MARKET EFFECTS ON THE
DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF CARPETS IN THE MILAS REGION OF SOUTHWESTERN TURKEY,
1963-1993
CHARLOTTE A. JIROUSEK
Department of Textiles
and Apparel, 208 MVR, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
Beginning in 1964 my husband and I were involved
in the development of a village carpet weaving cooperative in Southwestern
Turkey. We lived with the weavers of Çömlekçi from 1964 to 1966, as part of the
first Peace Corps rural community development program in Turkey. Between 1966
and 1969 we continued to work with the cooperative in its efforts to develop
markets and quality control standards while working as Peace Corps staff. Since leaving Turkey in 1969, I have visited
Çömlekçi periodically, most
recently in 1992 and 1994.
The success of the Çömlekçi cooperative in turn generated carpet
cooperatives throughout the province of Mula. This paper describes
my observations of changes in the design and construction of Çömlekçi carpets between 1964 and 1994.
ÇÖMLEKÇI CARPETS IN 1964
Carpets produced throughout the region
surrounding Çömlekçi are known as Milas
carpets, after the major market town forty miles north of Çömlekçi. In 1964,
these carpets were woven primarily for dowries, and sold only during periods of
financial hardship. In 1964 a two square
meter carpet might sell for $30. Dealers
believed that only the old village rugs had commercial value, and when they did
purchase new rugs, they were doctored and passed off as older rugs. European
and American export markets at the time favored Persian carpets.
As a result, villagers looked upon their
carpets as old fashioned and inferior. For those who could afford them, dowries
might include a store bought carpet or
two, usually from Isparta. Devaluation of their own carpets also led to the
appropriation of new designs such as the so-called "Isparta" design,
with its central floral medallion, reminiscent of Persian designs. But whatever
the design, carpets were considered an essential part of any dowry, no matter
how poor the family might be. Since the local economy was still close to
subsistence, the habit of producing the necessities of life from one's own
resources had continued. This motivated
village families to continue their weaving.
Intensely saturated hues derived from
chemical dyes were preferred, such as bright greens, blues, yellow and pink, arranged to maximize contrast of
hue and value. This was in contrast to the classic Milas palette of warm reds,
browns, yellows, and perhaps olive green. The chemical dyes are often referred
to in the literature as aniline dyes; however, it is probable that the dyes
were of various types. Since these dyes,
sold in bulk, came without instructions, they were not used correctly, and
therefore tended to bleed. Villagers used the same methods to set the chemical
dyes that they were accustomed to using for
natural dyes; that is, the addition of a mordant, usually alum (Ġap), and possibly citric acid in small amounts (limon
tozu).
The natural dyes were thought of as old
fashioned, laborious, and undesirable, although every family had a substantial
repertoire of natural dye recipes they continued to use. Certain popular colors
such as bright pink, purple, chartreuse, royal blue and wine red were difficult
or impossible to achieve with the known natural dye repertoire. Their use was a
matter of conspicuous consumption, a mark of luxury. Also, natural dyeing was
very time consuming. Because of the seasonal availability of some dye
materials, it could take the whole year to dye the full repertoire of colors
that might be wanted. Simply going to the market for the colors you had in mind
was far easier, if you could afford it. On the other hand, since certain
chemical colors such as warm reds and yellows were particularly unstable, more
reliable natural dye equivalents were often used.
In spite of the popularity of commercial
dyes, fifty‑nine different natural dye recipes derived from twenty‑one
different plants were identified in Çömlekçi in 1964. The data on the dye
recipes was published in 1982 (Miller).
Weaving was done from handspun yarns,
utilizing wool from their own sheep. The spinning of the wool for a carpet took
from three to six months; weaving could take another three months if the weaver
worked alone. In reality, a family would be hard pressed to produce more than
one rug a year, since this work was done in between the demands of the
agricultural cycles. At the time, tobacco was the major cash crop, and it
demanded constant attention from May to October.
Thus by 1964 Çömlekçi's weaving
traditions were valued neither by their practitioners nor by the marketplace.
The carpets were being adulterated by non-traditional designs and colors.Even
the weavers themselves preferred the rugs of others. Under these circumstances,
it was generally assumed that carpet weaving in Çömlekçi was dying out.
THE ÇÖMLEKÇI CARPET
COOPERATIVE AND ITS EFFECT ON CARPET DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
The successful development of the
village's carpet marketing cooperative between 1964 and 1971 significantly
altered carpet design and construction. It also altered the attitude of the
weavers toward their product. The cooperative was formed in May 1966. Until we
left in 1969 the major effort was to establish a quality control system.
Factors such as density of the weave;
evenness of surface, selvedges, and plain weave foundation; detail and accuracy
of the design and color choices were considered. Because of the unreliability
of available chemical dyes, natural dyes were required for Cooperative
rugs.
The rugs were at first sold directly to
resident foreigners, since dealers were unwilling to believe that the rugs were
100% naturally dyed carpets as we claimed them to be. However, this gradually
changed as dealers saw more of the rugs, and began to visit Çömlekçi.
After we left Turkey in 1969, the
villagers continued to look for markets on their own. In 1970 they obtained a
contract from Sumerbank, the national textile monopoly, for what amounted to
all the rugs they could produce. The cooperative produced for the Sumerbank
contract for about three years, and expanded to include weavers from the
surrounding region. The income generated from carpet sales in this period
permitted the Çömlekçi to bring in
electricity, and to make the transition from the laborious and unreliable
tobacco culture to olives. This was significant evidence of the financial
impact of the carpet cooperative, in
that it meant taking fields out of production for the five years it took for
the new trees to begin to produce.
However, by 1973-74 the dealers had
discovered the carpets of the Milas region, and were coming in with better
offers. The cooperative, bound to its less profitable Sumerbank contract,
essentially collapsed by 1975, though it continued to exist on paper (and does
to this day). When I visited in 1976, I
was told that the marketing of rugs in
Çömlekçi had virtually come to a halt.
MARKET DEVELOPMENTS IN THE
1980S AND AFTER
The early
Sumerbank efforts to promote carpet production and export were strictly
economic in motivation. However, by the early 1980's other Turkish government
agencies had begun to realize the economic potential and cultural significance
of carpet weaving. Of particular significance was a project undertaken in 1986
by the Ministry of Culture.This ambitious project was intended to document all
examples of Turkish rugs found in weaving villages, private collections, and
museums world wide, in order to revitalize Turkish village weaving.
Çömlekçi was a significant contributor
to this project. The Turkish Ministry of Culture has cited the Çömlekçi Cooperative as a significant
contributor to the effort to revive naturally dyed carpets throughout Turkey.
(Turkish Handwoven Carpets, 1987)
Carpets were photographed, and scanned in
to a computer where the design was converted into a point paper weaving diagram
in color. The end product was a series of catalogues originally intended to be
an order book for carpet commissions to be woven to strict standards specific
to each region. The production aspect of this project has not been realized,
beyond ministry-commissioned samples. In spite of this, the project continues.
The Ministry of Culture archives now include over 6,000 images of Turkish
carpets.
The first volume of this catalogue was
printed in 1987, followed by three additional volumes published in 1988 and
1990 (Turkish Handwoven Carpets). Copies of the catalogues were distributed to
village weaving cooperatives throughout the country. Weaving diagrams appropriate to particular regions
have been distributed free of charge to village weaving cooperatives. Additional volumes are in press and planned.
This ambitious project was initiated by Güran
Erbek, who unfortunately died in 1989,
shortly after the publication of the first two volumes. (Kocakaya, 1994)
In
Çömlekçi, meanwhile, the cooperative made a new effort to revive itself.
