Decoding Women's Narratives of Gender and Creativity in 19th-20th century Beadwork of Saurashtra
Abstract
During the 19th-20th century, Venetian glass beads from Murano travelled a long way via Africa and changed multiple hands before they finally reached Kathi women in Saurashtra, Gujarat. These women used the beads to create trousseau textiles, generating the unique textile tradition of Kathiawar (Saurashtra) beadwork. As a researcher trained in textile design and belonging to the Kathi community, I use my great-grandmother, Jadiba's beaded bag, inherited as part of my trousseau, as an entry point into her mind, creativity, and use of mathematics at the turn of the last century. I explore the importance of weddings, devotional themes, and motifs in beadwork through the work of Geetaben, an artist who like Jadiba is from Bhavnagar district in Saurashtra. I also delve into the emotional value these beadworks hold in the life of Kathi women through Manuba's story knitted together bead by bead. Due to lack of appreciation for old Kathi beadworks, they are disintegrating from age and neglect or have been sold to support families. By exploring stories of three women beadwork artists and analysing beadworks displayed in museums (local and global) as well as antique dealer shops, I make a case for “folk or vernacular” knowledge and creativity embodied in the object.
સાર
19મી – 20મી સદી દરમ્યાન ઇટાલી સ્તિથ મુરાનોના વેનેશિયન કાછ ના કીડિયા મોતી, ઘણા આફ્રિકન દેશો મા આદાન-પ્રદાન માંથી પસાર થઇને, લાંબી મુસાફરી કરતા કરતા છેવટે, ગુજરાતના સૌરાષ્ટ્ર વિસ્તારમા કાઠી નારીઓ સુધી પહોંચીયા. આ લોકનારિયો-એ કિડિયા મોતી માંથી લગ્ન ના કરીયાવરની વસ્તુઓ અને ઘર ના શ્રુંગાર ની વસ્તુ બનાવી, જેમાથી કાઠિયાવાડ ની અનોખી મોતીભરત ની પરમપરાએ આગવી ઓળખ ઉભી થઇ. હું પણ સૌરાષ્ટ્ર વતન ના કાઠિયાવાડની અને ટેક્સટાઇલ ડિઝાઇન માં પ્રશિક્ષણ લિધા પછી લગ્ન ના કરીયાવરમા મને મારી પરદાદી જડીબા તરફ થી મોતીભરતની બચકડી વારસામા મળી જેને જોતા ખુબજ આશ્ચર્ય થયુ. એક સંશોધક તરીકે હું 20મી સદીની જડીબાની બચકડી દ્વારા તેમના મન ની વિચારશક્તિ, સર્જનાત્મકતા અને ગણિતિક જ્ઞાન મા પ્રવેશ કરુ છુ. સૌરાષ્ટ્ર મા ભાવનગર જીલ્લાના જડીબા ની જેમ, કલાકાર ગીતાબેન ના ભરતકામ દ્વારા હું લગ્ન સંસ્કૃતિ, ભક્તિ ગાથા અને મોતી ભરત ની વિવિધ ભાતોને મહત્વ આપુ છુ. મનુબા ના જીવન ની એક એક મોતી પોરવતી કથા દ્વારા મોતીભરત ની કલા, કાઠી લોક નારિયોના જીવન માં જે ભાવનાત્મક મુળ સંકળાયેલા છે તેનો અભ્યાસ કરું છું. જુના કાઠી મોતીભરત ની કદર ન હોવા ને કારણે, તે નિષ્પ્રાય અને અવગણનાથી વિગઠિત થઈ રહી છે અથવા પરિવારોની આર્થિક પરિસ્થિતી ને સહાય કરવામા નાજીવી કિંમતે વેચાય રહી છે. ત્રણ મહિલા મોતીભરત કલાકારો ની વાતો નુ અન્વેષણ કરીને અને સંગ્રહાલય (સ્થાનિક અને વૈશ્વિક) તેમજ અલભ્ય પ્રાચીન કલાવશેષ ની દુકાનોમા પ્રદર્શિત મોતીભરત નુ ઉંડાણમા વિશલેષણ કરીને, હુ “તળપદિ અથવા સ્થાનિક” જ્ઞાન અને કલાને મૂર્ત સ્વરુપ આપતી સર્જનાત્મકતા નો પુરાવા સાથે અભ્યાસ કરવા માગુ છુ.
