners.17 Even when their quality was modest, textiles were still expensive because of the technical expertise and painstaking labour involved in their complex production: the growth and harvest of natural fibre materials; the preparation and spinning of fibres into yarns; the weaving of yarns into fabrics with specialised loom machinery; and finally, the transformation of fabrics into garments or furnishing textiles that could still be embellished with embroidery work, pearls, precious stones, and silver or gold thread. Additional stages to the production process involved tiresome bleaching processes; complex dyeing recipes with plant and animal dyestuffs; and in the case of woollen cloth, fulling, stretching, shearing, and pressing to obtain a resistant cloth, impermeable to cold and humidity.18 The most notorious dyeing centres of late medieval Europe produced the most brilliant, enduring, and expensive shades of red on fine woollen cloth and exclusive silk fabrics, by making use of coccid insect dyes: lac dye, kermes, Polish cochineal, and Armenian cochineal. Production of fine silk fabrics, and the inherent consumption of red insect dyes, concentrated in Islamic and Christian Spain (Valencia, Toledo, or Granada), and in the northern Italian city-states (Genoa, Florence, Venice, Milan, Lucca, and Bologna). At this time, the French silk industry was expanding in Paris, Tours, and other southern towns.19 The best insect-dyed woollen cloths, whose prices were even comparable to medium-quality Italian silks, were made in several Flemish towns (Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, or Antwerp), and were directed to the northern European markets. In the south, Florence supplied the rich Mediterranean clientele. Red woollens of relatively lower quality were also produced for export in England, north Low Countries, Rhineland, France, or northern Spain. These were generally dyed with less expensive roots of madder, produced in several parts of Europe; although insects, particularly kermes, could be employed on occasion.20 Symbols of hierarchy and power, insect-dyed garments and furnishing textiles ranked at the top of the most lavish and coveted textiles. Despite the expensive price of fine raw wool and silk and the intrinsic costs of processing them into cloth or fabric, it was the dyeing stage using insect materials, or the weaving or embroidering with metallic thread, that substantially added to the price of the finished product. One of the superlative examples is the cloth of gold with the so-called pomegranate design (Fig. 16.1). This gold-brocaded fabric was typically woven with insect-dyed 17 Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 15. 18 Adèle Coulin Weibel, Two Thousand Years of Textiles (New York: Pantheon, 1952), 3–22. 19 Anna Muthesius, “Silk in the Medieval World,” in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, ed. David Jenkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 333–44; Barbara Markowsky, Europäische Seidengewebe (Cologne: Kunstgewerbemuseum, 1976), 14–30, 37–38; Sharon Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017) 52, 59–62, 101. 20 John H. Munro, “Medieval Woollens: The Western European Woollen Industries,” in Jenkins, Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 245–46, 249, 267, 274–75.

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Figure 16.1 Fragment of loom width of gold-brocaded crimson silk velvet cloth with asymmetric pomegranate vine design. Crimson pile warps dyed with lac dye, alternated with beige pile warps dyed with brazilwood (originally crimson). Italy, last quarter of the fifteenth century, 55 × 59.6cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-NM-11580.

crimson silk and gold or gilt thread. Because the combination of these materials made the final product prohibitively expensive, cloth of gold was made to be worn by, or furnish the residences of European monarchs, the high nobility and clergy members, and wealthy bankers and merchants, as so well illustrated by many portraits of the period.21 In the case of scarlet woollen cloth, kermes insects alone could account for over 60 per cent of the final price, and this was only occasionally followed by the price of the raw wool itself.22 “Scarlet” was originally cloth made with the finest wool, 21 Monnas, Merchants, 23–29; Lisa Monnas, “All that Glitters,” in Arrayed in Splendour, ed. Christoph Brachmann (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 96–125. 22 John H. Munro, “The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour,” in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe, ed. Nicola B. Harte and Kenneth George Ponting (London: Heinemann and The Pasold Research Fund, 1983), 39.

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dyed in different colours or bleached to pure white. The etymology of the word eventually evolved and, by the end of the medieval period, the red variant of “scarlet” was so much in demand that scarlet became a synonym of red woollen cloth made of kermes-dyed, high-quality English wool. The value of fine kermes-dyed “scarlet” can best be illustrated when considering that a master mason or a carpenter, the best-paid craftsmen of the mid-fifteenth-century southern Low Countries, would need to save the wages of as much as 222 hard-labouring days to be able to afford one suit, completely tailored with scarlet cloth.23 The reason why insect dyes contributed so highly to the final price of woollen cloth and silk fabrics is principally related to the scarce availability of the insects in nature, the laborious work of producing and collecting them, the number of animal ingredients necessary to obtain the colourant, and the complex and costly processes involved in dyeing with them. Breeding on the young twigs of several tree species, the common lac dye insect Kerria lacca Kerr was tended to by the indigenous people of several regions of South Asia. The harvest would take place twice a year after the insects had coated the twigs with a red, hardened secretion, which contained a resinous matter (shellac) and the red dye. Once the secretion had been broken off the twigs, it was widely traded throughout the Asian territories and applied as a red dyestuff in the main textile centres.24 By way of maritime and land routes, it also reached Europe where it was sold in the markets of the southern Low Countries, Barcelona, Venice, Genoa, or Pisa.25 Even though banned from Genoese dye workshops in 1466, lac was very likely used in Venice, figuring as the main ingredient to dye silk in a late fifteenth-century Venetian recipe book.26 Indeed, lac has been often reported in the crimson silk yarns of Italian silk fabrics, namely several cloths of gold dating from this period (Fig. 16.1); some of them being attributed to Venetian production.27 Kermes vermilio Planchon was collected annually from the surface of oak trees by peasants roaming the wild coastal areas around the Mediterranean Sea. In contrast to lac dye, whose harvest was easily made by collecting the infested twigs, kermes insects needed to be plucked, one by one, from the trees. On average, one 23 John H. Munro, “Medieval Woollens: Textiles, Textile Technology and Industrial Organization,” in Jenkins, Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 213–15. 24 Dominique Cardon, Natural Dyes (London: Archetype Publications, 2007), 656–59; Andre Verhecken and Jan Wouters, “The Coccid Insect Dyes,” Bulletin 22, no. 4 (1988): 229. 25 Julia A. DeLancey, “Shipping Colour,” in Trade in Artists’ Materials, Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700, ed. Jo Kirby, Susie Nash and Joanna Cannon (London: Archetype Publications, 2010), 80. 26 Paola Massa, L’arte genovese della setta nella normativa del XV e del XVI secolo (Genova: Societá Ligure di Storia Patria, 1970), 118–19; Giovanni Rebora, ed., Un manuale di tintoria del Quattrocento (Milan: Giuffré, 1970), 120. 27 Ana Serrano, “The Red Road of the Iberian Expansion” (PhD diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2016), 199–200, appendix 2.

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person would collect up to 2 pounds (almost 1 kilogram) of insects per day. These would be killed with vinegar baths or fumes, and either worked into a paste or dried with sun exposure. Because of their grainy-like appearance, the sun-dried product was known as “grain,” and was four times less expensive than the paste since this was richer in dyestuff.28 The dyestuff could be used for local textile production; although most of it was shipped to Italy and the southern Low Countries, as well as to territories with smaller textile industries, such as England or the Rhineland.29 Polish and Armenian cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica Linnaeus and Porphyrophora hamelii Brandt, respectively), growing on the roots and lower stems of creeping plants, were collected annually in the regions that gave their commercial name.30 Polish cochineal was collected for commercial purposes in the eastern areas of the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany and in the Kingdom of Poland, which effectively encompassed present-day Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and parts of Belarus, Moldova, and Romania.31 Harvesting Polish cochineal was even more arduous and time-consuming than kermes. Peasants needed to dig out the plants, remove the females and cysts from the roots, and replace the plants in the soil. One person collected about 2–3.5 ounces (60–100g) of insects per day, almost five times less than the average yield for kermes. The insects were then killed in vinegar or hot or very cold water, and dried in ovens or sun exposure. Like kermes, they were worked into a paste richer in dyestuff and more expensive than the individual specimens.32 Most of the yearly output was dispatched to other European regions, but the dyestuff was also locally used in the local manufacture of clerical vestments or fine textiles for the Polish nobility.33 Armenian cochineal was gathered in the Aras river plain near Mount Ararat, a region that today comprises parts of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Turkey. 28 Cardon, Natural Dyes, 610–13; Verhecken and Wouters, “Coccid Insect Dyes,” 213–16. 29 R. A. Donkin, “The Insect Dyes of Western and West-Central Asia,” Anthropos 72 (1977): 863; Juan V. García Marsilla, “Los colores del textile,” in L’histoire à la source, ed. Guido Castelnuovo and Sandrine Victor (Chambéry: Éditions de l’Université de Savoie, 2017), vol. 1, 287–88. 30 Today, the geographical extension of these insects is known to be much larger, spreading along with another forty-five Porphyrophora insect species throughout North Africa, Asia above the Himalayas, and Central and East Europe. Hassan-Ali Vahedi and C. J. Hodgson, “Some Species of the Hypogeal Scale Insect Porphyrophora Brandt,” Systematics and Biodiversity 5, no. 1 (2007): 24. 31 Anna Naruta-Moya, “Interweaving Europe and Central Asia,” in Padilla and Anderson, A Red Like no Other, 202. 32 Katarzyna Schmidt-Przewoźna, “The History of Red in Poland,” in Colour, Culture, Science, ed. Maria Godyń, Bożena Groborz and Agata Kwiatkowska-Lubańska (Kraków: Faculty of Industrial Design, 2018), 35; Bożena Łagowska and Katarzyna Golan, “Scale Insects/ Hemiptera, Coccoidea/ as a Source of Natural Dye,” Aphids and Other Hemipterous Insects 15 (2009): 158. 33 Schmidt-Przewoźna, “History of Red,” 34–35; Naruta-Moya, “Interweaving Europe,” 202.