In the 1980's, as the Turkish middle class grew, domestic as well as foreign
tourism invaded the region in earnest. Probably inspired by the contacts with
the Ministry of Culture carpet project, the
Çömlekçi Carpet Cooperative decided to make a try at an idea we had
proposed years before. We had suggested that tourists would enjoy a visit to a
real village, and such a visit would also be an opportunity to sell them rugs.
The Cooperative contacted tourism agencies in Bodrum in 1986, and the first
tours were established. However, this
arrangement quickly fell apart over disagreements that followed the traditional
clan lines, and since 1986 two individual families have hosted tours to the
village, one from each of the major clans. The rugs they sell include
Çömlekçi rugs, but also stock from
neighboring villages, as well as rugs in
designs from Kars, Kula, and Gordes. One of the two households also stocks
oversized rugs in traditional Milas designs, but woven in the commercial
weaving center of Isparta, where copies of rugs from many regions are being
made. On any given summer day, there may be as many as six tour buses coming
to Çömlekçi for the tour. Villagers not
directly involved with these two tour opportunities do still weave rugs for
sale, and also for their daughter's dowries. They may sell their rugs to one of
the two tour families, or to dealers and directly to tourists in Milas or
Bodrum at the weekly market.
THE EFFECT OF THE
ÇÖMLEKÇI CARPET COOPERATIVE ON CARPET DESIGN: EARLY DEVELOPMENTS
Since by 1969 carpets that were naturally
dyed in traditional Milas patterns had
higher market value, these became the patterns and colors of choice in
Çömlekçi for most people. Few of the Isparta style medallion carpets were
woven even for dowries, as these designs
were not accepted by the Cooperative. Initially, when the rugs were being marketed to foreign
residents, the classic Milas prayer rug patterns were in demand, and frequently
woven (Figure 1). However, after the Sumerbank
contract was signed in 1970, the rugs were exported, mostly to Germany,
where symmetrical designs were in demand. In 1976, no new prayer rugs could be
found in Çömlekçi at all. By far the
most common design seemed to be one known as Ada Milas, a classic
Çömlekçi pattern. (Figure 2)
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
DESIGNS
After the 1970s, there was an increase in
the repertoire of designs in use. Old rugs found in Çömlekçi and neighboring
villages have been copied to add to the variety of designs. This occurred as
early as 1971, when a pattern was transcribed from a carpet book by a
teenaged weaver. The Carpet Catalogue produced by the Ministry of Culture in
the 1980's has provided a further source of old Milas designs, some of which
have been reproduced in Çömlekçi. The asymmetrical prayer rug designs once out
of vogue are now in again. Thus the repertoire of Milas patterns is increasing.
Today, classic Milas designs are almost
universal in Çömlekçi for both dowry rugs and rugs woven for sale. Milas rugs
have achieved a certain reputation, and there is a market for the local
designs.
COLOR AND DYES: EARLY
DEVELOPMENTS
By the end of the 1960s in Çömlekçi and
many other weaving villages where the cooperatives were established, natural dyes were now highly valued for both
dowry rugs and rugs made for sale. However, a color palette emerged that differed
significantly from the historical Milas palette. In addition to customer taste,
the supply, cost and labor of certain colors were factors. The most troublesome
colors were the madder reds, due to
scarcity of madder near Çömlekçi. In the
Milas region madder (kök boya) is a wild plant, native to rocky
mountainsides and forested areas. To reach such areas involved a hike uphill
from the village, a direction normal activities did not take most people. Since
the roots take more than one season to mature, finding enough madder root for
the increasing demand could be difficult. By the early 1970's colors were
shifting away from bright clear reds, or deep brick reds, and toward
red-browns, soft rose (a weak madder recipe) and other colors that do not require
madder at all. Rugs began to look browner and darker.
One villager had made a trip to Balikesir
in order to learn how to use indigo, not one of the village's traditional
colors. The results were impressive, if not typical of Milas rugs. However,
indigo was not widely adopted because it was hard to get, and the fermentation
vat dyeing procedure was complex and unfamiliar to Çömlekçi weavers.
