For more than ten years the ethnologist Marion Wettstein systematically researched their design, production technique, meaning and contemporary transposition into fashion.
Over 60 colour sketches and 180 watercolours on the morphology of the patterns serve – for the purpose of visual argumentation – as a basis for her research. Hence her work also reads as a plea for the ethnographic drawing as a scientific mode of practice.
The examination of craft techniques and position within north-east India’s history, through colonialism and the armed struggle for independence, is followed by an analysis of the textiles’ patterns as objects laden with meaning of a complex system of status and social structure. The question of how far constructs – the result of colonial and scientific intervention – also play a role is never far away. An examination of the local fashion scene, in which the fascinating effect of the fabric today comes once again into its own, rounds off the study.

The first comprehensive monograph on the textiles of the Naga dedicates itself to their historical setting as well as the decryption of the cultural signifi cance of their patterns.
Also impressive on an aesthetic level, the large-format reproduced drawings and watercolours serve the author as a fundamental tool for her ethnological research.

As the notion textile can contain the whole world of flexible material, zooming in on the makers, this book studies the visual design, the technical production and the cultural and social meanings of the Nagas. Textile as a language of the inhabitants of Nagaland, situated overlapping borders between China and Burma. Photographing on her travels, the author takes a stand on the visual anthropology, starting the book with this interesting insight. Describing the Naga textile on patterns, colours, figures and abstract designing components, the techniques and skills are taken stock from fibre to yarn, from dyeing, spinning and weaving to the meaning of the different cloth designs. With maps, songs, drawings and photos the book ends with texts and photos of the garments and what people do with textiles and textiles do to people.

Great study and good to be studied by students to learn that even simple lines have a meaning and good to read the history and future of the Nagas.
Angela van der Burght