Citation: Bhatt, Medha. “Decoding Women's Narratives of Gender and Creativity in 19th-20th century Beadwork of Saurashtra” The Jugaad Project, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2024, www.thejugaadproject.pub/beadwork-saurashtra [date of access]
Introduction
Women in Kathiawar (the core region of Saurashtra), Gujarat, create art not just as a pictorial representation of an emotion or a momentary experience but as a narrative that unravels the entire rhythm of their lives. Through her inherited folk traditions, an accomplished artist gives life to inanimate threads and beads, transforming them into textiles of dynamic beauty. The narrative art of beadwork is inseparable from the producer's life, and Kathiawar beadwork assimilates within it the folk spirit through nature- and divinity- inspired themes (Parmar 1999).
As I am a researcher trained in textile design and a woman belonging to the Kathi community, my connection with, and the imagination of, both the making process and the maker is oriented in a specific way. The beadworks I see in private and public collections seem to radiate a gendered, folk aesthetic of femininity as restraint, composure, and grace. But this effect also hides the immense skill and aptitude required to realise such forms. Through a beaded bag made by my maternal great-grandmother, Jadiba, inherited as part of my wedding trousseau, I attempt to enter the creative minds of 'unschooled' beadworkers of Saurashtra. Via the case studies of my great-grandmother as well as two other women beadwork artists belonging to traditional communities, I imagine a folk ethos of a century ago to propose that these makers were equipped with shared skills of perception, artistic pursuit, a sophisticated sense of mathematics, and a deep awareness of environment and society.
The circulation of things anchors the argument that commodities, like persons, have social lives (Appadurai 1986, 3). Beads, a commodity of economic value, were once the currency of a pre-modern commercial exchange that reached the shores of Kathiawar (Bhatt 2016). These beads, when knitted together with socio-cultural narratives by Kathi women, transformed into textiles of symbolic value defining community identity. Value is never simply an inherent property of the objects, but is a judgement made about them by subjects (Simmel 1978, 73).
The subjective dimensions of these beadwork textiles hold significance because of my focus on human agency in producing community identity. My belonging to Kathiawar, along with my keen interest in ethnography and material culture of this region, has strengthened my role as a participant-observer in dialogue with innumerable voices and points of view. Many scholars nowadays think that the goal of scholarship is not to produce authoritarian theoretical statements but rather to observe and capture the flow of vernacular discourse and reflect on it (Bowman and Valk 2012, 2). The reflection on vernacular discourse in the daily life of Kathi culture can be coined as “folk-life.” To understand the term “folk”, I affirm the emphasis on vernacular religion as the need to study the subjective and experiential aspects of religion as it is lived, that is, “as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practise it” (Primiano 1995, 44). Thus, I interpret folk culture as a religion of everyday life with its emphasis on the articulation of worldviews and negotiation with lifeworlds revealed and expressed in narratives, material culture, and actions of different kinds (Bowman and Valk 2012, 5).
Situating beadwork within the folk culture and religion of Saurashtra
Folk or vernacular art is situated in a socio-cultural and emotional terrain. The folk culture of Saurashtra is a fusion of many cultures merging over centuries within an arid landscape, producing exquisite craftsmanship. These folk cultures are rich in textiles and bear deep literary traditions from stories of Gods and Goddesses to elements of nature. While beadwork of a kind continues to be done by women of various castes in Saurashtra, I focus on one specific type of beadwork and through it one community, the Manbhatt, a community of Brahmin priests who tell stories called the akhayanas (Sanskrit tale or ballad) drawn from the Puranas, meaning ancient or old (Parmar 1999). The Puranas are an encyclopaedia of Hindu literature, composed originally in Sanskrit and known for intricate layers of symbolism. Manbhatts played an integral role in the religious lives of folk people, wandering from village to village, and enlightening communities. Today, this once extremely popular artform of storytelling is nearly extinct (ibid). In the 18th century, many Manbhatts enriched and carried forward the literary tradition of Saurashtra through the spread of Puranic legends and folklore in the absence of a modern educational and communication system. The prose and poetry they created found expression in the narrative art of beadwork.