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The insects were collected early in the morning when the females emerged from the ground to mate with the males.34 A few decades ago, Harald Böhmer travelled to the region, where he easily collected the insects that crawled the ground after sunrise. When the insects went back into the soil two hours later, he had filled “some tea glasses,” probably something of a few ounces, or about 100 grams, considering that forty insects roughly correspond to one gram. He later attested that the insects could only be killed in a hot oven.35 In medieval times, Armenian cochineal was an important dyestuff for western Asian textile manufacture, as well as for the Italian silk industry.36 Silk dyed with Polish and Armenian cochineal was always at least twice as expensive than kermes.37 Besides the difficulties associated with the several stages before dyeing (washing, mordanting, rinsing, and extracting the dyestuff), silk needed at least two to three dye baths when dyeing with cochineal. To obtain deep crimson on 1 pound of silk, a total of 12 pounds of Polish cochineal insects were required for three dye baths (3 pounds per bath). This corresponded to the harvest work of one person over two months. Dyeing with the Armenian variety would even double this amount (24 pounds). By contrast, a deep red could be achieved using about 1.5–2.5 pounds of kermes on 1 pound of silk with only one dye bath. This corresponded to the yield of a little more than one person’s harvest day.38 Therefore, it is not surprising that dyers traditionally preferred to colour light and precious silk fabrics with costlier cochineal, whereas kermes (with a greater dye content), would be mainly reserved for dyeing heavy, large woollen cloth. Kermes was nevertheless a recurring dyestuff for colouring silks, especially in territories where it occurred abundantly, and it was often mixed with either lac or cochineal to achieve more economical crimson silks.39 However, the consumption of these dye materials would eventually shift with the gradual introduction of American cochineal into European dyeing practices in the early modern period.

34 Cardon, Natural Dyes, 647–48; Donkin, “Insect Dyes,” 849. 35 Harald Böhmer, “Ararat Kermes (Porphyrophora hamelii),” in Actes/Papers/Beiträge, ed. Dominique Cardon et al. (Arnstadt: Thüringer Chronik, 1998), vol. 7, 36–37. 36 Donkin, “Insect Dyes,” 852–53; Dominique Cardon, “Du ‘verme cremexe’ au ‘veluto chremesino,’” in La seta in Italia, ed. Luca Molà, Reinhold C. Mueller, and Claudio Zanier (Venice: Fundazione Giorgio Cini), 67. 37 Girolamo Gargiolli, L’arte della seta in Firenze, ed. G. Bárbera (Florence: Bárbera, 1868), 78. 38 The proportions of dyestuff refer here to the individual insects (“coarse”) and not the pure paste (“fine”), ibid., 31–37; Cardon, Natural Dyes, 642–43, 649–50. 39 Gargiolli, L’arte, 35–37, 49–51; Giovanventura Rosetti, The Plitcho of Gioanventura Rosetti, ed. Sidney M. Edelstein and Hector C. Borghetty (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969), 133–36, 144–45; Joanot Valero, Tintorería y medicina en la Valencia del siglo XV, ed. Lluís Cifuentes i Comamala and Ricardo Córdoba de la Llave (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 2011), 169, 177, 239.

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The Consumption of Red (Insect) Dyes in Early Modern Europe At the beginning of the 1540s, merchants of Tuscany were beginning to show interest in a new red dye imported from the Americas that was used already for several years in the dye workshops of Spain. Purchasing it in Seville in 1541, the Florentine merchant Matteo Botti sent samples to dyers in Lucca and Venice, to test its dyeing capacity and its colour stability. By adapting the traditional recipes that employed Eurasian insect dyes, they soon reported that one dye bath of 3 to 4 ounces of the American dyestuff could provide a deep, brilliant, and very stable crimson colour on 1 pound of silk. The new product could offer a comparable colour to that obtained with the traditional insects while using ten times fewer insects than kermes, and fifty and one hundred times fewer insects than Polish and Armenian cochineals, respectively. As silk dyers noticed how easily American cochineal could lower their production costs and at the same time provide similar results to the old dye ingredients, it was soon adopted in Florence, Venice, Perugia, Lucca, and Milan.40 Hence, it is not surprising that American cochineal is found today in the crimson yarns of many Italian silks dating to this period, whose design had now evolved from the large late medieval pomegranates into smaller repeats of blooming vases and stylised flowers with curvilinear stems on lattice arrangements. 41 In Genoa, authorities were initially suspicious about the new dyestuff, and strictly prohibited silk dyers to use it. The prohibition would only be lifted in 1550 when Genoese silks were no longer able to compete with those from other Italian cities. In turn, to avoid fraudulent commercial transactions, weavers were required to apply representative selvedges and seals on their fabrics; a system that was already practised in several Italian silk centres since the fourteenth century. Indeed, the colour of the fabric alone could not indicate if it had been dyed with prohibitively expensive Polish, more economical American cochineal, or even a mixture of (less stable) red dyes, as clearly depicted by the now faded brazilwood-dyed pile warps in the gold-brocaded fragment from Figure 16.1. Hence, one fabric could be sold at a very high price, even if production costs had been much lower. 42 A general acceptance of American cochineal was also met in most Italian wool industries. Only in Venice authorities forbade the dyestuff from 1558 to protect the quality of the famous Venetian scarlet. Here, as in Florence and other parts of Europe, scarlet had been traditionally made with fine English or Spanish merino wool dyed 40 Angela Orlandi, “Zucchero e cocciniglia dal nuovo mondo,” in Prodotti e tecniche d’oltremare, ed. Simoneta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier e Istituto internazionale di storia economica F. Datini, 1999), 485–87; Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 121–22. 41 Serrano, “Red Road,” appendix 2. 42 Molà, Silk Industry, 121–22, 128–29.

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with kermes. The harvest of the latter was still an important source of income for several Italian regions. Nonetheless, cochineal-dyed, cheaper imitations meant for export became common by the end of the century. Expensive kermes-dyed woollen cloth continued to be produced in many Venetian workshops until as late as 1680, probably to answer specific orders from wealthy customers. 43 Polish cochineal too was still sent to Venice for colouring silk fabrics by 1792. 44 By the time northern Italy began to explore cochineal’s advantages, this appeared to be already well established in the wool centres of Spain, notably in Segovia. 45 According to regulations issued as early as 1528, it was used to colour fine woollens, though native kermes still kept its importance in Spanish wool workshops until as late as 1778.46 As for the application of the American product in the Spanish silk industry, regulations are unfortunately not clear, because the word grana was often used in sixteenth-century Spanish documentation to designate both kermes and the new dyestuff. 47 Therefore, one of the two dyestuffs (or both) could have been routinely employed in the major silk industries of Granada, Toledo, or Valencia. 48 Nevertheless, American cochineal has been frequently identified through chemical analyses in sixteenth-century silks attributed to Spanish manufacture, whereas local kermes, in the red yarns of silk fabrics produced until the end of the fifteenth century in the Islamic Nasrid territories of Andalusia. 49 The converted Muslim weavers of Granada and former Nasrid territories conquered by the Spanish Catholic kings in 1492, appear to have accepted relatively quickly American cochineal in their workshops. This was identified in the crimson background of a compound weave silk fragment whose design is clearly influenced by Nasrid tradition (Fig. 16.2). This could have been produced between the 1520s—when cochineal started arriving in Spain—and the 1560s—when Andalusian silk production suffered a drastic downfall, due to the revolt of the converted Muslims and their later expulsion from 43 Ibid., 129–30; Galipidio Talier, Nuovo plico d’ogni (Venice: Storti, 1805), 59–63, 73, 111. 44 Johann Beckmann, A History of Inventions, ed. William Francis and John W. Griffith (London: Bohn, 1846), vol. 1, 388, 395. 45 Francisco J. Vela Santamaria, “Segovia y su industria textil en la epoca de Felipe II,” in Segovia 1088–1988, ed. Junta de Castilla y León (Segovia: Academia de Historia y Arte de San Quirce, 1991), 635–36. 46 Antonio J. Pérez y López, Teatro de la legislación (Madrid: Espinosa, 1797), vol. 15, 175; Phesio Mayo, Remallet de tinturas y brev modo de donarlas (Barcelona: Moyà, 1691), 5–9, 26–56; Luis Férnandez, Tratato instructivo, y práctico sobre el arte de la tintura (Madrid: Blas Román, 1778), 109, 147–50. 47 Real Chancillería de Granada, Ordenanzas (Granada: Ochoa, 1552), 54–55, 267–68; Ángel Santos Vaquero, “Ordenanzas del gremio del arte mayor de la seda de Toledo,” Revista Docencia e Investigación 34, no. 19 (2009): 236, 238. 48 Félix Garcia Gámez, “La seda en Andalucía durante la Edad Moderna,” in Las rutas de la seda, ed. Ricardo Franch Benavent and Germán Navarro Espinach (València: Universitat de València, 2017). 49 Serrano, “Red Road,” appendix 2; Phipps, Cochineal Red, 29–30; Pilar Borrego Díaz et al., “Caracterización de materiales y análisis técnico de tejidos medievales,” Ge-conservación/ Conservação 12 (2017): 10, 14.

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Figure 16.2  Compound weave silk fragment in twill with geometric pattern of yellow stars alternated by rosettes and small roundels enclosing a stylised flower on a crimson background. Crimson wefts of the background dyed with American cochineal. Southern Spain or North Africa, probably second quarter of the sixteenth century, 14.4 × 32cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-NM-11916.

the region, with many specialised weavers among them. Alternatively, this weave could have been made by descendants of Nasrid refugees settling in North Africa after fleeing Andalusia in 1492.50 Also part of the Spanish Empire, southern Italy received consignments of cochineal from at least the end of the sixteenth century; although it is possible that the product was entering the territory much earlier to feed the silk manufacturing centres of Naples and Catanzaro, and Palermo and Messina in Sicily.51 Politically linked to Habsburg Spain from 1535, the Low Countries might have received consignments of American cochineal from Seville at an early date. The Flemish had had a well-established textile industry, conspicuously famous for its tapestries and kermes-dyed scarlet cloth, particularly made in Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, or Brussels. In the sixteenth century, Antwerp was the most important commercial hub of northern Europe and the main distributor of luxury textiles and dyestuffs. It also housed a large community of dyers, to whom vast quantities

50 Ana Cabrera Lafuente, E-mail correspondence, 13 May 2020; Louise W. Mackie, Symbols of Power: Luxury Textiles from Islamic Lands, 7th–21st Century (New Haven, CT: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2015), 200–201, 207. 51 Molà, Silk Industry, 12–13; Francesco Ammannati and Blanca González Talavera, “The Astudillo Partnership and the Spanish ‘Nation,’” in Commercial Networks and European Cities, 1400–1800, ed. Andrea Caracausi and Christof Jeggle (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014), 130.

