The southern part of Northeastern Thailand, or I-San, is well known for the annual elephant round-up in Surin and the finest silks in the land. This region is home to Cambodian speaking peoples surrounding Surin and Lao peoples in the Buriram area, whose culture and textiles reflect their historical and ethnic backgrounds. Bordering on Cambodia, the region was once on the fringes of the Angkorian Empire.

The Lao peoples in Buriram were resettled there in the 19th century. Because of the drought-prone climate, cotton cannot be cultivated and thus the sturdy silk worm is raised in every home to supply yarns for skilful hands that transform the stiff yellow fibres into soft, lustrous cloth. Even though the region is one of the poorest in Thailand, traditional garments are made of silk, including working clothes. It is not unusual to see women planting rice or threshing in their silk tube skirts, admittedly their older ones.

Traditional textiles from Surin include silk ikat long cloths called jong kraben that were worn as lower garments by officials at the Siamese court. King Rama V changed this dress code to pha muang, a plain cloth, at the turn of the 20th century and the weaving of the ikat jong kraben cloth declined. Women wore striped weft ikat tube skirts called mee hol; the name was derived from Thai mudmee and the Cambodian word for ikat, jong hol. This is multicoloured with tiny half-chevron motifs which angle towards each-other. With an ikat hem-piece added separately to make the skirt look like the jong kraben, it is called mee hol phabol and is a sacred design reserved for weddings. Its striped design was once the dress for Cambodian princesses and thus a Surin woman claims her right to dress as a princess on this special day by wearing mee hol phabol. Today the weaving of mee hol is still very alive in most villages surrounding Surin town, but the hem-piece can only be found in the village of Ban Kwao Sirin where the equipment and knowledge is still being passed down one of the family lines.

Mee hol is an extremely delicate ikat design dyed with three natural dyes that overlap to create six shades. The complex process for tying and dyeing is memorized, starting with red from stick lac, a resin obtained from the secretions of an insect (coccus lacca), then yellow from emarginate wood (cudriania javanensis). Finally, the yarns are placed in an indigo jar which is “sweetened” with a red ant nest so as not to damage the silk.

Ikat is a mind-tangling decorative technique favoured by courts worldwide for its soft feathered-edge patterns. The technique involves measuring the yarns to the exact width of the desired cloth, tying a pattern into the unwoven threads using banana fibres or plastic string, dyeing and untying to expose the first pattern and then repeating the tying and dyeing process until all the colours are complete. The difficulty of working with the finest quality silk in such minute patterns is unimaginable. The continuous thread with dots and dashes of colour representing the design is then aligned on the loom, thread by thread to miraculously recreate the pattern. If a thread breaks and the precious order lost, countless hours of careful realignment follow. Today mee hol design is woven for sale. Its distinctive three-shaft twill weave creates a weft-faced fabric that is not only soft but strong too, being the same weave as jeans. To identify this weave, look at the back of the cloth and notice the difference in colour.

Other traditional textiles from Surin include a sophisticated double ikat cloth called am prom which is a fine red silk with minute dots of white resulting from the resist tying of both warp and weft yarns. [In weaving, threads that run lengthwise on a loom are called the warp, while the cross threads that run horizontally are called the weft.]

Plaids and checks are traditional for men’s sarongs but women also wear tiny checked cloths called samo, sakhu and rabeu. Complex multi-shaft bird’s-eye or diamond twill designs are woven into traditional shoulder cloths called swai soat and supplementary weave silks and brocades that have disappeared from this area for a hundred years but are now coming back.

Today most traditional designs are available for sale, not only from numerous shops in Surin town, but also in the villages themselves. Famous weaving villages are Ban Kwao Sirin, Ban Sawai, Ban Chan Rom and Ban Tha Sawang. Ban Kwao Sirin is perhaps the most accessible village with numerous shops selling not only silk but also handcrafted silver beads and jewellery, while Ban Tha Sawang is being developed to produce royal class textiles using gold threads in brocade designs. The use of plant and insect dyes is still prevalent in the Surin area while chemical dyes are employed to imitate the subtle colours from nature. Larger patterns of animals and birds in ikat and supplementary weft designs are not traditional, but are contemporary innovations. The skill of the weavers is being put to the test weaving multi-shaft traditional Cambodian design twills and supplementary weft textiles for aristocrats from Bangkok. Ban Reng Khai village is producing fabrics for Dutch artist Lea Dingjan-Laarakker’s painted silks, which she claims to be “the strongest in the world”.

Buriram is the origin of the little-known traditional tube skirt called sin mee hua daeng meaning ikat skirt with a red waist band. In fact this textile has red at both the waist and the hem. The ikat is cleverly arranged in the darker central field while maintaining the paler red borders. This is unique to Buriram and reflects the people’s ancient historical origins in the Plain of Jars, Laos, the Tai Phuan kingdom of Muang Phuan. Unlike mee hol from Surin, this is woven in a tabby weave so the front and back of the fabric are the same. Other silks woven in this area are thick silk blankets from Ban Takai where weaving co-operatives assist villagers market their goods.

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So why do people say handwoven silks are famous in Thailand, but none are as fine as those from lower I-san? The answer lies in the silk thread itself. Traditional Thai silk comes from the yellow cocoons of the bombyx mori silk worm and transforms into a sensual, textured fabric, distinguishing it from flat, shiny Chinese silk that is fast replacing real Thai silk in Thailand. The textured outer part of the Thai cocoon is carefully separated from the inner smoother, lustrous silk. The ancestors wove with these fine inner threads, discarding the outer parts of the cocoon, which today are popular for interiors and textured fashion goods. While each Thai silk cocoon renders approximately 900 metres of silk yarn, silk from several cocoons must be reeled together to make a workable yarn, because each individual filament is so fine. The fewer the number of cocoons reeled together, the finer the yarns. The weavers of lower I-san still choose to work with these tiny, hair-fine silk yarns that are so very time-consuming to process, giving them the reputation for the finest handwoven silks in Thailand.

To maintain silk’s lustre and softness, it can be washed by hand in cold water with any soft soap or shampoo but gently squeeze the water out without wringing. Dry in the shade and iron with a hot iron on the back of the fabric to prevent sheen. Your silk purchases will look fresh for decades and continue to receive compliments. The weavers from Lower I-san are past-masters of durability and elegance.

Contact information:
TAT Northeastern Office – Region 1
Areas of responsibility: Nakhon Ratchasima, Buri Ram, Surin and Chaiyaphum
Tel: (0) 4421 3666, 4421 3030
Fax: (0) 4421 3667
E-mail: tatsima@tat.or.th

All rights reserved. Text Copyright Tourism Authority of Thailand News Room. Images Copyright Patricia Cheesman