In addition to its spiritual role, beadwork served a more secular purpose by advertising the owner's prosperity, social status and group affiliation. Ownership of beads and beadwork affirmed a level of socio-economic success beyond the reach of those who laboured and lacked both money and time to do such work. Common traits of sensitivity, imagination and self-motivation can be seen across beadwork and other folk art forms such as embroidery with the urge for beautification extended to women’s hearths and homes, and the making and display of embellished textiles during festivals. Textiles made visible important relationships with humans as well as livestock and indicated how art permeated every aspect of women's lives. Thus, the beadwork narratives are studied here as social and symbolic statements, building up personal and collective identities, and acquiring personal and collective meanings as they illustrate and address women’s lives.
Various communities living in Saurashtra such as Kathi, Kanbi, and Mahajan share a common dowry tradition. In addition to jewellery and household items, the young bride brings with her a pataro (wooden chest) full of richly embroidered and embellished textiles that she and her family have worked on since childhood. In effect, the bride makes and brings her wealth with her through the dowry consisting of bridal accessories, furnishings for her new home, and animal trappings for the bullock carts transporting her wedding procession.
As explored in the next section, beads were exotic in their origin, but the socio-cultural context was familiar. With ease and rapidity beadwork became an integral part of every Kathiawari home, outstripping embroidery and pushing it into a subsidiary position (Nanavati, Vora and Dhaky 1966, 67). In the relative freedom of their homes, women and girls experimented with the possibilities of beads and innovation came to the forefront as they produced new motifs based on their daily life.
A brief history of Saurashtra beadwork from 18th-20th century
The beadwork of Saurashtra is known as Moti bharat, meaning “filling-up with beads”, where beads one-sixteenth of an inch are threaded or knitted together. These seed beads are known as Kidiya moti, meaning ant-like beads. Their unison follows a sophisticated tri-bead system with three beads in every stitch unlike the mono-bead system seen in other continents such as Africa, North and South America.
Figure 1: Image of sample book of Venetian beads. Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, UK. 2012. Image by author.
Between 1853 and 1866 CE, over 90% of bead imports into British India were from English manufacturers or, more likely, obtained from Holland, Germany or Venice. A part of European beads shipped to India was used in the beadwork of Gujarat, Rajasthan and the Deccan Plateau (Morell 1995). Over 85% of beads imported by India during this period were consumed domestically (Cheah 2003, 29). By 1880, 1.8 million pounds of glass beads had arrived from Venice (Francis 1982, 6). Ports on the Western coast of Gujarat received numerous shipments which apparently spurred the production of artefacts solely worked in glass beads (Nanavati, Vora, and Dhaky 1966, 65).
Ethnographic surveys and visual documentation projects were sanctioned by the then British Government in India from the 18th to the early 20th centuries in an effort to maintain records of the culture, lifestyle, attire and religious customs of the people. But writings on Indian textiles such as John Forbes Watson’s (1858) often missed the connections between artforms, for instance, embroidery and folklore. In the early 20th century, during the Indian freedom struggle movement, a few native scholars and writers such as Zaverchand Meghani (1896-1947 CE) realised the true value of folk textiles, collecting and documenting these textiles while wandering through the villages.
A few museums founded during the time of Indian Independence in Rajkot and Junagadh cities housed exquisite examples of Saurashtra beadwork and embroidery. In 1957, an exhibition displaying a large collection of rare and exquisite textiles of Saurashtra was curated in Bhavnagar (my birthplace) to rekindle the spirit of art in the villages, stricken by poverty after Independence. This curated exhibition took the form of a monograph published in 1966 (Nanavati, Vora and Dhaky), one of the most comprehensive records of the historical, anthropological and scientific aspects of embroidery and beadwork of Kachchh and Saurashtra.