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of Flemish and English unfinished cloths were brought yearly to receive colour.52 First experiments with American cochineal for dyeing wool and silk appear to have been carried out in Antwerp by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502–1550), court painter to the Spanish Emperor Charles V and Mary of Hungary, governor of the Habsburg Netherlands (tenure 1531–1555). Coecke was also a tapestry designer and his experiments on the new dyestuff may have had some impact in the Flemish tapestry workshops. Indeed, one of his tapestry designs, Gluttony from the series Seven Deadly Sins, was woven in Brussels in the 1550s using wool yarns dyed with the new American dyestuff.53 However, this was likely employed in the local textile industries already one decade before, since Flemish master dyers were brought to Mexico in 1543 to assist Spanish artisans in mastering the application of native dyes, such as cochineal, in the production of silk and wool textiles.54 Cochineal and kermes continued to co-exist in the markets of Antwerp for decades, and the latter was still employed for the making of scarlet cloth during the seventeenth century.55 The American insect was likely used in France during the reign of King Francis I (r.1515–1547) when Gilles Gobelin introduced it for colouring woollen cloth (until then dyed with kermes) in the family’s workshop. Undoubtedly, large quantities of cochineal were reaching the French ports by the 1560s.56 From there, it was probably brought to dye the silks from Lyon, Tours, or Nimes; the tapestries from Paris; and the woollens from Reims, Amiens, or Languedoc.57 By the 1580s, cochineal was a common product among the dyers of Toulouse, being used to dye scarlet on wool, mixed with native woad.58 The outset of the French civil war and the religious prosecutions that endured until the end of the century drastically curtailed textile production and import of foreign dyes while causing the migration of many Huguenot Protestants 52 Herman van der Wee, “The Western European Woollen Industries, 1500–1750,” in Jenkins, Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 73–74; Jeroen Puttevils, “Trading Silks and Tapestries in 16th-Century Antwerp,” in The Consumption, Commercialisation, and Production of Luxury Textiles, ed. Bart Lambert and Katherine Anne Wilson (Farnham: Ashgate, 2016), 133–39. 53 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 222; Elizabeth A. H. Cleland, Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry (New Haven, CT: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014), 2–5; Federico Carò et al., “Redeeming Pieter Coecke van Aelst’s Gluttony Tapestry: Learning from Scientific Analysis,” Metropolitan Museum Journal 49 (2014): 151–53, 157. 54 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 222; Molà, Silk Industry, 22. 55 J. A. Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes meridionales (Louvain: Libraire Universitaire, 1925), 262–65; Andre Verhecken, “Conste des Ververs,” E-Preservation Science 10 (2013): 61. 56 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 208–9, 223. 57 Van der Wee, “Western European Woollen Industries,” 463; Natalie Rothstein, “Silk in the Early Modern Period, c. 1500–1780,” in Jenkins, Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 531; Edith Standen and Jennifer Wearden, “Early Modern Tapestries and Carpets, c. 1500–1780,” in Jenkins, Cambridge History of Western Textiles, 605. 58 The Making and Knowing Project et al., eds. “A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640,” accessed 13 March 2021, https://edition640.makingandknowing.org/, f. 38v.

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with weaving and dyeing skills. Efforts to boost the French textile industry would only come in the 1660s with Minister of Finance Jean Baptiste Colbert (1665–1683), who purchased the Gobelin workshops in Paris to revitalise the manufacture of tapestries and upholsteries.59 He also encouraged the cult of fashion, by promoting the design of new fabric patterns every year, and the use of home materials, such as kermes and madder to obtain red. Nonetheless, imported American cochineal still figured in woollens dyed in the French Grand Teint centres,60 and one century later, it still co-existed with kermes and imported lac dye.61 American cochineal and lac dye have been often reported in the yarns of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century extant French silks, whose popularity and quality had become by now comparable to those made in Italy. This is the case of an eighteenth-century silk lampas with a typical point repeat pattern of large flowers and fruits on a crimson background dyed with American cochineal, probably made in a French workshop (Fig. 16.3).62 The Protestant Reformation in the Low Countries from 1566, combined with the revolt against Spanish rule in the following fifty years, led to frequent disruptions of Antwerp’s trade, and consequently, to a shift of the international commerce to Hamburg, and then to Amsterdam. It also led to the migration of thousands of Flemish refugees, among them many highly skilled weavers and dyers. They settled in the northern Low Countries, England, France, Switzerland, or Germany, inevitably contributing to the development of their local textile industries. There, the Flemish immigrants encouraged the production of lighter and cheaper fabrics, while expanding the variety of weave designs and colours, and the mixture of fibres and dyestuffs, to respond to the demand of new fashions and create affordable imitations of expensive textiles for larger groups of European societies.63 In the northern Low Countries, Leiden and Amsterdam had well-established textile centres since the fifteenth century, dedicating to the manufacture of fine woollen cloth. This cloth was exclusively dyed red with native madder, because of its economic importance for many Dutch farmers, especially in Zeeland. Insect dyes were not allowed in Dutch woollens, and American cochineal was no exception. When Flemish weavers and dyers settled in Leiden and Amsterdam in the 1580s, 59 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 209, 223; Standen and Wearden, “Early Modern Tapestries,” 605. 60 Agnes Geijer, A History of Textile Art (London: Pasold Research Fund & Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications, 1979), 154; Monsieur D’Albo and Jean B. Colbert, Instruction generale pour la teinture des laines (Paris: Muguet, 1688), 14–15. 61 Dr Dominique Cardon, E-mail correspondence, 14 November 2017; Jean Hellot, L’art de la teinture des laines (Paris: Pissot, 1750), 244–364; Claude-Louis Berthollet, Éléments de l’art de la teinture (Paris: Didot, 1791), vol. 2, 234–47. 62 Dr René Lugtigheid, E-mail correspondence, 25 May 2020; Rothstein, “Silk,” 549–56. 63 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 209–10, 222; van der Wee, “Western European Woollen Industries,” 421–23, 434–40; Puttevils, “Trading Silks,” 140.

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Figure 16.3  Cape of silk lampas with point repeat pattern of large flowers and fruits on crimson background. Crimson wefts dyed with American cochineal. France, probably 1720–1730, 108 × 146cm. © Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, no. BK-1998-7.

they largely stimulated the manufacture of lighter woollen cloths and tapestries and introduced new dyeing practices with American cochineal and kermes. Part of the English unfinished wool that had been previously sent to Antwerp was now sent to Amsterdam, where it was coloured along with Dutch wool in the dye workshops that belonged to the Six family. Several generations of this family were famous for their dyeing expertise, and kept their dyeing knowledge rather secretive, like any other master dyers of the time. Nonetheless, in 1631, Dirc Willemsz van der Heyden, a dyer from Delft, received a large sum of money from two dyers of Leiden to share secret recipes that had been used by Guillaume Six of Amsterdam (1564–1619) for dyeing red with kermes and American cochineal on wool.64 The red yarns in surviving Dutch tapestries from this time could possibly have been dyed with one of these recipes.65 64 Nicolaas W. Posthumus and Willem L. J. de Nie, “Een handschrift over de textielververij,” EconomischHistorisch Jaarboek 20 (1936): 215–17, 230–38; Willem L. J. de Nie, De Ontwikkeling der Noord-Nederlansche Textielververij (Leiden: Ijdo, 1937), 6–15, 21–22, 166, 171–72. 65 Serrano, “Red Road,” appendix 2.

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At this time, Italian silks were still widely imported into the Low Countries, but local manufacture was beginning to grow with the help of French Huguenot and Italian experts. Small-scale silk centres of some notoriety expanded in Antwerp, Amsterdam, or Haarlem.66 Many of these silks were dyed with American cochineal, which appears to have been occasionally mixed with the Polish variety until as late as 1672 in Dutch workshops.67 Evidence of silk production can still be discovered in recipe and trade books that survived to this day.68 The Frans Hals Museum holds an extensive collection of dye recipes, namely a manuscript from a dyers’ workshop from Haarlem containing recipes to dye with cochineal (c.1650–1700), and a small booklet with a recipe dated from 1676 suggesting the use of cochineal, accompanied by a crimson-dyed silk swatch.69 Moreover, a trade book with bright red swatches of woollen cloth, possibly dyed with cochineal, has survived in Leiden.70 Whether Polish cochineal is suggested in any Dutch recipes for dyeing silk, or it is present in surviving swatches, remains to be ascertained. London may have started receiving shipments of cochineal no later than the 1550s through the Company of Merchant Adventurers, which held the monopoly of trade in English wool and foreign dyestuffs. American cochineal, Mediterranean kermes, and Dutch madder were in high demand, due to the flourishing textile industries in England and the general discontentment of dyers towards the inferior quality of local dyestuffs.71 But the English textile industries mostly benefited from the arrival of Flemish and French Protestants from the second half of the century. Settling around London and in the south-east and east of England, they stimulated the production of light woollen cloths and tapestries, and much of the cochineal entering England at the beginning of the seventeenth century was channelled into the dyeing of those textiles.72 Later in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, English woollens and the famous silk fabrics of Spitalfields

66 Puttevils, “Trading Silks,” 138–39, 149; De Nie, Ontwikkeling, 23–25. 67 Posthumus and de Nie, “Handschrift,” 233; D. Martini Bernhardi a Bernitz, “De usu et utilitate Cocci Polonici,” in Miscellanea Curiosa Medico-Physica, ed. Johannis Fritzschii (Leipzig: Fritzschii, 1681), vol. 3, 144–45. 68 Dr Jenny Boulboullé, E-mail correspondence, 28 May 2020. 69 Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, MS 93-94, Recepten-boek om allerlei kleuren te verwen, c.1650–1700; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Recepten-boek, 1676. 70 Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken, collectie Sint Jacobshofje, Monsterboek met lakenstof van Gommarus van Craeyenbosch, 1661–1671. 71 Lee, “American Cochineal,” 207–8; London Record Society, “London Port Book, 1567–8: Nos. 300–399 (Jan–Mar, 1568),” in The Port and Trade of Early Elizabethan London: Documents, ed. Brian Dietz (London: London Record Society, 1972), 45–62. 72 Van der Wee, “Western European Woollen Industries,” 453–55; William Page, The Victoria History of the County of Suffolk (London: Constable, 1907), vol. 2, 262.

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were dyed with either cochineal or lac dye.73 However, dyeing of English silks with the American dyestuff likely began at an earlier stage. Indeed, recipes using American cochineal, kermes, and lac dye appear in a mid-seventeenth-century compilation of art-technological notes made by Theodore de Mayerne (1573–1655), a Huguenot who became a physician to the English Crown. De Mayerne documented and experimented with dyeing knowledge acquired from master dyers that were likely dyeing silks with crimson already in the first decades of the seventeenth century.74 In sixteenth-century German-speaking cities, namely Hamburg, Göttingen, Cologne, Nuremberg, or Frankfurt, textile industries were dedicated primarily to the making of woollen cloths, considered of a much coarser quality than those imported from the Low Countries or even England.75 Cologne had a tradition of silk weaving, and the industry was beginning to grow in Augsburg and Nuremberg as well; though the bulk of the silk products were still brought from Italy.76 While remittances of American cochineal were reaching Hamburg by the end of the century, German dyers continued to rely on native madder to colour their woollens. This was a more affordable option than the imported insect dye, and more importantly, it was a staple crop that sustained local economies.77 After the Thirty Years War that marked the first half of the seventeenth century, attempts to improve the German woollen industry and initiate independent silk production were encouraged in Berlin and Potsdam, with the help of weavers and dyers brought from abroad and Protestant refugees.78 By then, American cochineal appears to have been accepted next to madder in the dyeing practices of wool workshops, as suggested by a dyer’s book from 1680 enclosing swatches of cochineal-dyed woollen cloth accompanying

73 Anita Quye, Dominique Cardon, and Jenny Balfour Paul, “The Crutchley Archive: Red Colours on Wool Fabrics,” Textile History 51 (2020): 1–49; Rothstein, “Silk,” 541–46. 74 The British Library, London, MS Sloane 1990, Theodore De Mayerne, Collectanea chymica, 17th century, fols. 3v, 8r; Vera Keller, “Scarlet Letters: Sir Theodore de Mayerne and the Early Stuart Color World in the Royal Society,” in Archival Afterlives, ed. Vera Keller, Anna Marie Roos and Elizabeth Yale (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 73, 80, 84–87, 90. 75 Rudolf Holbach, “Cloth Production and Cloth Trade in Hanseatic Towns,” in Textiles and the Medieval Economy, ed. Angela Ling Huang and Carsten Jahnke (Oxford: Oxbow, 2014), 180–82; Angela Ling Huang, “Hanseatic Textile Production in 15th Century Long Distance Trade,” in Huang and Jahnke, Textiles and the Medieval Economy, 208–12. 76 Molà, Silk Industry, 26–27; Evelin Wetter, Mittelalterliche Textilien III (Riggisberg: Abegg- Stiftung, 2012), 316–18. 77 Renate Pieper, “Raw Materials from Overseas and Their Impact on European Economies and Societies (XVI–XVIII Centuries),” in Cavaciocchi, Prodotti e tecniche, 366–67; Christopher Karl, “Das ‘farbenfrohe’ Mittelalter” (PhD diss., Universität Wien, 2015), 14, 68. 78 Markowsky, Europäische Seidengewebe, 31–34; Susanne Evers, Seiden in den preußischen Schlössern (Berlin: Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, 2014), 128–29.

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the correspondent recipes.79 By the mid-eighteenth century, it was undoubtedly an essential ingredient in the manufacture of silks, notably those from Krefeld.80 Even though most silk products were imported from Italy, there had been a long tradition of dyeing both imported and homemade silk textiles with the native Polish cochineal in the territories that encompassed the Kingdom of Poland. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, it appears that American cochineal was well established in local dyeing practices. This offered a much more economical alternative to the native dyestuff, which possessed a lower dye content and whose harvest was associated with rather labour-intensive work. Nonetheless, the Polish insect continued to be used until the eighteenth century, particularly in the eastern part of Poland, where the insect was abundantly available and still represented a very important ingredient for the manufacture of garments for the Polish nobility.81 In Hungary, native Polish cochineal continued to co-exist with American cochineal and lac dye in the local dyeing practices, as evidenced by dye research on the crimson yarns from embroideries produced between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.82 Furthermore, dye research of woven and richly embroidered religious textiles produced from the second half of the sixteenth century in Ottoman Romania and mainland Greece suggests that both regions accepted the American dyestuff relatively soon.83 Undoubtedly, cochineal was widely circulating at this time around the Mediterranean, reaching the Levant and Egypt through trade with Venice, Ancona, or Marseilles. It was also crossing the inland Ottoman routes of Romania and Greece, as well as passing Eastern Europe through Moscow and Gdánsk and then the Black Sea, to ultimately reach Istanbul.84 Before the 1550s, however, Byzantine and Ottoman dyers had principally relied on kermes and lac dye (mixed with madder) to achieve red on fine silks,85 and the possibility that these dyestuffs continued to be part of local dyeing traditions should not be dismissed. 79 The Getty Research Institute, Digital Collections, Brinck Family, Artisan’s Recipe Book for Dyeing Wool, 1680, fols. 20r, 21v. 80 Markowsky, Europäische Seidengewebe, 35–36; Evers, Seiden, 135, 146. 81 Serrano, “Red Road,” appendix 2; Schmidt-Przewoźna, “History of Red,” 37–38; Naruta-Moya, “Interweaving Europe,” 202–7. 82 Agnés Tímar-Balaszy and Agnés Szôke, “The ‘Original’ Colour Scheme of Embroidered Cushions from Hódmezôvásárhely,” Dyes in History and Archaeology 10 (1991): 43–44. 83 Irina Petroviciu et al. “A Discussion on the Red Anthraquinone Dyes Detected in Historic Textiles from Romanian Collections,” E-Preservation Science 9 (2012): 94; Ioannis Karapanagiotis and Recep Karadag, “Dyes in Post-Byzantine and Ottoman Textiles,” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 15, no. 1 (2015): 183. 84 Lorenzo Sanz, “Comercio de España,” 585–86; Molà, Silk Industry, 65–67. 85 Serrano, “Red Road,” appendix 2; Karapanagiotis and Karadag, “Dyes in Post-Byzantine and Ottoman Textiles,” 183; Lisa Monnas, Renaissance Velvets (London: V&A Publishing, 2012), 23.

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Despite the large import of high-quality woollens from the Low Countries and silks from Italy (and later India and China), local manufacture of fine textiles was also carried out in Portugal. Fine woollen cloths were made in Covilhã, Portalegre, Alcobaça, or Azores, and fine silk satins, velvets, or damasks, in Lisbon or Braganza. The quality of these textiles owed particularly to the expertise of Muslims of Granada, Jewish and Flemish artisans who settled in the territory during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. French weavers and dyers too settled in Portugal later in the eighteenth century.86 Despite the technological stimuli brought by these mobile specialists, it appears that native kermes continued to be the primary insect dye employed in Portuguese textile industries to obtain red on fine wools and silks. Indeed, besides kermes, no reference is found for any other insect dye in the royal regulations published first in 1573 and then in 1690.87 During the eighteenth century, Portuguese painters were certainly using American cochineal, and as late as 1784, a small shipment of cochineal was reportedly sent for the dyeing of wool in Covilhã.88 However, madder and brazilwood were more often preferred as sources of red dye, as furthermore indicated by studies carried out on woollen carpets and silk embroideries dated between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.89 The consumption of insect dyes in other European territories still needs to be properly appraised, perhaps because of a short availability of related written sources. In fact, given the small-scale textile production in these territories and the absence of native insect dyes, it is possible that insect-based dyeing was not established at an early date. The historiography nonetheless agrees that the majority of these industries benefited highly from the expertise of Italian, French, and Flemish immigrants. These were essential to improve the quality of local silk and wool products and to boost production to meet home demand and even export. For example, the silk manufacturing centres of Geneva, Zurich, or Basel started 86 António dos Santos Pereira, A indústria têxtil portuguesa (Lisbon: CTT Correios de Portugal, 2017), 44–47, 102–11, 122–27; Joana Sequeira, “A indústria da seda em Portugal entre os séculos XIII e XVI,” in Las rutas de la seda en la historia de España y Portugal, ed. Ricardo Franch Benavent and Germán Navarro Espinach (València: Universitat de València, 2017); Sousa Viterbo, Algumas achegas para a historia da tinturaria em Portugal (Lisbon: Academia Real das Sciencias, 1902), 21–24. 87 Miguel Deslandes, ed., Regimento da fabrica dos panos de Portugal (Lisbon: Deslandes, 1690), 26–29; Gil do Monte, A fabricação de panos de cor e de linho (Évora: Gáfica Eborense, 1984), 20. 88 António J. Cruz, “Os materiais usados em pintura em Portugal no início do século XVIII, segundo Rafael Bluteau,” Artis: Revista do Instituto de História da Arte da Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa 8, no. 7/8 (2009): 392–93; Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, Alfândegas de Lisboa, Alfândega Grande do Açúcar, liv. 7422, Livro V do registo dos avisos PT/TT/ER/A-A-H/004/0005, fol. 73, 13 March 1784. 89 Rita Carvalho Teixeira de Oliveira Marques, “A história e técnica dos tapetes de Arraiolos: Estudo dos tapetes T763 e T764 (MNMC)” (Master’s diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2007), 11–12, 31–32; Inês de Castro Cristovão, “‘A principal riqueza que dali vem’: Os têxteis bordados indianos em Portugal nos séculos XVI e XVII” (Master’s diss., Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2017), 132–43, 206–11.

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flourishing already in the medieval period, but they would only meet substantial growth in the second half of the sixteenth century, and then later at the end of the seventeenth century, owing to the settlement of Italian and French artisans. In the same way, the silk workshops of Vienna had considerable impetus in the second half of the seventeenth century, with the combined efforts of the Austrian Crown and specialised expatriated artisans. A late blooming of local silk industries was also verified in Copenhagen and in Stockholm. With comparable royal sponsorship and foreign expertise, northern European and Russian textile manufacture followed the French designs that were the rage all over Europe.90 American cochineal was certainly shipped at this time to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Ireland or Russia, and given the quality of their industries, it is very likely that the red dyestuff was now being employed by local dyers in the making of high-grade silk and wool fabrics.91

Conclusion Contrary to earlier research, this chapter argues that American cochineal did not completely obliterate other (insect) sources of red in early modern Europe, nor was its acceptance as immediate as it is widely assumed. While chemical studies have attested its presence in the red yarns of many European textiles and textile fragments that survived to this day, research shows that cochineal often co-existed with kermes, Polish cochineal, and/or lac dye in the dyer’s repertoire—even though these were no longer employed in the sizeable quantities of the medieval period. Armenian cochineal, however, appears to have been completely eradicated from the early modern European landscape. Hence, considering the changing material composition of the space in between fibres, new scientific methods and thorough historical research can anchor textiles’ in-betweenness in a material Third Space that changed throughout early modern history. The acceptance of American cochineal thus occurred gradually, depending on the economic and political conjuncture of each territory. As such, the matter of in-between textiles was interwoven with the political and social realm. Throughout the sixteenth century, cochineal was agglutinated in the dyeing practices of Spain, southern Low Countries, northern Italy, France, or Poland. In other territories, its introduction principally owed to the “technical know-how” brought by mobile weavers and dyers that fled religious war and conflicts. With the settlement of foreign textile specialists, cochineal would be eventually adopted during the 90 Geijer, History, 161–63, 165–67; Markowsky, Europäische Seidengewebe, 41–44. 91 Adam Anderson, An Historical and Chronological Deduction of the Origins of Commerce (London: Robson, 1801), vol. 4, 450.

Cochineal and the Changing Patterns of Consumption of Red Dyes 

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, Portuguese textile industries appear to have maintained native kermes as the exclusive source of insect dye, as well as a general preference for cheaper vegetable red dye sources. Future research may help to trace parallel European oppositions to American dyestuff, or its adoption, in the patterns of dyestuff consumption in the textile industries of other territories.

About the Author Ana Serrano studied conservation and restoration at Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, specialising in textiles. Her Master’s thesis focused on the study of insect dyes in historical textiles, and this evolved into a PhD project in History at the Centre for Humanities (CHAM, NOVA FCSH—UAc) and at the Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency (RCE). After graduating in 2016, she conducted postdoctoral research on the scientific investigation of historical textiles at the University of Amsterdam, the RCE, and the Rijksmuseum. Currently, she is a textile lecturer at the Conservation & Restoration group, University of Amsterdam.

367



Archives, Libraries, and Museums (Abbreviations)

Andhra Pradesh State Museum, Hyderabad, India (APSM) Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain (AGI) Archivo Histórico de Protocolos de Madrid, Spain Archivo Histórico Municipal de Puebla, Mexico (AHMP) Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain (AHN) Archivo Municipal de Jerez de la Frontera, Spain Archivo Municipal de Zaragoza, Spain Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, Lisbon, Portugal (AHU) Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon, Portugal Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, United Kingdom (AM) Auckland Castle, Bishop Auckland, United Kingdom Bayerische Staatsbibliothek Munich, Germany (BSB) Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum Honolulu, Hawai’I, United States of America Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid, Spain (BNE) Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (BNB) Biblioteca Pública de Évora, Évora, Portugal (BPE) Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand Casa Nacional de la Moneda, Potosí, Bolivia Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait City, Kuwait (DAI) Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken, Leiden, Netherlands Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands Glasgow Museums, Glasgow, United Kingdom Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, Iran Golestan Palace Museum, Tehran, Iran (GPM) Harvard Art Museums, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America (HAM) Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Idemitsu Museum of Arts, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan Kew Gardens, London, United Kingdom Kōdai-ji Temple, Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto, Japan Kyoto Living Craft House Mumeisha, Kyoto, Japan Library of Congress, Washington, DC, United States of America Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America Musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris, France Musef, La Paz, Bolivia

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Museo Arqueológico y Antropológico, San Miguel de Azapa, Arica, Chile Museo Nacional de Arqueología, La Paz, Bolivia Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Spain Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, Sweden Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America National Diet Library, Tokyo, Japan Otago Museum, Dunedin, New Zealand Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Massachusetts, United States of America Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada (ROM) San Diego Museum of Art, California, United States of America (SDMA) Sandon Hall, Staffordshire, United Kingdom State Library New South Wales, Sydney, Australia Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, United Kingdom Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand The British Library, London, United Kingdom (BL) The British Museum, London, United Kingdom (BM) The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California, United States of America The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States of America (MET) The National Archives, Kew, United Kingdom (TNA) The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia The State Historical Museum, Moscow, Russia The Tokugawa Institute for the History of Forestry, Toshima City, Japan The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, United Kingdom (V&A) Towneley Hall Museum and Art Gallery, Burnley, United Kingdom Traquair House, Peeblesshire, United Kingdom Universitäts- und Forschungsbibliothek Erfurt/Gotha, Germany Ushaw College, County Durham, United Kingdom Wilberforce House Museum, Kingston Upon Hull, United Kingdom Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Wisbech, United Kingdom (WFM) Worcester Art Museum, United Kingdom



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Index ‘Abd Allah ‘Aidarus, shah of Aden 171 ‘Abi ‘Addi 332 ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah I, Sultan of Bijapur 166, 167n16 ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah II, Sultan of Bijapur 167n16 Abba Gärima 328–329, 331–332, 336 Abbasi, Reza 48–49 Abdullah Qutb Shah 177 Aborigines, see Australia, Indigenous peoples of Abu’l Fazl 170 Abunä Peṭros 333 Abyssinia, see Ethiopia Acapulco 220 Acoma 233 Acora 233, 238 Adamjee, Qamar 163 Adwa 329, 332 Aegean Sea 295n16 Africa 26–28, 33, 35, 46, 97, 117–118, 120–121, 124, 129, 132, 137, 172, 265–282 Africa, central 275 Africa, east 266–267, 270, 274–275, 279 Africa, Horn of 33, 52, 165 Africa, northern 33, 52, 285–303, 336, 341, 358 Africa, south 275 Africa, southeastern 33, 265–282 Africa, West 44, 139–161 Africanus, Leo 300 Aftabi 178 Agawam 92 Agotime 157 Ahmadnagar 173, 177–179 Ahmedabad 170 Akbar 175, 177 Aksum 332 Akwamu 158 Akyem 158 Alberta 138 Alcega, Juan de 208 Alcobaça 365 Alexandria 333, 344 Alexis, Tsar of Russia 247 Algeria 285–303 Algiers 52, 285–303 Algonquin, Indigenous people 83 Allen, William 194 Almansa y Mendoza, Andrés de 210 Almería 293 Almohads 296 Alpaca fibre 229, 233 Altiplano 223, 225, 236 Alvares, Francisco 176 Alvares, Francisco 330 Ambivalence 21–24, 28, 34, 36, 48, 80–81, 83, 85, 101, 109, 123, 150, 155, 193, 205–206, 218

America, North 21–22, 27, 75–94, 96–98, 124, 136, 221, 295, 324 America, Northwest Coast 21–22, Americas 35, 39, 47, 52–53, 98, 111, 116, 164, 213, 276, 347–367 Amiens 359 Amsterdam 253, 349, 360–362, 367 Anatolia 287 Anbǝra 333 Ancona 364 Andalusia 216, 224, 295–296, 357 Anderson, Atholl 71 Andes Mountains 33, 45–47, 219–240 Anisimov, Evgenii 251 Anlo-Afiadenyigba 141 Antigua 108 Antunes, Luís Dias 47, 53, 265–282 Antwerp 349, 351, 358–362 Anzaldúa, Gloria 32 Aoraki Mount Cook 71 Aotearoa 35, 57–73 Appliqué, textile technique 200 Apraksin, Feodor 255 Arabia 224, 265, 269, 276, 280 Ararat, Mount 354 Aras, river 354 Arasaratnam, Sinnappah 312 Arendt, Hannah 28–29, 34, 59 Arévalo, Pedro de 46 Arica 235 Arkhangel’sk 245, 247 Armenia 244, 259, 262, 350, 354–356 Arnold, Denise Y., 47, 53, 219–240 Arobe, Don Francisco de 45–46 Asante Empire 157–158 Asia 21–24, 26–28, 35, 46–47, 52, 118, 122, 124, 158, 205–206, 210–212, 219, 266, 274–275, 277, 286, 298, 305–326, 349, 353, 355 Asia, east 205–206, 210–213, 217–218, 253, 261, 276 Asia, southeast 164, 309–312 Assinie 154 Astrakhan’, 244–245, 263 Atlantic 98, 112, 120–121, 125, 132, 137, 150, 220 Auckland 200 Augsburg 363 Australia 34, 43–44 Australia, Indigenous people of 34, 43–44 Austria 347, 366 Axim 158 Aymara, Indigenous language 219–240 Aymara, Indigenous people of 219–240 Ayutthaya 311 Azerbaijan 177, 354 Azores 365

380

IN-BE T WEEN TEX TILES, 1400–1800

Baffelli, Erica 27 Baghdad 173 Bagley, Joseph 87 Bahmani sultanate 176 Bairam Khan 177 Bäkaffa, King of Ethiopia 329, 331–332, 341 Bakhtin, Mikhail 29 Balkans, see Europe, southeastern Baltasar Carlos, Prince of Asturias 205 Banks Peninsula 59–65 Banks, Joseph 61 Bantu, Indigenous peoples of 265 Barbados 102, 105, 109, 120 Barbosa, Duarte 209 Barbosa, Odoardo 209 Barcelona 353 Barlow, Edward 121 Barreto, Manuel 272 Barros, João de 268–270 Basel 365 Basset, John 126 Batavia 307, 310, 312–314 Beattie, James 71 Beckett, Thomas 190 Beckford, William 107 Bejaia 298 Belarus 354 Belkaïd-Neri, Leyla 52–53, 285–303 Bengal 175, 311–314 Benin 154, 156–157, 161 Berlin 363 Bermudez, João 176 Berryman, William 101 Bertonio, Ludovico 224–227 Bhabha, Homi K., 19, 25, 28–36, 38, 40–41, 44, 47, 52, 57–58, 76, 80–81, 83, 95, 97, 101, 116–117, 123, 143, 152, 163, 165, 172–173, 183, 185, 187, 192, 205–206, 218, 221–222, 238, 242, 253, 257, 267, 303, 309, 333, 350 Biggs, Isaac 153–154 Biggs, Samuel 153–154 Bijapur 165n4, 166, 168, 177 Biriukova, Nina 254 Black Sea 244, 364 Blagoder, Iuliia 254 Boateng, Kwame Kusi 159 Bocarro, António 280 Böhmer, Harald 355 Bolivia 219–240 Bologna 208, 351 Bonny 154 Bonville, Charles 154 Bonville, Thomas 154 Bonwire 159 Bororo, river 269, 274, 276–278, 281 Boston, Mass., 82, 174 Botongas 277–278 Botti, Matteo 356 Bowdich, Thomas 157

Bowron-Muth, Sreymony 67 Braganza 365 Braidotti, Rosi 32–33 Brashchin, Feodor 244 Brazil 39–40, 95–112, 208 Brazilwood, dye 349, 352, 356, 365 Bricolage 40, 97, 103, 109 Bristol 127, 151, 153–154, 160 British Empire, see also England 26, 34, 39, 43–44, 49, 108–109, 115–139, 143, 148–152, 154, 158, 160, 302, 329, 331, 349 Brocade, weaving technique 84, 167, 169–171, 191, 244–245, 247–248, 250–252, 256–257, 262, 291–292, 298–299, 301, 343, 351–352, 356 Bromley Hall 128–129 Brooks, Mary M., 44, 47, 53, 185–201 Brooksby, Eleanor 196 Brown, Sharp & Co., 135 Browne, Patrick 103 Bruges 351, 358 Brunias, Agostino 108, 109n52 Brussels 208, 358–359 Buck, Peter 70 Burhan Nizam Shah II 178 Burhanpur 170, 175 Burnard, Trevor 111 Bursa 248, 298n24 Buryats, Indigenous people of 250 Byzantine Empire 224, 330, 364 Cabo Delgado 266, 279 Cádiz 220, 348 Cairo 344 Calcutta 121 Calico, also calico printing 27, 38, 120, 122, 126–127, 138 Callander, Margaret 132–133 Calvete de Estrella, Juan Cristóbal 209 Cambay 275 Cambodia 27 Cambridge, Great Britain 19, 54, 61n14, 148 Cambridge, Mass., 82 Cameroon 156 Canada 234 Cansius, Hendrik 313 Canterbury 191 Cape Coast 150 Cape Cod 82 Cape Mount 153–154 Caribbean 28, 34–35, 39–40, 54, 95–112, 132, 134, 136 Caribbean, Indigenous people of 34, 54 Carma, Finca 232 Cary, John 127 Caspian Sea 244 Castanhoso, Miguel de 175 Castile 26, 208, 211, 213–215, 217 Catanzaro 358 Celmisia semicordata or tikumu 69, 71 Cereceda, Verónica 226

381

Index 

Ceylon 319 Chalon, Alfred Edward 147 Chalukya, Hindu dynasty 166 Chand Bibi 178 Chantilly 300 Chardin, Jean 48, 169 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain 208, 347–348, 359 Cheeshahteaumuck, Caleb 83, 88–89 Chelles 345 Cherchell 293 Chesapeake 120 Chichester 189 Chikugonokami, Inoue 319 Chile 54, 226, 235, 237, 239 China 21–23, 28, 41, 49–50, 206, 212–218, 220–221, 224, 226, 243–245, 248, 250, 253–254, 256–260, 298, 309–310, 312, 322, 345, 365 Chintz, also chintz painting 38, 122–123, 126, 245, 270n9, 307, 319 Choquela 234 Christchurch 61, 61n14 Chucuito 234 Chuquisaca valley 236 Clarkson, Thomas 139–140, 142, 144–155, 160 Cochabamba valley 236 Cochin 36 Cochineal dye 53, 220, 230, 347–351, 354–366 Cocks, Richard 309 Coecke van Aelst, Pieter 359 Coipasa, Lake 237 Colbert, Jean Baptiste 360 Cole, Robert 192 Colenso, William 66 Collingwood, Peter 334 Collins, Samuel 247 Cologne 3637 Columbus, Christopher 34 Compi 223 Conceição, António da 272 Connectedness, Interconnectedness 25, 287 Constantinople, see Istanbul Copenhagen 366 Coromandel Coast 37, 49, 311–312 Corsica 287n6 Cortés, Hernán 347–348 Cotton fibre 26–27, 37, 46–47, 52, 83–84, 92, 99, 110–111, 115, 117–118, 122, 126–128, 132, 135–138, 144–145–146, 152, 154, 156, 169n18, 170, 175–176, 182, 220, 243, 265–269, 271–282, 288, 291–293, 311, 329, 331–334, 336–338, 341–342, 344, 348 Couto, Diogo do 279 Covilhã 365 Cranmer, Thomas 191–192 Creolisation 29, 97 Crete 295n16 Cromwell, Oliver 120 Cuernavaca 217 Cugoano, Ottobah 150

Currelly, Charles Trick 331 Cuyp, Aelbert 39 Däbrä Allamot 333 Däbrä Sǝkurti 333 Dalgado, Sebastião 272 Daman 274 Damask 27, 188n11, 197, 213–216, 244–245, 247, 250, 253, 256, 258–261, 279, 288, 298, 301, 365 Daniel, Wallace 255 Darnton, Robert 23 Deccan 33, 44, 163–183, 312, 314, 324 Defoe, Daniel 126 Dekker, Thomas 120 Deleuze, Gilles 32–33 Delft 361 Dellys 293 Denmark 156–158, 366 Descola, Philippe 25 Deshima 310–313, 321 Desrosiers, Sophie 228 Dietler, Michael 81 Diggeress Te Kanawa 62 Dios Yapita, Juan de 219 Displacement 22, 28, 30, 33, 40, 72, 287 Diu 274 Dixon, Simon 258 Doha 183 Don, river 245 Draping, textile technique 136, 181 Drax, Henry 102, 105 Dunedin 69 DuPlessis, Robert 35, 39–40, 47, 53, 95–112 Durham 201, 263 Dutch East India Company (VOC) 36–39, 41, 259, 305–326 Dutch West India Company 158n74 Duurkoop, Hendrik Gofried 321 Ecuador 45–46 Edward VI, King of England 194, 199 Egypt 52, 298, 327, 333, 336, 343–345, 364 El Alto 239 El Callao, see Lima. Eliot, John 82 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 190–192, 199 Embroidery 41, 52, 85, 132, 136, 163, 188–190, 196, 199, 200, 243–245, 248–249, 253–254, 285–288, 291–296, 298–303, 316, 330n6, 351, 364–365 England 26, 44, 88, 105, 108, 116, 119–121, 123, 125–128, 149–153, 173, 185–201, 209, 256, 291, 295, 309, 352, 354, 356, 358, 360, 362–363 English East India Company 120–122, 259, 309 English Muscovy Company 244 Entanglement 33, 53, 76, 79–81, 117, 121, 125, 129, 136, 164, 303 Epestemia, from the Vologda region 244 Equiano, Olaudah 150 Esmeraldas coast 45

382

IN-BE T WEEN TEX TILES, 1400–1800

Espejo, Elvira 219 Estonia 257, 354 Ethiopia 52, 165, 171–176, 327–345 Ethnogenesis 79–81, 117, 221–222, 238 Eurasia 48 Europe 21–22, 28, 30, 35, 48, 52–53, 101, 115–123, 125, 129, 131, 136–137, 140, 148, 152, 155–158, 160, 164, 209, 211–213, 217, 224, 226, 244, 247, 250–251, 253, 255–259, 261–262, 269, 275, 286, 293, 309, 313, 324, 330, 347–367 Europe, southeastern 288n9 Ewe people 157–158, 161 Ǝndärta 332 Falconbridge, Alexander 151, 154–155 Fanon, Frantz 104 Faroqhi, Suraiya 19 Farrukh Beg 168 Felt 232, Feodor III, Tsar of Russia 251 Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias 212 Fernandes, António 268–269 Fiesole 300 Firishta, see Muhammad Qasim Shah Astrabadi Flanders 253, 322, 351, 358–360, 362, 365 Flax or harakeke fibre 62, 66, 68–69 Florence 250, 298, 351, 356 Foäche, Stanislas 102, 105 Fortuna, Carlos 281 Foxe, John 191 Frame, Mary 334 France, also French Empire 28, 100, 105, 119, 132, 137, 173, 247–248, 250–251, 255, 276, 285–286, 300, 302, 349, 351, 359–362, 365–366 Francis I, King of France 359 Frankfurt a. M., 363 Freake, Elizabeth 76, 78, 83, 85, 87–88, 93 Freake, Mary 76, 78, 83, 85, 87–88, 93 Freycinetia banksii or kiekie 69–70 Froes, Cardim 273 Fróis, Luís 211–212, 316 Fryer, John 49 Fuchs, Barbara 208 Fur 27 Gäbrǝʾel Wäqen 338–339 Gafat 176 Gaffney, Erika 19 Galenas, river 154 Ganjalyan, Tamara 244 Gdánsk 364 Gelawdewos 175 Geneva 365 Gennep, Arnold van 343–344 Genoa 245, 298, 349, 351, 353, 356 Georgia 250, 354 Gerard, John 196 Gérentet de Saluneaux, Claire 52–53, 327–345 Germany 41, 86, 88, 131, 261, 347, 351, 354, 360, 363

Gervers, Michael 52–53, 327–345 Ghana 139–141, 154, 157–159, 161 Ghent 209, 351, 358 Gilan 258 Gilby, Anthony 188, 192 Gisabro 321 Gisbert, Teresa 228, 236 Gittinger, Mattiebelle 163 Glasgow 135–136 Goa 209, 273–274, 281 Gobelin, Gilles 359 Golconda 177 Golconda 312 Golitsyn, Vasilii 261 Gomes, António 270–271 Gomulkiewicz, Abigail 19 Gondär 331–332, 336 Gookin, Daniel 84, 86 Goveia, Elsa 103 Granada 293, 351, 357, 365 Greece 130, 132, 243, 288n9, 364 Grenville, William 151 Grindal, Edmund 192 Guadalajara, Mexico 212–213 Gujarat 175, 182, 209, 275–276, 280–281 Haarlem 362 Haëdo, Diego de 288, 291, 300 Hair, human 43 Haiti 106 Hamburg 161, 245, 250, 360, 363 Hamilton, Augustus 68, 71 Hampshire 199 Hanß, Stefan 21–54, 241 Harriana 344 Harrowden Hall 196 Harvard College 76–77, 80–88, 90, 92–94 Hashim 173 Havart, Daniel 38 Hawai’i 61n14, 66 Hayreddin Barbarossa 287n5 Hemp fibre 90, 191 Henrietta Maria, Queen of England 199 Heyden, Dirc Willemsz van der 361 Hiamale, Ben 141 Hilarie, Hugh 198 Hill Collins, Patricia 32 Hirado 309, 318–319 Holguín, González 225 Holland, see Netherlands. Holstein 244, 250 Honolulu 61n14 Hope, Thomas 132 Hopkins, Stephen 92 Houghteling, Sylvia 163 Hungary 364 Husain Nizam Shah 177–181 Hybridity 29, 31, 36, 38–39, 45–46, 52, 75–76, 80, 85, 90, 92–94, 97, 110, 112, 185, 187, 221–222,

