Samarkand Uzbek Julkhirs Primitive Rug

Chest Vendor seated on Uzbek Julkhirs, Julkhyrs primitive rug Samarkand Zaravshan district between 1865 and 1872 from the Turkestan Album.

The high pile of the Julkhirs was favoured by some nineteenth Century merchants of Samarkand, the obvious attraction being a more comfortable rug  for the long hours seated at the market place.

Variations of the motifs woven into this Julkhirs were repeated up to the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century. Some examples which followed were created with wool dyed in extremely bright and garish synthetic dyes, including a dazzling bright yellow, ultra bright deep green representative of a Christmas tree gone wrong, a dark cherry red and super saturated crimson plus an overwhelming bright pink.

Images from The Turkestan Album and those created by Prokudin-Gorskii give us a snapshot of life in Samarkand between 1865 and 1910, backing up Moshkova's ^1. observations in Carpets of the People of Central Asia.

Below are all of the images published so far on this blog of Julkhirs in use in Samarkand during the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth century.

^1. Moshkova, V. G.  Carpets of the People of Central Asia. George O’Bannon,  Arizona Lithographers Tucson, Arizona, 1996. 83

Image Attributions:

Courtesy of the Library of Congress,
LC-DIG-ppmsca-14869, LC-DIG-prokc-21725,
LC-DIG-ppmsca-14711,             
LC-DIG-prokc-21753 - LC-DIG-prok-11753,
LC-DIG-ppmsca-14806

Illus. in: Turkestanskīĭ alʹbom, chastʹ
ėtnograficheskai︠a︡...,
1871-1872, part 2, vol. 2, pl. 144.

Primitive Rare Hooked Rugs

In Europe and the United States many primitive long piled shaggy variations exist in the form of home made rugs. U.T Sirelius made what he calls an exhaustive study of  "The Ryijy-Rugs of Finland"¹ in 1926, producing a sumptuous limited edition book with 200 copies available in the English language edition. Rya rugs of Finland and Sweden are coarsely knotted long-piled bed covers. Early in the twentieth century Europeans began making hooked rugs with simple designs influenced by the arts and crafts movement. In Spain the Alpujarra rug is also produced as a bed cover with a unique knotting process requiring gauge rods, reminiscent of rare looped pile Pashtun Moqari rugs from Eastern Afghanistan or Tibetan looped pile rugs .² William Winthrop Kent's book Rare Hooked Rugs was published in 1941³ - In an attempt to link Primitive Hooked Rugs with the past Kent explains in The Hooked Rug, "The origin of the method was discussed and proved to have been not American nor English, but Scandanavian, or from some prehistoric source antedating the Bronze Age, and carried on by Viking families. It was also known in Scotland where it appeared in very early days." ⁴

Like Sirelius, Kent devoted a significant degree of his life to the dissemination of information about primitive shaggy rugs, in Kent's world these were  American Hooked Rugs, and devotion to the craft is now popularly known as Primitive Rug Hooking. Kent was a legend in his time writing several books on the subject and designing patterns for primitive rug hooking. Kents publications included The Hooked Rug, Rare Hooked Rugs and Hooked Rug Design. In the first chapter of Rare Hooked Rugs titled PRIMITIVE Kent links the word primitive to hooked rugs, "floral forms and geometrical composition and coloring are closely following in the highest types of European and American hooking but also that the primitive conceptions of obscure farm and village workers are now coming into their own as never before." ⁵

Kent uses the word primitive in reference to people and place; "obscure farm and village workers", further referencing Coptic fabrics in an attempt to associate primitive with antiquity. "Since the question of the origin of hooking was raised by me and discussed in detail in my book, The Hooked Rug, an interesting research has begun in America and England and probably in Germany. Professor Rudolf Riefenstahl of New York, the well-known authority on oriental rugs and other early crafts and activities, told me that he was inclined to favor my supposition that Coptic wool mats and fabrics of a shaggy sort were done by hooking and not pulled tight by needle work over a stick or rod as many people averred. This, if so, and as my book suggests, makes our study of Primitives in rugs even more engrossing and valuable for the craft." ⁶

Considering the popular use of the term Primitive Rug Hooking today and the popularity of Kent's work, the man himself may have been responsible for creating the link between the early history of oriental rugs and the term Primitive Rug linking both.