Historical events such as famines and wars influenced beadwork. Famines in 1900, 1922 and 1940 forced a large number of Kathi to sell their embroideries and beadwork textiles to creditors and village merchants (ibid) with falling standards of imported Italian beads during World War I and the complete decline of the craft by World War II.1 Thus, the making of large, expensive, elaborate and time-consuming articles ended, taking with it a plethora of intricate and skilfully knitted motifs as well as the spirit of inventiveness embodied in the pieces.
Mathematical computation in Saurashtra beadwork
The fundamental technique of knitting in beadwork is simple and yet its execution requires basics of mathematical principles of multiplication, geometry, symmetry and above all human ingenuity teemed with patience, alertness and care on the part of the woman artist.
Figure 2: The mono-bead system of beadwork. 2017. Image by author.
In practice, two techniques are employed in beadwork, viz. Mono-bead (ekamoti-nu-gunthan) and tri-bead (tran moti-no thasiyo) (Nanavati, Vora and Dhaky 1966, 76). In the mono-bead system (Figure 2), beads are closely set in one row after another in an arrangement that is also carefully placed one above the other as in the construction of a wall. The patterns are worked using coloured beads against the background of white beads.
Figure 3: The tri-bead system in beadwork. 2017. Image by author.
The tri-bead system is similar to the cross stitch in embroidery.
“In the first round of the needle, three beads are taken at a time, and as the knitting progresses, the third bead is thrown up. On the return round, the same process is repeated, shifting, however, by one position so that the beads appear as if placed in oblique rows. During each round thus, two rows of beads are simultaneously worked out. The third round when completed gives an interesting result. The upper row of the third one obtained by the upthrowing of the third bead above completes a horizontal series of rhombi in conjunction with the four rows of beads already worked during two previous rounds.” (Nanavati, Vora, and Dhaky 1966, 76-77).
Thus, a diagonal network results in the end. In comparison to the tri-bead system, the mono-bead system seems unimaginative and dry. It lacks the “net-like effect” of the tri-bead system where each figurative motif seems to be integrated into the dynamic surface of the beaded net.
The rhombus is the basic unit or the building block of beadwork in the tri-bead system. A desired figurative motif emerges with skilful manipulation of positions of the coloured beads along the cleavage lines of the rhombi. The beads follow the angular lines of the rhombus, due to which sharp curvatures cannot be produced. Thus, a figurative, animate or geometric motif consists of structural chains of intersecting rhombi.
The technique of the tri-bead system is difficult to explain through words and requires cognitive and embodied knowledge to execute. It ignites curiosity as a “technology of enchantment” (Gell 1996, 44) that traps us, encouraging us to probe into the mathematical skills that the makers, probably unschooled women, used in conceiving and translating tangible/intangible elements of daily life in these chains of intersecting rhombi. This probe requires us to delve deeper into the lives and minds of the women makers. To appreciate the art of a particular period we should try to recapture the 'way of seeing' that the artists of the period implicitly assumed their public would bring to their work. The anthropology of art has a similar objective, that is the 'way of seeing' of a cultural system rather than a historical period which has to be elucidated (Gell 1996, 2). I use my great-grandmother's beaded bag, inherited as part of my trousseau, as a way to see through her eyes, followed by other examples of beadwork artists living in Bhavnagar district, Saurashtra, and piece together how songs, stories, religion and emotions may have played a role in their beadwork.
Jadiba (1895–1981 CE), Trapaj village, Bhavnagar district
Figure 4: Jadiba in a photograph from 1958 (detail from a photo by Shri Natwarlal Pandya). Image courtesy of the author.
Jadiba, my great-grandmother, was born in 1895 in the village of Trapaj in Bhavnagar, Saurashtra. I cherish a vague memory of her at the age of four as she prayed with her beads, in the white sari and shaved head of a widow, sitting on a worn-out jute mat. I piece together her story based on the narratives of her grand-daughter (my mother) and her beaded wedding bag that I inherited as part of my dowry textiles.
