Screw Pine Mat - Alleppey, Kerala
There are two varieties of screw pine used in the making of screw pine mats. They are the high quality and low quality mats. The high quality mats are produced from the female plant and low quality from the male plant.
Weaving of screw pine mats is one of the traditional crafts practiced by women in Kerala. The leaves of screw pines are sliced into thin strips using a blade and these strips are dried in the sun. Dried stripes are then diagonally plaited to create mats. The dried leaves are wound into a wheel in the opposite direction. These leaves are then used to make a different screw pine articles such as bed mats, carry bag, boxes, tablemats, purses etc.
A woman who works in making of screw pine mats sits down on the floor and hold parallel strands together with their feet. Because the mats need to be taut, it is important that the strands are held firmly. Then, the artisans use their hands to insert perpendicular strands to create the interlocking pattern that is the mat. The weaving process is done crosswise, and interlacing continues as new strips are added. Once weaving is complete, all the four sides of mat are then weaved by same method. On an average it takes 1 day to weave a 6ft x 3ft mat. If the strands are finer the time increasing accordingly.
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