RECENT CHANGES IN DYES AND COLORS
Most rugs made for sale today are made
with commercially dyed yarns. However, because of the emphasis on naturally
dyed yarns during the last three decades, the colors in a chemically dyed rug
may be indistinguishable from those in a naturally dyed rug.
Many dowry rugs are woven with commercially dyed yarns, but
natural dyes may be still be used. The dowry is a matter of family prestige and honor which accompanies
the daughter to her new family, and cements a new family alliance. Today the
naturally dyed rug, woven in traditional Milas designs, is seen as the best,
even though it is no longer deemed feasible to produce naturally dyed rugs for
the marketplace. This is in marked contrast to the attitudes toward naturally
dyed rugs and traditional designs seen in 1964.
Some Milas style carpets include fashion
colors such as pink and light blue that are not part of regional color traditions. Carpets that
differ radically from the traditional regional palette are more likely to be
the product of commercial weaving operations.
WASHING RUGS AND THE
CURRENT COLOR PALETTE
The washing of carpets is also affecting
color choices. In the early days of the cooperative, Çömlekçi carpets were usually sold unwashed.
When dealers washed rugs, it was usually
done to "age" them. To many dealers,
the initial advantage of Çömlekçi's naturally dyed rugs was that, once
washed, they had the look of much older rugs, and could be sold to the unwary
as such. Although harsh washing drastically changed some of the sensitive
natural dyes, at that time, washed chemically
home-dyed rugs tended to bleach out even more, to beige, grey, and tan.
These days virtually all rugs sold are
commercially washed, ostensibly to insure color stability in the finished
product, though the methods reflect some older deceptive practices. The
procedure involves a variety of steps which may be combined or deleted
depending on the preferences of the dealer. I observed a batch of rugs being
washed in Milas for one of the Çömlekçi dealers. The procedure included
singeing the backs, shaving the pile mechanically, and washing with chlorine
bleach. Lye, and/or sodium hydrosulfite, or even sulfuric acid may also be
used. Rinsing was not as thorough as it might have been. The black knots are
hand-clipped shorter than the rest of the pile, clearly in imitation of the way
in which the black wool is worn away in antique rugs. However, everyone
insisted that these things are done for aesthetic reasons, and I did not
observe any dealer claiming such washed rugs were old. This severe washing and finishing procedure
appears to have developed back when dyes were unreliable, and dealers were
trying to antique rugs in order to fool their customers. The procedures
continue even though dyes are now stable, and rugs are not usually passed off
as antique any more- and in spite of the harm these procedures do to the rugs.
The result of the procedure I observed is
a much softer, somewhat lighter colored rug in which the yellows predominate,
as a result of the application of chlorine bleach. Needless to say, this
process must weaken the carpet. The Çömlekçi dealer stated he did this because
his customers preferred the lighter colors. As a result, rugs currently being
woven for sale tend to be lighter in value even as they come from the loom,
though still in the classic Milas hue
palette of reds, browns, yellows, and green.
Since the washing lightens the rugs anyway, whether the customer wants
it or not, lighter colors are what is available. Meanwhile, villagers see the
washed rugs being sold, and then try to weave rugs that duplicate these lighter
tones. Their rugs are then washed, and the result is presumably even yet
lighter values in the rugs. One must wonder where this will lead. Interestingly
enough, rugs woven for dowries are never washed commercially, and everyone
seems confident that the rugs will not
bleed when they are eventually washed at home.
CHANGES IN CONSTRUCTION:
YARNS
Concern with the cost of labor and
materials also led to the introduction of commercially spun yarns.and
eventually in the 1980's to the widespread use of commercially dyed yarns. The
better factory spun yarn such as that sold by Sumerbank was considered to be of
good quality, although it differed in several ways from the handspun yarn.
