Māori Traditional Textiles
Māori traditional textiles are the indigenous textiles of the Māori people of New Zealand. The organisation Te Roopu Raranga Whatu o Aotearoa, the national Māori weavers' collective, aims to preserve and foster the skills of making and using these materials. Textiles made from locally sourced materials were developed by Māori in New Zealand after migration from Polynesia as the plants used in the Pacific islands did not grow well in the New Zealand climate. In traditional Māori weaving of garments the main fibre is called muka and is made from Phormium tenax, harakeke. The Māori language terms for different types of weaving are commonly named as raranga, whatu and whiri. Raranga is a plaiting technique used for making baskets and mats; whatu is a pre-European finger weft twining weaving method used to make cloaks; and whiri is braiding to make cord. Most people weaving traditional Māori textiles were and are women. Traditionally, to become expert a young woman was initiate ...
[...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   [Amazon]