Jadiba belonged to the Sihora group of the Audichya Brahmin caste that arrived in Gujarat in the 10th century on the invitation of the Solanki kings. In the 19th century, most Audichya Brahmins were priests who lived on alms. She was the eldest of three children, had two brothers, and studied in school till the age of eight. Her childhood was filled with hardship and deprivation, wherein her father walked door to door asking for alms. These experiences probably imbued qualities of empathy and generosity in her, and her simplicity was evident in her frugal wardrobe of muted colours, as well as a tolerant, undemanding attitude with family members.
As a young girl, Jadiba cultivated an interest in religious scriptures and Puranic stories and spent much of her later life reading and narrating words of wisdom to her grandchildren about living a righteous life. A large part of religious text and popular literature was devoted to norms of ideal conduct and behaviour for a woman before and after marriage based on model codes of Hinduism, and femininity was embedded in female purity and chastity. Another virtue was the woman's adherence to duty including gendered labour and practices.
In 1907, Jadiba was married at the age of 12. By raising the age of consent from ten to twelve years in British India, British colonial authorities appeared to be taking action against child marriage when, in reality, they did very little to protect young girls. While avoiding interfering in Hindu family and religious principles, they were forced to act because of the British public's anger over issues such as child marriage and sati (ritual immolation of the widows). Similarly, native elites had much to gain by retaining control over women's sexuality and property. Against this wider socio-political backdrop, Jadiba became the second wife of my great-grandfather, who was twenty-two years elder to her. When he passed, she was sixty-five years old and in keeping with the prevailing custom, Jadiba shaved her head and wore a plain white sari for the rest of her life. Trained in domestic chores from a very young age, Jadiba washed her own clothes and vessels as part of her duties as a widow till she passed away. With the belief that Hinduism required ascetic widowhood, Jadiba regularly called the barber home to shave her head for nearly two decades of her widowhood, living till the ripe age of eighty-seven. A widow's life was to be focussed on the spiritual realm where she could worship her dead husband's memory and devote her life to an ascetic existence that conveniently rejected material comforts (Chitnis and Wright 2007, 1336).
Figure 5: Jadiba's marital home where she resided after 1907. Her grand-daughter, Bhavna Bhatt, my mother stands in front, Sihor, Bhavnagar; 2020. Photo by author.
Considering the precarious financial condition of Jadiba's family, I speculate that she must have created a wedding trousseau that was limited to a small collection of textiles. From this point on, I take the liberty to speculate based on historical facts. I imagine how she made her frugal trousseau by buying a handful of glass beads from a local trader in the market of Trapaj village, asking for seven colours of beads of one tola (10g) each and white beads a little more than one tola, to create her beaded bag. She would have tucked this beaded bag carrying a betelnut and a nutcracker, in her skirt's waistband at the time of her wedding.
Figure 6: Jadiba's beaded bag, probably knitted in 1906-07. Dimensions 22.5cm x 8cm. Photo by author.
Jadiba's beaded bag consists of a very unique colour palette of Venetian seed beads, unseen in later examples of Kathiawari beadwork. Sage green, dusty pink, pale yellow, mustard yellow, cobalt blue, red, bottle green and white. Literary sources indicate an increase in the import of Venetian beads in British India due to the growth in Gujarat's domestic demand. Ghogha port, 45km from Trapaj village, was an important coastal trading town from where the beads travelled into interior villages in Saurashtra.
Jadiba had a distinctively simple style and a structured composition with an essence of mischief. The beaded bag has trelliswork with each row of diamond-shaped motifs in colours of sage green, dusty pink, mustard yellow, cobalt blue, red and bottle green lined by a network of white beads. The trelliswork is bound by linear rows of mustard, red and bottle green beads in a tri-bead system. As a young girl, Jadiba must have had a playfulness apparent in bunches of beaded loops stitched at the lower edge of the beaded bag and three bunches of beaded loops stitched in the centre of the trelliswork. The beaded loops enhance the beauty of the bag due to their whimsy in stringing one white and one coloured bead alternatively. Geometric motifs in Kathi work are subsidiary, furnishing peripheral embellishment to a central pictorial theme. Very rarely do they take an unchallenged dominance as seen in Jadiba's beaded bag.