The commercial yarns all tended to be
somewhat larger in diameter than most handspun yarn. Warps made from hand-plied
commercial yarn singles tended to be slightly over 2mm in diameter, whereas the
handspun warp yarns were usually finer, with one example measured at 1mm in
diameter. The commercial yarn rugs were all between twenty‑six and twenty‑eight
knots/square dm, whereas the fully handspun rugs ran as high as thirty knots/
square dm, with one example found at forty‑four knots/ square dm. An
advantage of the commercial yarn was its consistent diameter and color.
Today the enormous saving in time, and
the availability of acceptable commercially spun yarn, has resulted in the
complete abandonment of handspinning. Younger girls may not even know how to
spin. Warp is still hand- plied, however. A soft two-ply warp that resembles
knitting worsted is available but was not seen in any rug woven in Çömlekçi. It
is used by commercial production centers, however, and is evidence of probable
manufactory provenance.
CHANGES IN CONSTRUCTION:
LOOMS
By the 1970s the financial incentives to
produce more rugs led to some experiments in loom design. A village carpenter
produced a free standing carpet loom with turnbuckle-controlled warp tensioning
that was light enough to transport on a donkey with warp in place, for use
during the summer migration to the valley to be near fields and livestock.
Previously weaving had been largely abandoned during the agricultural season
from May to October. A similar loom, but with string heddles (not typical of
carpet looms) is used by commercial weavers trained in Isparta.
During the 1980s Milas carpets in general
underwent some significant changes because of the proliferation of commercial
weaving centers. A few commercially manufactured metal rug looms have been
brought into the village by one of the two rug dealer/tour households. In
commercial weaving centers such looms are common, and their use results in some
differences in finishing. Most Çömlekçi
weavers still use traditional warping and weaving methods.
CHANGES IN CONSTRUCTION:
FINISHING
Commercially woven carpets are usually
produced on long warps, with several carpets being produced on the same warp.
The space between each carpet becomes fringe which may or may not be braided.
This results in a carpet with fringe at both ends.
Village carpets, on the other hand, are
warped one at a time. The warp is wound as a continuous loop between two stakes
pounded into the ground at the desired interval. There is no cross, but instead
the warp threads are chained together at each end as the warp is wound. The completed warp is attached to the warp
and cloth beams of the loom by the insertion of a dowel through the chained
loop ends. This dowel fits into a slot in the beam, and is held in place by
metal pins. The weaving begins directly on top of the dowel, which results in
short loops being left at the starting end of the rug. Sometimes these loops
are left unfinished, possibly with the chaining thread still in place. This is
very likely in rugs woven for sale. If the chain is removed, a short, twisted
fringe results in which the loops can be discerned. The proper traditional
method used to finish this end, however, is to twine the loops around one
another in clusters of three or two. This results in a neat flat edge with the look of a braid, and much
better warp end protection. (Figure 3) This is almost always done on rugs made
for personal use, especially dowry rugs. It is very occasionally done on rugs
made for sale. In any case, a
traditional village woven rug can therefore only have a fringe at one end, the
end at which the warp is cut from the loom after weaving is completed.
The traditional finish at the fringe end
of the carpet is also different from
commercial carpets, and impossible to duplicate on the multi-carpet production
warp. As the single carpet is cut from
the loom, the warps are cut in groups of three, and then woven between clusters
of three warps picked together, for a distance of six triple warp picks. The
picks are then reversed, and the cut ends are brought back through and packed
down. Then the next group of three is cut and passed through this same shed,
but one triple pick further. The shed is then reversed and the ends returned.
The result is again a warp protector edging which resembles a thick flat braid, but this time with a full
fringe appending from the back edge. The last clusters of threads cut are
braided to finish off. (Figure 4) Thus even in an unbraided fringe, there will
be a single braid at one end of the fringe. The entire fringe may then be
braided, though this is becoming less common even on dowry rugs, and is almost
never done on rugs woven for sale. Some
rugs being woven for sale in Çömlekçi
are finished off with a final row chained weft following the plain weave weft
border and simply cut off.