383

Index 

228–229, 234, 238, 253–254, 267, 281, 285–287, 298, 303, 309, 333, 344 Ibn-I Khatun 177 Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II, sultan of Bijapur 166–168, 170–171, 178 Identity effects 30, 33, 38, 44, 46–47, 163, 165, 205–206, 218 Ides, Eberhard Isbrand 250 Imereti 250 In-betweenness 21, 23, 25, 28–36, 38–39, 41, 43–45, 47–48, 52–53, 57, 59, 72–73, 75–76, 80–81, 85, 92–95, 97, 127, 128, 139, 143, 149, 151–152, 155–156, 160–161, 173, 218, 221, 241–242, 244–245, 251, 253, 255, 262-263, 267, 285, 303, 305, 309, 323–324, 347, 350, 366 Incas 34, 223, 225, 227 India, also Indian Subcontinent and Indian Ocean 26–27, 33–34, 36–39, 49, 52, 117–118, 121–122, 125–126, 136, 140, 155n59, 155–156, 163–183, 215, 244, 259, 265–282, 298, 305–327, 330, 333, 345, 365 Indigo dye 26–27, 90, 102, 110, 144, 220, 230, 349 Indonesia 121, 307 Ingold, Tim 25, 28 Iran 21–22, 27, 48–52, 164–166, 169–170, 175–176, 242–245, 248–250, 253, 256–257, 265, 298, 305–326, 330, 343, 354 Ireland 366 Irigoyen-García, Javier 46, 53, 205–218 Isert, Paul Erdmann 157–158 Islam, or Muslim 35 Istanbul 243, 253, 255, 258, 286–287, 302, 364 Italy 108, 211, 224, 243, 245, 255, 286–287, 298–300, 302, 351–352, 354–355, 357, 360, 365–366 Ivleva, Victoria 47, 53, 241–263 Ivory Coast 154, 158 Iyasu II, King of Ethiopia 329, 332 Iyo’as, King of Ethiopia 332 Jacomb, Chris 67 Jahangir 173 Jakuchu, Ito 325–326 Jamaica 100–101, 103, 105, 107 James I, King of England 125 Japan 26–27, 41–42, 52, 161, 210–212, 217–218, 261, 305–326 Java 41 Jerez de la Frontera 215 Jerusalem 330 Jesuits 22–24, 34, 211, 224 Jew, Jews, or Jewish 35, 301, 365 Jingdezhen 254 João IV, King of Portugal 208–209 Johnson, Samuel 150 Jones, Ann Rosalind 119 Joseph, Patriarch of Moscow 247 Jourdain, John 170

Juli, Peru 224 Julião, Carlos 108 Justinian, Roman Emperor 330 Kaitorete Barrier 59–65 Kaitorete Spit 59–65 Kaleb, King of Ethiopia 330 Kamada, Yumiko 52–53, 305–326 Karanga, see Shona, Indigenous people of Kay, William 134 Kazan’, 244 Kearney, James 133 Kente 44, 139–141, 143–144, 155, 157–159, 161 Kerala 36, 280 Kermes dye 351–366 Keta 158 Kew Gardens 71 Khanzah Humayun 176–182 Khurasan 165 Khurasan 177 Kilwa Kisiwani 265, 274 Klein, Vladimir 244 Koerner, Joseph 201 Komi, region of 244 Korea 309, 322 Kraamer, Malika 44, 47, 53, 139–161 Krefeld 364 Kwami, Atta 19 Kyoto 306–307, 314–316, 321–324, 326 La Paz 223, 230, 234–236, 239–240 Labat, Jean Baptiste 105–106 Laborie, Pierre Joseph 102, 106, 109 Lac dye 351–353, 355, 360, 363–364, 366 Lacan, Jacques 80 Lagos 154, 157 Lainey, Jonathan 19 Langton, Bennet 148 Languedoc 359 Latvia 257, 354 Laud, William 185 Leather 70, 206, 245, 299n25, 311, 316, 336 Lebna Dengel 175 Lefebvre, Christiane 234 Lefort, Jean 254 Leicester 161 Leiden 360–362 Leiden 54 Lemire, Beverly 25, 44, 53, 115–138, 241, 325 Leroi-Gourhan, André 343 Levant, also Eastern Mediterranean 287, 288n9, 293, 364 Levy, Allison 19 Lǝbnä Dǝngǝl 330 Liberia 154 Liebmann, Matthew 111 Lima 220 Lincoln 188 Lincolnshire 199

384

IN-BE T WEEN TEX TILES, 1400–1800

Linen 76, 85, 92, 99, 102, 129, 137, 156, 188–189, 191–192, 244, 279n47, 287–288, 291–294, 297, 301 Linnaeus, Carl 130 Lisbon 268, 273, 281, 365, 367 Lithuania 354 Liverpool 53, 151, 153–155, 160 Livonia 257 Livorno 298, 349 Logwood dye 349 London 126, 129, 132, 136, 148, 150–153, 160, 192, 208–209, 240, 334, 362 Loomba, Ania 124 Loren, Diana DiPaolo 39, 47, 53, 75–94 Louis XIV, King of France 247, 253 Louisiana 96 Lourenço Marques, see Maputo Low Countries, see Netherlands. Lowe, Kate 117 Luabo 272 Lucca 245, 351, 356 Ludham, Godfrey de 190 Lupaca, Indigenous people of 224 Lyashchenko, Peter 263 Lyon 292, 302, 345, 359 MacCulloch, Diarmaid 200 Macua, see Makua, Indigenous people of Madder dye 90, 351, 360, 362–365 Madeira 209 Mädḫane ‘Aläm 331 Madhya Pradesh 175 Madrid 208 Makua, Indigenous people of 274–277, 281 Malacca 28, 209 Mali 157 Malik ‘Ambar 171, 173–175 Mamluks, see also Egypt 286, 298 Manchester 19, 54 Manila 205, 212–214, 216–217, 220 Mans, Raphael du 169 Mantell, Walter 71 Māori 35, 57–73 Maputo 266 Mäqdäla 331 Marave, Indigenous people of 270 Marín-Aguilera, Beatriz 21–54, 241 Marlborough 71 Marseilles 364 Mary of Hungary 359 Mary Tudor 208 Mascarenhas, Joao 300 Masconomet 92 Maslov, Boris 241 Massachusett, Indigenous people 82 Massachusetts Bay Colony 39, 75–94 Massasoit 92 Mätäka 333 Mather, Cotton 83–84 Mather, Increase 76–77, 83, 85, 88, 93

May Zbi 329 Mayerne, Theodore de 363 Mazzei, Rita 245 McClintock, Anne 116 Medeiros, Eduardo 275 Mediterranean Sea 52, 132, 224, 285–303, 351, 353, 362 Mello e Castro, Francisco de 276 Melo e Castro, António Manuel de 277 Menshikov, Alexander 253 Mérigoux, Jacques 339 Messina 358 Mestizaje 29 Metacom 85–86, 90–91, 94 Mexico City 212–214, 216, 220 Mexico 210, 212–217, 220, 347–348, 359 Mǝntǝwwab 329, 331, 344 Mikhail, Tsar of Russia 243, 247 Milan 351, 356 Miliutin, Alexey 256, 259 Mills, Andrew 19 Mimicry 31, 33, 34, 36, 39–40, 75–76, 80–81, 95, 98, 101, 110, 123, 136, 143, 155, 193 Mockery 33–34, 38–40, 49, 76, 80–81, 92, 93, 98, 110, 155, 191, 193, 205–206 Mocranga 272 Moctezuma II, Aztec ruler 347 Mogadishu 265 Moldova 354 Mombasa 274 Monclaro, Francisco de 269, 278 Mongols 21–22, 298 Monomotapa 268–270 Morrumbala, mountains 277 Moscow 242–244, 247–248, 250, 256, 261–262, 364 Mosnier, Jean Laurent 133 Moureau de Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis Élie 107 Mozambique 47, 265–282, 300 Moziba, Kingdom of 268 Mughals, see India. Muhammad ‘Adil Shah 167n16 Muhammad Qasim Shah Astrabadi 177 Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah 177 Murcia 210 Murimuno 276 Murtaza Nizam Shah 178 Muscovy, see Moscow Muslin(s) 108, 117, 122, 129, 135–137, 169, 173, 175, 288, 293 Nagahama 322, 324 Nagasaki 42, 309–311, 313–315, 319, 321 Nagashima, Hiromu 311–312 Nagazumi, Yoko 312 Nakamura, Tadashi 314 Nandurbar 175 Nanny Naylor, Katherine 86–88, 90, 92–93 Nanny, Robert 86 Naples 255, 358

385

Index 

Narai, King of Siam 311 Natif, Mika 163 Nausett, Indigenous people 82 Navarro, Pedro 287n5 Naylor, Edward 86 Needlework 83, 269, 295–296 Negotiation 21, 23, 25, 28–32, 34–35, 39, 43–45, 47–48, 52, 75, 80–81, 93, 115–116, 125, 143, 148, 152, 156, 160, 173, 185, 187, 201, 216–217, 221, 241–242, 250, 259, 262–263, 265–268, 305, 309 Nelson, Charmaine 130–131 Netherlands, also Dutch Empire 26–27, 36–39, 86, 105, 119, 158, 245, 251, 254, 257, 260–261, 305–326, 347, 349, 353–354, 358, 360, 362–363, 365–366 New England 39, 75–94 New England, Indigenous people of 39, 75–94 New Spain, Viceroyalty of 213–214, 218 New York 303, 326 New Zealand 57–73 Ngāi Tahu, Māori tribal affiliation 71 Niassa, Lake 270, 274 Nigeria 154, 156–157 Nikitin, Afanasy 27. Nimes 359 Norfolk 196 Norris, Robert 154, 157 Norway 366 Núñez, Gabriel 215 Nuremberg 363 Nyasa, Lake, see Niassa, Lake. Oceania 33, 35 Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico 213 Omasuyos 222 Opoku Ware I, Asantehene 157 Orihuela 210 Osaka 314 Otago 68–70, 73 Ottoman Empire 34, 48, 243–244, 248, 258, 261, 285–303, 354, 364 Ouidah 154, 157–158, 160 Ousamequin, see Massasoit Overmeer Fisscher, Johan Frederick van 323 Overton, Keelan 163 Overton, Richard 186, 198 Oxford 188, 191 Pacajes 222, 233 Pacific Ocean 35, 57, 220 Painter, Nell Irvin 138 Painting, textile technique 37, 120, 122–123, 126, 216, 254, Paisley 135 Paker, Matthew 192 Palermo 358 Pampa Acora 234 Pananti, Filippo 300 Paracas, Indigenous people of 227 Paris 247, 254–255, 286n3, 303, 351, 359–360

