Persian Salt Bags
Filed Under Antique Persian Rugs, Handmade Persian Rugs, Kerman Rugs, Persian Rug Threads, Persian Rugs History, Persian Rugs Materials, Persian Salt Bags, Persian Tribal Rugs |
The woven containers sold in the marketplaces and used by the nomadic populations of Kerman Province in Western and Southwestern Iran are called namakdan in Persian. Also referred to as Persian Salt Bags, these beautiful textiles do not only hold salt. They are also used by tribes as containers for a variety of other small items such as seeds and nuts.
These beautiful Antique Persian Rugs primarily come from the Zagros mountain areas where tribes are constantly on the move, living in pitching goat hair tents wherever the best grazing can be found for their livestock–lowland in the winter and up to higher pastures in the summer months.
As detailed in Parvis Tanavoli’s 1991 work Bread and Salt, the rugs are primarily the work of the Turkish-speaking Afshars, and the Persian-speaking women, both nomadic and settled in villages, who also produce a large portion of the rugs woven in Kerman. The clans within the tribes may also contribute unique designs, that are difficult to assess for an outsider in this very insular society.
Hard information is impossible to come by, and no one can with certainty connect any given pattern to any given weaver. It is impossible to validate local experts when they attribute patterns to specific tribes because there is no way to verify the information. It might be possible for textile experts to observe distinctive patterns if they could observe the women at work. This is particularly true for Persian Rugs compared to other types.
However, foreign researchers are handicapped from more extensive research by the traditional nomadic culture that does not allow males to observe the tribal women while they are doing the weaving. Some suggest that women researchers would be idea to do such observation, but there may not be many more years to study these weavers before the traditions die out.
Researcher P.R.J. Ford found a great deal of information from merchants in the bazaars of Tehran, Sirjan, and Shahr-e Baback, who have direct contact with the tribal group who sell their own textiles to them or to their pickers, who go directly to the nomads to find woven goods. Some of the motifs that are particular attractive include stars, rosettes, chevrons, diamonds, stripes and eight-sided geometric forms.
What observer and collector John Wertime observes in his collection as particularly Kerman is a peach gradually progressing to orange coloration on the back of the neck of the container, while a blue basic color graduating to red can be seen on the front of the neck of the same container.
True collectors of textiles would wish to see more of this skillful work, and mourn the impossibility of discovering who has done which work and the unlikelihood that this traditional skill will be able to continue to thrive as the nomadic tribes face the pressures of modern society and are less able to maintain their cultural traditions.
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