Textile of the northeastern region are distinctly different from the textile of the other state, because the majority of the region„s people are tribal. Textile all kind of hand-woven fabrics worn by women, men and children ,for religious ,festival, at funerals for covering the dead body and sometime to furnish home. Tribal textiles are significant because weaving is exclusively women‟s activity. Among the hill tribe, women produce their requirement of fabrics in their spare time between preparing meal, after returning field, or after the season.

The textile of hill tribe of Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal, Manipur and of Mikir hills of Assam have one thing in common: they are all loin loom fabrics. These fabrics are fairly thick, as the wrap is dense and cover the weft. This gives the fabric a ribbed effect. As only fabrics of smaller widths (between 51 and 62 cm) could be woven, most of the textiles are made up of several strips stitched together. Women wear a sarong which is a fabric 72 to 92 cm wide and 180 to 205 cm long. This is worn wrapped around the lower part of the body, and mostly worn with a blouse. The women also use a similar fabric shorter in length called a shawl. As the winters are very cold shawls are used by men well as women as a wrap to protect them from the cold. Fabric woven on the loom is predominantly wrap face. As a result, when different colored yarn are added into the warp, the stripes become bold and achieve full strength of the color as the warp is prominent on the surface of the cloth. Amongst the hill states, the shawl and sarong fabric is a definite indication of the tribe to which it belongs. The combination of black, red and white colors features very frequently in their textiles.

Reflected symmetry seems to be the common starting point for designs in the shawls and sarong fabrics. The composition of the textile is based on symmetry, e.g. similar colored stripes appearing on either edges or one half of the textile is the mirror image of the other half. Resorting to a symmetrical composition also seems logical as a sarong fabric has to be made in many parts and later stitched together to the required width. This ensures that parts of the shawl woven separately at different times could be joined together harmoniously. As mentioned earlier, fabrics woven on the loin loom are predominantly warp faced.

The tribal textiles are mostly made up of colored stripes running in the direction of the warp. The effect of the colored stripes is bold and often graphic. When the sarong is worn the stripes run horizontally. Sometimes the warp stripes are interrupted by small motifs woven in extra weft weave. In the textiles of the Naga tribes, the colored yarn used for the extra weft motif is cleverly hidden, so that the motif is seen on the face of the fabric only. The back of the fabric shows no trace of the extra weft being used. This has been achieved because the warp yarns are very dense and the pattern is picked up from among one half of the warp yarns. The extra weft is inserted locally.


Various shawls, sarongs and other textile products from Nagaland.