Jadiba carried this wedding trousseau along with her dowry textiles in her marriage procession of bullock carts, 45km to the small historical town of Sihor. She entered widowhood at the age of sixty-five and lived a life of very few possessions. She gifted this beaded bag, the only remnant of her dowry textiles, to her grand-daughter, the closest companion in her old age, my mother Bhavna Bhatt, from whom I later inherited it as part of my dowry.
Geetaben (b.1965 CE), Tana village, Bhavnagar district
Figure 7: Geetaben holding her beadworked vinjhano or hand fan. Motasurka village, Bhavnagar district Gujarat. 2020. Photo by author.
Geetaben is fifty-seven years old and lives in the village of Motasurka in Bhavnagar district, Gujarat. She belongs to the Lewa Kanbi community who distinguished themselves as Kanbi Patels by continuing their traditional occupation of agriculturists; they own a vast orchard of lemon trees. She was born in 1965 in the village of Tana and studied in school till the age of thirteen. She lived in a large joint family where the elderly women were too busy with household chores and farming activities to teach their daughters beadwork. After daily household chores, Geetaben spent leisurely afternoons watching her elder cousin create her beadwork dowries. She began learning beadwork at the age of fifteen, copying beadwork motifs from her sister's dowry collection, counting and following the motifs created in the tri-bead system.
While Geetaben's determination to learn is commendable, what is apparent from this example is that by the latter half of the 20th century, the process of conceiving and representing local imagery in sophisticated, original beadwork motifs was lost. In the actual practice, beadwork exists in its barest form through the making of dowry textile accessories for personal use or, in its commodified form as bags, slippers etc. in stores. The last few decades have seen the increasing use of plastic beads with standardisation of motifs and styles, and the pervasive use of the mono-bead style instead of the tri-bead.
Figure 8: Raas-lila motif depicting Krishna and Radha, embroidered by Geetaben on her wedding chandarvo in the year 1980. Photo by author. 2020.
As beadwork is a textile technique practised along with traditional embroidery traditions of Saurashtra to make dowry textiles, drawing parallels and analysing interactions between the two artistic traditions is necessary. Geetaben embroidered many motifs of Gods and Goddesses in colourful satin stitches in chandarvo to drape over the sanctified space of her wedding rituals (Figure 8). It features the elephant-headed deity Ganesha, the Goddess of wealth, Laxmi and Lord Krishna as a child, along with horses, lions, peacocks and deer. Traditionally, in an oblong Kathi room these motifs feature in long scroll-like pachhitpattis, outstanding narrative beadworks, displayed above the wooden shelf and just below the point where the sloping timber begins and along the upper part of the longer wall (Nanavati, Vora and Dhaky 1966, 82).
Figure 9: Section of a pachhitpatti that begins with the wedding ritual followed by invoking the Goddess Randalma as part of the celebrations. Barton Museum, Bhavnagar. 2012. Photo by author.
The pachhitpattis of the 19th century drew inspiration from Puranic legends. Pachhitpattis in beadwork portrayed scenes from the Ramayana depicting Ram, and his brother Laxman pursuing the golden deer with bow and arrow and Ram's wife Sita sitting in a hut, offering alms to King Ravana before being abducted. They also portrayed characters from the Bhagavata Purana such as Shrinathji (a form of Krishna worshipped by the Vallabha Sampradaya sect in Rajasthan), Radha and Krishna in raas-lila dance, and milkmaids churning butter. The unschooled women of Saurashtra practised an exquisite art of storytelling by recording wedding scenes (Figure 9) in narrative form on pachhitpattis. The narrative of this piece in the Barton Museum, Bhavnagar, begins with defining the sanctified wedding space - two columns of pots stacked one on top of the other on either side of the bride and bridegroom, standing on two small stools. The clan Goddess Randalma is always illustrated adjacent to the wedding scene and is invoked during auspicious occasions of wedding and pregnancy, as she is regarded as the bridegroom-giver, bride-giver and son-giver deity. (Each time a wedding takes place, the Goddess is invoked in the house with a makeshift temple.) The motif of Randalma in the Barton Museum beadwork can be identified with a series of women standing on either side of the Goddess, hands held together, singing and dancing. The songs sung by elderly women at a wedding are expressions of young girls' desires to get married and bear children. The vigorous clapping and dancing are to please the Goddess to grant their innermost wishes. After the rituals, the wedding procession in the beadwork travels in a two storeyed tram car, illustrated in exquisite beadwork, to the village of the clan God of the bridegroom where the marital ritual knot between the bride and bridegroom's clothing is untied.
