Urban textile traditions of Tunisia

African Arts, Autumn, 2004 by Christopher Spring, Julie Hudson

[FIGURE 18 OMITTED]

Houmt Souk has many shops selling cloth and it was interesting to compare the varieties made by hand-loom weavers with those made in a local factory. It was not immediately obvious whether what the shopkeepers referred to as "machine-made" cloths were the product of a fully mechanized factory or simply lacked the hand embroidery with which some of the women's wraps are embellished--any loom may, after all, be described as a "machine." Nor was it obvious from cloths at the cheaper end of the range which were "hand-made" and which "machine." From an ethnographic point of view the distinction is, in any case, somewhat irrelevant. What is important is their significance to the wearer and within (in this case) Djerban society, not necessarily how they were made. However, in many cases the process of hand manufacture and all its attendant customs and traditions does provide the cloth or costume with that very significance.

Mahdia

This coastal town gets its name from 'Ubayd Allah, the self-styled Mahdi (literally "the rightly guided one") who in 909 AD overthrew the Aghlabids and founded the Fatimid dynasty with its capital at Mahdia. 'Ubayd Allah is one of several figures in Islamic African history who have claimed to be the Mahdi, the most celebrated being Muhammad Ahmad, who founded the Mahdist state in northern Sudan in the late nineteenth century. For six hundred years Mahdia was one of the most formidable fortified naval bases in the Mediterranean, though little of the original ramparts remain. Today Mahdia is a thriving fishing port with a modern town and harbor built outside the old walls and gate. However, with the exception of draw-loom work, most weaving and embroidery is still carried out in houses and small workshops within the medina, producing garments not only for the people of Mahdia but also, in different designs and colors, for other Sahel towns such as Ksour Essaf, Chebba, Moknine, Bekalta, El Djem, and even beyond this region as far to the south as Gabes. In recent years a massive tourist development has sprung up a few kilometers along the coast from the old town, and it will be important to monitor the effect this has on the people of Mahdia and in particular on the weaving industry.

The technique of weaving on the treadle loom was brought to North Africa during the eighth century AD, though the local museum in Mahdia records that the craft of silk weaving was introduced from the Levant during the fourteenth century. Today silk weaving is still a thriving industry, though it is almost entirely controlled by the Arousse family and is dependent on their dynamism and business acumen for its continuing survival. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that had Karim el-Arousse (Fig. 19) not followed his father into the business, silk weaving in Mahdia might have completely disappeared, or at least have been seriously curtailed. Karim employs a dozen or more weavers who work in several small ateliers using variants of the treadle loom, each designed to produce a particular type of cloth. The frameworks of the looms are made in Mahdia and assembled using only wooden doweling, because metal nails would snag the threads. Accessories such as heddles, pulleys, and shuttle boats are made in specialist workshops in the nearby town of Ksar Hellal. The wood used is invariably olive, since it is particularly smooth and durable. The only pieces of weaving equipment that are not locally made are the long, metal-pointed shuttle boats used on the looms that are fitted with a flying shuttle. These are imported from France. Karim's weavers do produce inexpensive cloth in materials other than silk, but they specialize in making luxury textiles for clothing worn at marriage and on other special occasions. A few workshops produce domestic cloth such as woolen blankets and covers, but this type of weaving is on the decline in the face of cheap, factory-made goods. Three basic variants of the treadle loom are employed by Karim's weavers, though in addition to these technical variations, there are also variations in size, depending on the type of cloth to be woven. The most common loom is that fitted with a flying shuttle, which the weaver activates by pulling a lanyard before each pick of the weft. Looms with four sets of heddles are used to weave the various belts worn as part of the ceremonial dress of women in Mahdia, Moknine, Ksour Essaf, and other towns of the Sahel. These vary in both pattern and color: the belts (hizam) of Ksour Essaf, for example, are predominantly pink and pale blue check, whereas the belt most closely associated with Mahdia is the hizam misty ("Egyptian belt"), which is made from three separate sections sewn together and has checks in combinations of green, yellow, red, black, and white, with elaborate tassels at each end. The belts of Moknine are made in two styles: one with gold thread on both sides is named rafi' ("refined" or "exquisite"; Fig. 20), the other, adiy" ("ordinary"), has orange silk thread replacing the gold on one side. Thus the essential form of the belt remains the same but the cost varies, so that the item is widely affordable. A smaller variation of the belt-weaving loom, equipped with eight sets of heddles (Fig. 21), is used to weave the silk headband (kishf) worn at marriage by the women of Mahdia.