Parkinson, Sidney 71 Parsons, Robert, also known as Robert Persons 194 Pattenson, Bernard 194 Peeblesshire 197 Pendergrast, Mick 62 Persia, see Iran. Peru 220, 222–223, 237, 239 Perugia 356 Peter I, Tsar of Russia 47, 241–263 Petlin, Ivan 244 Philip II, King of Spain 208 Philip III, King of Spain 215 Philip IV, King of Spain 215 Philippines 28, 205, 208, 212, 214, 220 Phipps, Elena 163 Phoenicians, people of 285 Pidginisation 29 Pinheiro da Veiga, Tomé 209 Pinney, Christopher 77 Pisa 298, 353 Pitt, William 151 Pleat, textile technique 136 Plying, textile technique 63, 232–233 Poland 244, 247, 250, 318, 351, 354–356, 362, 364, 366 Polynesia 57–73 Poma de Ayala, Guaman 226 Poopo, Lake 237 Portalegre 365 Portugal, also Portuguese Empire 26, 28, 47–51, 106, 108, 175, 208–209, 211, 215, 265–282, 300, 309, 316, 330, 349, 365, 367 Potemkin, Petr 247, 253 Potosí 220, 223, 230, 232 Potsdam 363 Prague 168 Prata, António 272–273 Praying Towns, New England 81–83, 90 Preucel, Robert 32 Prince, Mary 136 Prinsenstein 158 Printing, textile technique 120, 122, 129, 163, 182, 269n9, 275, 281, Procopius of Caesarea 330 Puebla, Mexico 210, 213, 216 Puketoi Station 65–72 Pukina, Indigenous language 238 Pune 179 Puno 223 Pyliaev, Mikhail 253 Quaque, Philip 150–151 Quechua, Indigenous language 226, 229–230, 232 Queirós, Fernão de 272 Quelimane 272 Quirimbas Islands 270 Quispe, Mallku Felipe 239 Quiteve 270 Quito 45–46

386

IN-BE T WEEN TEX TILES, 1400–1800

Rajgopal, Uthra 19 Ras Mika’el “Sǝḥul,” 329, 331–332 Razin, Stepan 245 Reims 359 Resistance 30–31, 33, 40, 43–47, 53, 95, 98, 109, 111, 131–132, 150n30, 192–193, 201, 219, 222, 227, 265–268, 273, 277–278, 281–282 Rex, Christine 93 Rhineland 351, 354 Ribero, Antonio Luis 210 Ricci, Matteo 23 Riello, Giorgio 19, 26, 41, 127 Roche, Daniel 129 Romania 354, 364 Rome 186, 288 Rowlandson, Mary 85, 92 Rubens, Peter Paul 24, 199 Rublack, Ulinka 19, 28, 41 Ruiz de Villegas, Hernán 209 Russia 27, 33–34, 47, 241–263, 366 Safavid Empire, see Iran. Säglamen 332 Saint-Domingue 102, 106, 110 Sakuemon, Takagi 313–314 Salvador da Bahia 99 San Diego 183 San Juan de los Caballeros, see Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico San Pedro de Atacama 236 Sánchez Galque, Andrés 45 Sande, Duarte 211 Santo Domingo 98, 102 Santos, João dos 270, 280 São Paolo 240 Sappanwood dye 310–311 Saragossa 215 Sardar, Marika 44, 53, 163–183 Sardinia 287n6 Satin 188, 196, 213, 243, 247, 250, 256, 258, 279–280, 288, 293 Save, river 268 Šäwa 331 Sayyid ‘Ali bin ‘Azizullah Tabatabai 177 Schaw, Janet 108 Schmalkalden, Caspar 41 Schouten, Wouter 37–38 Scotland 132, 134, 136 Scrope, Geoffrey le 188 Seble Wongel 175 Seglin, or Sehlin 329–330 Segovia 357 Sekian, Takei 316 Sélim Ettoumi, King of Algiers 287n5 Sellar, John 90 Sena 269–270, 273 Serrano, Ana 52–53, 347–367 Seville 205, 220, 348–349, 356

Sewell, Samuel 83 Shablikin, Boris 259 Shafirov, Petr 253, 255 Shah Tahir Husaini 177 Shaw, Thomas 291 Sheriman, Ignatii 262 Shigenobu, Matsura 319 Shire valley 274, 277 Shona, Indigenous people of 275 Shunzhi, Emperor of China 243 Siam 27, 309–312 Siberia 27, 250, 258 Sica Sica 233 Sicily 298, 358 Siegal, Walter 233 Sierra Leone 155, 157 Silk 26–27, 46–47, 52, 75, 83, 86–87, 144–145, 148, 152, 156–157, 161, 169–171, 175–176, 182, 188, 191, 197, 206, 212–218, 219–230, 233–234, 236, 239, 241–245, 247–251, 253–259, 261–263, 269n9, 279–280, 285–288, 291–293, 295–296, 298–303, 310–311, 316, 319, 327–334, 336–337, 341–342, 344, 350–353, 355–366 Silliman, Stephen W., 221 Six, Guillaume 361 Smith, Catherine 35, 53, 57–73 Sofala 265, 270, 280 Sohoni, Pushkar 163 Solidarity 34–35, 40, 45 Songtham, King of Siam 310 South Gregory 43 Spain, also Spanish Empire 26, 45–47, 106, 116, 119, 205–240, 250, 293, 296, 298–301, 303, 347–349, 351, 356–358, 360 Speckling, textile technique 229, 232–233, 235–237 Specx, Jacques 316, 318, 323 Spitalfields 362 Spriett, John van der 76–77 St Kitts 107, 132, 134 St Petersburg 244–246, 249, 251, 254–255, 257–260 Stallybrass, Peter 119 Stecher, Annette de 19 Steep 199 Stockholm 61n14, 62n15, 366 Stowe 199 Stubbes, Phillip 120 Sudan 336 Suleyman, Ottoman sultan 287n5 Sumatra 28 Sunargaon 175 Surat 275, 318–319 Swarthmore 112 Sweden 61n14, 62n15, 366 Sweny, George Augustus 331 Switzerland 360 Syncretism 97, 110, 213n30, 216 Syria 298

387

Index 

Tabby, warp-faced tabby, weaving technique 145, 154, 157, 220, 230, 236, Tabby, weaving technique 245 Tabby, weft-faced tabby, weaving technique 145– 146, 148, 157, 161, 224 Tablet-weaving, weaving technique 327, 332, 335, 341–342 Taffeta 157, 188, 213–215, 224, 230, 245, 250, 256 Tahiti 66 Taiwan 310 Taj Mahal 220 Takashima 322, 324 Takatoshi, Mitsui 315 Tämben 330–333, 339 Teodósio II, Duke of Bragança Tete 270, 272–273 Textiles, see specific type Tǝgray, province in Ethiopia 328–331, 333, 338–339 Thailand, see Siam. Theodore, King of Ethiopia 331 Third Space 29, 31, 45, 48, 53, 148, 172, 333, 347, 350, 366 Tibet 34 Tierra Firme 220 Titicaca, Lake 222–223, 237–238 Tiwanaku 223, 228, 236–239 Tlemcen 296, 298 Tlingit 22 Togo 139–140, 157–158, 161 Tokugawa Ieharu 321 Tokugawa Iemitsu 318–319 Tokugawa Ietsuna 319 Tokugawa Ieyasu 309, 318 Tokugawa Yoshikatsu 320–321 Toledo 351, 357 Toledo, Francisco de 228, 236 Tolochanov, Nikifor 250 Tolstoy, Leo 255 Tonkin 310 Tordesillas 347 Toronto 328, 334, 345 Toulouse 359 Tournai 351 Tours 351, 359 Towneley, John 194 Toyotomi Hideyoshi 316–317 Traquair 197 Trigault, Nicolas 24. Trollopp, Thomas 194 Trouillot, Michel-Rolph 121, 130 Tur’ia 244–245 Turner, Charles 144 Tuscany 300–301, 356 Twill, weaving technique 69, 337, 341, 358 Twining, textile technique 43, 59, 62–63, 70, 90, 335, 341 Tyrrhenian Sea 298

Ueki, Yukinobu 323 Ukraine 354 Ulm 160n76 Unhomeliness 33–36, 39–40, 57, 59, 72 Urbana-Champaign 218 Uru-Chipaya, Indigenous people of 237–238 Valencia 351, 357 Valignano, Alessandro 211 Valladolid 209, 213 Varadarajan, Lotika 281 Vaux, Anne 196 Velasco y Girón, Ana de 215 Velvet 170, 185, 188, 191, 200, 243, 247, 250, 253, 256, 258, 291, 293, 298–299, 301–302, 316, 318–319, 352, 365 Venice 86, 244–245, 250, 255, 275, 298, 301, 351, 353, 356–357, 364 Vera Cruz, Mexico 220 Vernet, Thomas 19 Viallé, Cynthia 318 Vicuña fibre 220 Vienna 366 Vietnam 26, 310 Vijayanagara Empire 164, 178 Vila Viçosa 210 Villagrá, Gaspar de 213 Virginia 124 Volga, river 245 Vologda, region of 244–245 Volta 141, 158, 160 Voss, Barbara 221–222 Vries, Jan de 254 Wace, Alan J. B., 301 Wales 210 Wällo 331 Walter, Richard 67 Wampanoag, Indigenous people 82–83, 85–86, 88–90, 92 Washington, DC 101 Wassef, Wissa 344 Weaving, supplementary 140–141, 143–146, 148, 155, 157, 161 Webster, Jane 153, 155 Weetamoo 85, 92 Wellington 61n14 West Indies 100, 104, 109–110, 120 Whalley Abbey 194–195 White Sea 244 Wickham, Richard 309 Wilberforce, William 148 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 131 Wingfield, Chris 19 Winslow, Edward 92 Wintour, Helena 196 Wisbech 139 Wiseman, Jane 196

388

IN-BE T WEEN TEX TILES, 1400–1800

Wool 43, 83, 86, 90–92, 99, 119, 122, 125–127, 144n17, 145–146, 148, 156–157, 197, 224–225, 230, 232–233, 250–251, 256, 288, 302, 305, 316, 318, 334, 350–353, 355–357, 359–366 Yao, Keisuke 310 Yaos, Indigenous people of 274–275 Yemen 343 York 188, 190

Yoruba 161 Yoshida, Kojiro 306 Zabelin, Ivan 247–248 Zambezi River valley 47 Zambezi, river 265–282 Zeeland 360 Zeventien, Heren 316 Zurich 365 Zwaardecroon, Hendrik 38