Figure 10: A section of the pachhitpatti showing Lord Krishna playing the raas-lila with two gopis on either side. Saurashtra Handicrafts, Ahmedabad. 2018. Photo by author.
The raas-lila is an important motif frequently illustrated in pachhitpattis. The songs of raas-lila dance were based on the love of Radha and Krishna, and stories of devotional love (bhakti). Today's dance form of the dandiya-raas, played with wooden sticks, is a modern expression of this ancient folk dance tradition. Lord Krishna is usually depicted in blue beads with two gopis (milkmaids) on either side with sticks in hand enacting the raas dance posture (Figure 10) or Radha in some of the oldest examples bearing influences from embroidery motifs rooted in Puranic stories. The typical scene of daily life of Krishna's gopis is associated with the 'churning of butter motif.'
Geetaben tied her wedding knot at the age of seventeen, and her dowry textiles included the richly embroidered chandarvo and vinjhano.
Manuba, Meghpar village, Rajkot district
Figure 11: Manuba, Pacchegam village, Bhavnagar district, Gujarat. 2020. Photo by author.
Manuba does not know her age. I presume she is approximately eighty years old and lives in the village of Pacchegam in Bhavnagar district. She belongs to the ancient Kathi Darbar community well-known for its exquisite beadwork. She grew up in the village of Meghpar in Rajkot district. Being an extremely conservative community, Kathi girls were not allowed to go to school. As a young girl, she spent time collecting cow dung to make cakes with her bare hands which was later used as fuel in hearths for cooking. Manuba and her friend learnt beadwork from her mother. Every Kathi Darbar household stored and conserved a rich collection of embroidered and beadwork textiles. Manuba's dowry collection consisted of bridal accessories and a pachhitpatti.
The distinguishing feature of Kathi beadwork is its predominantly figurative character and depiction of local visual stimuli in the form of sportive birds, beasts of burden, and the felicitously colourful trees intercepted with human figures. Horses, bullocks and weapons are important aspects of the Kathi culture along with beadwork. Safeguarding and courage are cornerstones of the Kathi Rajput community, found in the form of engraved stone relics called paliyas worshipped in the outskirts of villages across Saurashtra. These epigraphic stones were dedicated to warriors, sailors, sati, animals, and associated with folklore. The warrior memorial stone depicts the warrior mounted on a variety of transport such as horses, camels, elephants and chariots. Memorials with figures of cows were installed on communal pastures to mark boundaries between villages. The deep relationship that the Kathi Darbar community bears with their cattle is evident in Manuba's words when she says, “sending a bullock away in times of poverty is like parting from a bride, a moment of sorrow and heartbreak.”2
Figure 12: A section of the pachhitpatti showing a horse chariot, a herd of cows along with their calves and flocks of birds scattered around the tree motif. Saurashtra Handicrafts, Ahmedabad. Photo by author.
Folk songs are repositories and knowledge archives that form the backbone of the narratives illustrated in beadwork. Zaverchand Meghani (1896-1947 CE) a noted poet, writer, social reformer and freedom fighter from Gujarat collected numerous folk songs based on the lives of married women, kinship, romance, objects, seasons and events of daily lives from the villages of Saurashtra. His documentation of folk songs compiled in a book called “Radhiyali Raat” (The Night of the Full Moon) published in 1925 describes the oppression women bore in a patriarchal society, resulting in submissive self-sacrifice of their own rights. Kathi Darbar women were never allowed to leave their homes alone. Manuba could visit her maternal home once in six or twelve years only if she could send a letter written with the help of a family member, requesting to be escorted to her home.
These emotions and feelings of sadness, anxiety, insecurities and resilient faith find deep reflections in the narratives of 20ft long pachhitpattis. One exquisite pachhitpatti that I read about in the monograph Gujaratni Motini Gunthankala “Beadwork Art of Gujarat” (1967, 19) describes a significant moment in a woman's life. It shows a chariot moving amidst a landscape of plants and bushes with flowers scattered on the white beaded ground. A man proudly steers the chariot forward while leisurely smoking a hookah, symbolising prestige. A newly wedded bride is seen sitting in the chariot. Her best friend is seen sitting adjacent to the bride with her hand raised, trying to console and comfort her. This specific narrative in beadwork captures a profound and potent moment of separation in a woman’s life from her maternal home and is knitted and cherished in beads. Simultaneously, the happy moments of wedding rituals and milestones of child-rearing are depicted through a cradle and also form a significant part of these long narratives.
Manuba has lost all her beadwork textiles. Many Kathi widows sold their priceless beadwork art for small sums to survive through their many days of restrictive widowhood. Today, the only memory of her maternal home is the name of her closest friend, tattooed on her forearm when she was young, along with whom she learnt beadwork.
Conclusion: The importance of beadwork as a narrative art form
The folk culture and traditions of Kathiawar are vanishing. Initially fuelled by impoverished families seeking to sell their textiles, the active collection of beadwork textiles from small towns and villages in Saurashtra over the 20th century has meant that these exquisite beadworks are scattered in palaces, museums, craft revival organisations and national and international private collections. Traces remain in books, songs and stories written and documented by folk artists, art lovers, storytellers, historians and writers of 20th century Kathiawar.
By exploring the stories of three disparate women beadworkers in the villages of Saurashtra, and analysing beadworks displayed in local and global museums as well as antique shops, I have attempted to decode how social imagery and aesthetics were integrated with the beaded object's narrative. This article also makes a case for different types of “folk” or vernacular knowledge and creativity embodied in the object with an emphasis on religious beliefs and stories. In exploring the expression of women in these narratives, it has been important to avoid regarding any one social, economic, cultural or geographic context as normative.
Kathi women of the 19th-20th century who lived in patriarchal village society indicated their sociality, agency and desire through beadwork textiles. Seeing the world through the eyes of these women, studying the songs they sang and the imagery they knitted in beads helps us rebuild a century-old world with all its vernacular complexity. This article reflects upon the meanings and power of personal creativity, and beliefs expressed in local and social contexts while asserting the joys and challenges these 'unschooled' Kathi women encountered. They interpreted the scriptures from their cultural viewpoint, accommodating them to prevailing conditions. Furthermore, the women not only translated and interpreted rituals and customs but created and maintained knowledge, as an embodiment of important stories, events, and emotions, through their beadwork.
Acknowledgments
I thank my mother, Bhavna Bhatt, for carrying forward the legacy of my great-grandmother, Jadiba, in the form of cultural values and by preserving her beadwork. My late Uncle Shri Natwarlal Pandya shared his collection of photographs and anecdotes of Jadiba’s life and my Uncle Shri Pradeep Pandya organised trips to villages and aided with fieldwork, for which I am immensely grateful. I also thank Errol Pires Nelson for gifting me many beadwork artifacts through the years and fueling my interest in this topic. Finally, I am grateful to Emily Levick for the editing and formatting of this article, and Urmila Mohan for innumerable conversations at the intersection of anthropology, linguistics, and material culture.
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Endnotes
1 This article looks at a specific form of the craft as one made by women for their own use. It does not delve into the commodification of this form or recent craft renewal attempts.
2 Translated by the author from a 2020 interview in Kathiawari to English.