Both traditional end finish
techniques can be seen only when a single rug is woven on the warp. Thus rugs
with a single fringe and either loops or
a flat twined edging at one end are more likely to be the work of a family
loom. They are therefore more likely to be indigenous to the area traditionally
associated with the design. If the fringe is braided and the loop end twined,
it is even more likely to be a traditional rug woven in the region associated
with the design, since commercial producers rarely if ever go to this much trouble
for the finishing. If the rug lacks the triple pick warp protector at its
fringe end, but has loops at the other end, it was most likely woven for market
in a village. On the other hand, rugs with two fringes (braided or not) are
very likely to be produced by a hired weaver in a commercial rug weaving
operation, and the design is least likely to have a relationship to the place
in which it was woven. If the warp is commercially plied, this is a virtual
certainty.
Sometime in the last fifteen years, the
use of a device called the bask2 was abandoned in order
to save time. The bask2 is a simple six ply
wool cord which is kept wet, and placed in the shed after the insertion of the
weft (argeç). It is beaten down on top of the weft and knots, and then
removed. Because it is wet, the bask2 dampens the wool of the
weft, which allows it to stretch, permitting the weave to pack down more
tightly.
Mass production of handwoven
"village" carpets is now being undertaken throughout Western Turkey.
In these manufactories, the designs woven are from a variety of regions. Thus
it is no longer possible to determine where a rug was woven by studying its
design alone. However, changes in loom design and warping procedures have
resulted in some significant technical differences in the construction and finishing
of these generic "village" rugs. These finishing methods can provide
some clues to the possible provenance of the rugs, though even these features
can offer no certainty.
CONCLUSION
The marketplace has affected the way
Milas carpets are made, the colors that are selected, and the designs
used. This is not a new phenomenon; the
marketplace has always affected the design of rugs, as it affects the design of
any other object that is bought and sold. The fact that this tradition is
evolving is evidence that the tradition is still alive. Even though copies of
Milas carpets are being produced in other centers, the core of the tradition is
still in place. However, the blurring of regional distinctions that has
resulted from this commercial
development does not bode well
for the long term integrity of regional weaving traditions.
Every girl raised in Çömlekçi still
learns to weave, and the number of
carpets a family tries to provide for her dowry has increased from between
three and seven in the 1960s to eight or more in the 1990s. However, weaving
carpets is a village activity, and if a bride marries out of the village to a
town, as many do, she may never weave again.
The commercial value placed on Çömlekçi's
rugs by outsiders has fostered pride in the local weaving heritage. The
Çömlekçi Cooperative, though now
essentially defunct, did serve a significant purpose in that it brought the
weaving and dyeing traditions of Çömlekçi to the attention of the outside world.
In 1964 it seemed to be only a matter of time until carpet weaving would be
abandoned. Today it appears that there
will still be carpets woven in Çömlekçi in the next century.
REFERENCES
Kocakaya, Bunyamin, Deputy director,
Handicrafts Project. Turkish Ministry of Culture, Ankara. Personal
communication, June 21, 1994.
Miller, Charlotte Jirousek (1982).
"Dyes in rugs from the Milas area." Hali (London) v.4, no.3.
pp.258-261.
Turkish Handwoven
Carpets, Catalog No: 1. (1987). G. Erbek, Ô. ànal, D. Y2lmazkaya, eds. Ankara:
T.C. kültür Bakanl22.
Turkish Handwoven
Carpets, Catalog No: 2. (1988). G. Erbek, Ô. ànal, D. Y2lmazkaya, eds. Ankara:
T.C. kültür Bakanl22.
Turkish Handwoven
Carpets, Catalog No: 3. (1990). G. Erbek, Ô. ànal, D. Ylmazkaya, eds. Ankara: T.C. kültür Bakanl22.
Turkish Handwoven
Carpets, Catalog No: 4. (1990). G. Erbek, Ô. ànal, D. Y2lmazkaya, eds. Ankara:
T.C. kültür Bakanl22.