About us > A History: Why Backstrap Weaving Matters Here
HAVING SUFFERED war, relocation and theft of their ancestral lands for decades, many Montagnard Dega in Vietnam can no longer continue to practice their traditional weaving or other cultural activities. As their culture is assimilated unique knowledge is being lost. In North Carolina continuing cultural practices such as weaving can help tell the story of the Jarai, Bunong, Koho, Bahnar, Rhade and other Central Highland tribes.
HAVING SUFFERED war, relocation and theft of their ancestral lands for decades, many Montagnard Dega in Vietnam can no longer continue to practice their traditional weaving or other cultural activities. As their culture is assimilated unique knowledge is being lost. In North Carolina continuing cultural practices such as weaving can help tell the story of the Jarai, Bunong, Koho, Bahnar, Rhade and other Central Highland tribes.
As more immigrants and refugees come to the Piedmont region, they bring their rich traditions and skills. Some South Asian and Southeast Asian women (Bhutanese, Nepali, Burmese, Karen, etc.) who arrived here practice backstrap weaving. The same technique is also known in Central and South America. Thus we can see backstrap weaving as a kind of international language, a set of similar ideas and practices that unite newcomers in the Piedmont.
Textile Documentation and LiteracyI have been documenting the textiles of Montagnard weavers who continue to weave here in North Carolina and to interview women who weave or who did weave in Vietnam. Funding is being sought to turn this into longer-term projects to accomplish the following: first, to show how traditional weaving was and is still practiced by Montagnards; second, to use textiles as a vehicle for encouraging more refugees to gather in social settings to converse in English; third, to form partnerships or bridges between Montagnards and Americans not only to share ideas about art and textiles but for refugees to feel a part of the mainstream community; and fourth, to help push along the idea of Montagnards starting small businesses.
A few of my students at MDA know English well enough to act as interpreters or informants and have been extremely beneficial to my progress in finding and interviewing weavers that have limited English skills. A Koho woman that I am teaching has acted as an interpreter for this project. She never learned how to weave because of the constant resettlement of Montagnard villages during the Vietnam war era and then her ultimate flight from Vietnam. Like many women who have full-time jobs she does not have the time or knowledge to weave but would like to be able fill in the blanks with regard to understanding the craft of spinning, dying, and weaving and to pass some of this knowledge on to her young daughter. I help my interpreter with her reading and writing skills and she helps me interview the weavers.
In October (2009) I attended the Community Folklife Documentation Institute, which is offered through a consortium that includes the N.C. Folklife Institute, the N.C. Arts Council, the N.C. Humanities Council, (and the National Endowment for the Arts) and was held at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. I received training on digital audio and video equipment and had an opportunity to interact with folklorists and documentarians.
I continue to photograph and video record weavers as they are interviewed working at their looms and telling us their stories. I will also continue to help Montagnard weavers bring their textiles to local markets and fairs to promote them as the skilled crafts people that they are.
—Betsy Renfrew