1. Sirelius. U.T. The Ryijy-Rugs of Finland Otavia Publishing Company Helsinki 1926
2. Wertime. J Back to Basics: Primitive Pile Rugs of West and Central Asia
Hali 100 1998. 92
3. Kent W. W. Rare Hooked Rugs Pond-Ekberg Springfield Massachusetts 1941.
4. Kent W. W. loc. cit. Introduction.
5. Kent W. W. loc. cit. 3
6. Kent W. W. loc. cit. 11-13

Image Attribution:
Title: Southeast Missouri Farms. Girl making a hooked rug in bedroom of shack home.
La Forge, Missouri
Creator(s): Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer
Date Created/Published: 1938 May.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection,
[reproduction number, e.g., LC-USF34-031145-D]
 (b&w film neg.)

Afghan Posteen Cloak & Tibetan Chuba Gown Primitive Pieced Skin Winter Warmers

Late in the Nineteenth Century Western visitors had lots to say about the Primitive skins worn by Central Asian nomads, aristocratic Pashtuns, bandit robber nomads and horse rustling dealers. Dr Susie Rijnhart called them "Ugly sheepskin gowns". The writers of "The People of India" called them "a cloth lined cloak and a most comfortable wrapper". Known in Afghanistan as Posteen, Tibet as Chuba and Eastren Siberian Yakut as Sahynnax.  In Afghanistan's Pamirs  pieced skin covers are called postak while in the  Southern province of Wardak they are called pashmani. ¹

William Woodville Rockhill affords us a view into a past where animal skin Chuba in Tibet were worn by many including, "Woman Wearing Sheepskin Chuba", "Tibetan Boys of Jyade' " and the two hide wearing vagabonds  "Dopi and Dowe". No imported fabrics, silk sheets, high thread counts or Pashmina to keep you feeling fuzzy warm and modern here, just the reality of surviving through to the next day, look at the woman in front of Rockhill's tent she barely has the motivation to meet the day.

Take a tour further North to Siberia and across to Alaska the concept of wearing animal skin clothing continues like a never ending procession through space and reaching back into the mists of history. Locally skinned animals culled from domestic and wild stock, hoof or flipper, land or sea. Taken from your own herd or hunted down then skinned, softened and tailored into your own version of a primitive coat or cover.

The use of needle and thread to bind animal skins to form the final design can be seen on the back of the Kirghiz pieced skin cover from the Afghan Pamirs. The Kirghiz Postak resembles Posteen and Chuba. A common look wherever animal skins are stitched together to create clothing, bedding and flooring.

1. Thierry Girard http://www.primitiverug.com/kirghiz-pashtun-pieced-skin-rugs/

Image attributions:

Dopi and Dowe, Two Men in Costume 30 APR 1892 Rockhill, William Woodville Contained in: Photograph collection ca. 1860s-1960s
Description: 1 photoprint 005 in x 007 in Black and white photoprint
Place of creation: Tibet Tsinghai Province/Qinghai Province Shang-Chia Village (Near) China Tsinghai Province/Qinghai Province Shang-Chia Village (Near)
DOE Asia: Tibet: Rockhill Colln 04865500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Two Boys in Sheepskin Chubas (Wrap Around Garments) 22 JUL 1892 
Rockhill, William WoodvillePhotograph collection ca. 1860s-1960s
1 photoprint 004 in x 004 in mounted on 004 in x 007 in Black and white photoprint on standard card
Place of creation: Tibet Tibet/Jyade China Tibet/Jyade
DOE Asia: Tibet: Rockhill Colln 04865600, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Woman Wearing Sheepskin Chuba (Wrap Around Garment) Outside Tent n.d.
Rockhill, William Woodville Photograph collection ca. 1860s-1960s 1 photoprint 006 in x 008 in mounted on 007 in x 010 in
Black and white photoprint on cardboard mount. Place of creation: Tibet Tibet Namru De/Tengri Nor (Near)
China Tibet Namru De/Tengri Nor (Near)
DOE Asia: Tibet: Miscellaneous 04864400, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution