A prince embroiderer without a kingdom - Laotian artisan

UNESCO Courier, July, 2001 by Ngoc Loan Lam

Tiao Somsanith is among the last of a dying breed skilled in gold-thread embroidering, an ancient tradition from the court of Luang Prabang in Laos. Today, he is trying to save this vanishing art, without resorting to commercialism

The Laotian prince-embroiderer Tiao Somsanith has lived in the French royal city of Orleans, or more exactly in the suburb of Saint-Marceau, since 1985. To reach the two small rooms of his home filled with Laotian court treasures, you must leave Orleans and cross the Loire River. With a little imagination, it recalls the Mekong, which flows past Luang Prabang, once the royal capital of Laos, where the smooth-faced, nimble-fingered "young man" was born 43 years ago.

That court vanished after the Pathet Lao communists took power in 1975 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. "My maternal grandfather was the last viceroy of Laos," says the prince. "My paternal grandfather was a famous court historian, and his wife was an excellent embroiderer. My father was advisor to the king in Vientiane, the administrative capital."

A secret garden

He has not lost stock of his rank and duties. "The mission of the royal family and the viceroy was to protect culture and tradition," he says. "One of them is the gold thread embroidery that is specific to the Luang Prabang court. Only women of noble birth were allowed to learn this craft, which probably came from China, judging from the technique and symbolism of designs, such as the dragon."

During the Laotian cultural week last March in Orleans, visitors could admire a lavish red and gold silk ensemble that the queen would have worn either for her coronation in Luang Prabang, had the monarchy not been abolished, or to celebrate New Year's, had she not perished in a re-education camp. It took the prince one long year working at night to make the garment, since he earns a living by running a daytime creativity and self-expression workshop for mentally handicapped adults. Before that, he gained degrees in fine arts and psychology in France.

"I drew inspiration from the writings of my father, who was in charge of protocol," he says. "I remember the festivals that punctuated life at the court, where an appropriate outfit was necessary for each ceremony. This work represents both my secret garden, my history, and the cultural heritage of Laos."

The costume reflects the court's hierarchies, with colours and embroideries corresponding to social status. Culling from a repertory based on wildlife, flowers, mythology and Buddhist iconography, embroiderers were nevertheless free to compose nuances, the movement of embroidered patterns and to model reliefs with gold and silver braiding. "The yellow of the jacket, reserved for the queen, recalls the dazzling sun, and the red of the skirt evokes the blood of life," explains Somsanith.

An arduous apprenticeship

The royal ornamentation embroidered by the prince includes golden phoenixes taking flight among interlacing plant patterns. Like an endless river, they continue on the back of the jacket, suggesting the eternal life cycle and the wheel of reincarnation. "I've embroidered good-luck bats, birds of paradise with elephant trunks and butterflies symbolizing the ephemeral," he says.

Somsanith borrowed these designs from inscriptions he gazed at on the ceilings of pagodas as a child. He embroidered without using the carved wooden templates, which were indispensable for beginners who fastened them to silk with big stitches and reproduced the outlines with gold thread.

Only experienced embroiderers between the ages of 30 and 40 reached that level of perfection. The road was long and the apprenticeship arduous. The prince, who was the last in a family of nine children living in Vientiane, spent summers with his grandmother in Luang Prabang. "I was so rambunctious that my parents sent me to keep her company," he recalls laughing. "I also met some of the requirements for learning this exclusively feminine profession, which is passed down from mother to daughter."

At six, like all nimble-fingered apprentices, the prince was coating silk threads with wax to make them straighter and threading them into needles for his grandmother and aunts, who worked in a special room every morning. In the hope of being released from this painstaking work, sometimes the young prince secretly finished his grandmother's embroidery, trying to copy her style.

"By the time I was 10 or 12, I already had a certain amount of experience," he says. "My grandmother probably guessed what I was up to, and introduced me to the art of purling by letting me finish the buds on a bouquet of flowers she had started."

Back to the pagoda

The different steps in an embroiderer's career were clearly spelled out. Little girls traced the edges framing the designs and decorated pillows and prayer cushions. Adolescents embroidered skirts and collars. Adult women made their wedding dresses, ceremonial costumes and burial clothes. Between 50 and 60, at the peak of their skills, they gradually stopped making secular garments to focus on religious accessories intended for pagodas.