Weaving a Kotpad Sari

The natural process of Kotpad weaving is anchored in its tedious and painstaking yarn and dye preparation.

Washed hanks of yarn hang out to dry in the open spaces alongside the weaver’s home.

The yarn is stretched and then wound onto a wooden frame called bharani. The warping board is called pawan by the weavers. It keeps the tension of the yarn uniform.

Most of the pre-weaving activities happen in the open air in courtyards outside the weaver's home.

The weaver prepares the warp yarns so that they can go through the reed.

The weaver attaches the ends of the yarn to the rod that fits on the loom. Ash is used to fuse the ends of the yarn.

The hollow bamboo stick separates the warp threads to keep them even and avoid inter-tangling during weaving. The stick is called purni.

Fine and experienced fingerwork is needed for some of the processes of weaving a Kotpad textile.

Life’s many activities are interspersed with the weaving process, as different family members go about the necessary tasks of the day,

Loose yarn is rolled onto a long stick which is stored upright against the wall till it is ready to be put on the loom.

The weaver’s belongings are kept on a couple of shelves. Crockery, grain, an old shoe box and an almost vintage model television reveal the pattern of his life during his leisure hours.

Using locally available and locally processed yarns, the entire chain of production continues to be carried out in the traditional tribal way.

Women work on winding the yarn around the bharani to transfer it onto another implement.

The yarn wound around the bharani is transferred onto this stick with a thick ringed end called tossar. The yarn from here will be later transferred onto shuttles.

The lady in the weaver’s family joins a broken thread from the tossar.

Yarn is wound onto a stick to be dyed or wrapped onto bobbins later.

The interior of the homes of most tribal communities are simple and unpretentious, and it is hard to imagine that such unique handloom skills have been produced in amongst such casual simplicity for centuries.

The carved pole is called a Mahadev Khoota, and serves the purpose of steadying the stretch of warp to maintain an even tension.

All pitlooms have a Mahadev Khoota at the end opposite the weaver to steady the warp.

Simple mechanisms pull the shuttle on a pit loom in a weaver’s home in Kotpad.

The warp is stretched tightly across the loom. It is organic handspun cotton dyed red with the colour from the root of an aal (Morinda citrifolia) tree.

The selvedge is dyed in red or black or brown and joined to the main body of the warp.

Detail of warp yarn passing through the shaft in Kotpad textile weaving.

Govardhan Panika, a master weaver, works on his loom.

Govind Panika and his wife work on the spinning and weaving activities together.

The master weaver examines the black thread he will intersperse in the weft to provide the motifs.

Kotpad textiles are woven by the Mirgan community who are tribals spread over certain areas of Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

Most tribal communities in India weave their own distinctive textiles through which they state their identity.

Dyeing and weaving work go together and have to be coordinated with the season. The monsoon brings heavy rains, during which time there is a pause in their work for six to eight weeks.

The traditional rhythm is to follow the changes in seasons and plan their production accordingly.

There is never much light in their tiny huts. The window lets in just enough sunlight to shine on his area of work on the loom. A larger window would let in more heat and rain.

A pit loom requires a weaver to sit at floor level with his feet dangling into a pit dug in the cool mud flooring.

Most such homes are simple and very modest. Rooms are for specific basic purposes like cooking, weaving or sleeping. The rest of their activities are usually conducted outside.

The table fan and electric light are probably the only modern amenities available in Govardhan Panika’s home. The pit loom on the middle of the floor is central to his livelihood.

In the Kotpad area of Odisha, handloom weavers are identified by the name Panika.

Here, Govardhan Panika works on his loom inside his home.

Dye stuffs are best processed after the monsoons when the air is not moist with humidity.

The colour will take firmly to the fabric or yarn, and dry satisfactorily in the bright sun.

As Panika weaves, the sari appears, inch by inch from the pit loom in his home.

The wooden shuttle is inserted into the weft and provides the patterns woven into the body of the textile.

Often a smaller spindle is used to insert the prominent designs in the weft.

A small shuttle is inserted through the warp to create the weft designs.

The weaver has to deftly manipulate the shuttle between a particular number of warp threads.

Inserting designs into the warp with a contrast colour yarn through a shuttle, enables the weaver to create an embossed effect resembling embroidery.

Detail of a Kotpad textile on the warp beam still on the loom.

An elder weaver settles the warp yarn before he continues to weave.

Fabrics are traditionally woven in thick hand spun cotton yarn of counts of 10s or 20s.

Most lengths and specifications are measured perfectly by portions of the Kotpad weaver’s fingers, the length of a palm and other sections of the arm from fingertips to shoulder.

The weaving techniques can create an embroidery-like pattern on the fabric.

Read more about Kotpad textiles here:

- Environment
- Dyeing Process