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The beauty of Baloch embroidery
Balochistan ’namah
Naheed Jafri recounts her journey of exploration into Balochistan and why its traditions of exquisite textile weaving and embroidery are intrinsic to the story of this province.
Naheed Jafri
The eight-volume Balochistan’namah is the saga of my long and convoluted journey into this province. The book begins by tracing the history and culture of Balochistan’s different areas and tribes and then delves into the lives the women there must lead, the textiles and embroideries they create and the rites of passage, both men and women, must undergo. Each aspect is set into a physical environment, which, if seen through the prism of its geographical connections with other cultures – some a long way away – comes as a revelation; one that opens up an entire new area of research.
The Baloch, over centuries, have settled over a long elongated arc, encompassing vast areas of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan. A vast area that must in its various enclaves have exerted its influence on all forms of culture, especially within the format of material culture.
As my initial research into the material culture of the province developed, I realised how one school of embroidery in one specific region was strikingly different from another, even when sometimes the two were not separated by a vast distance. That this was so in enough respects compelled me to explore the historical background of each area and of each tribal group and situate their textiles as an addendum to their history – or perhaps, the other way around.
A late 19th-century group photograph of the Jam of Lasbela’s wife, Murtaza Begum, and her daughters with ladies of her household
Not that history or textiles revolved around each other. Rather, that a particular textile culture could only emerge from a set of historical interactions, some of which could be traced centuries into the past. At the same time, it became clear to me that my enquiry, as it began to take shape, could not but be followed by what it seemed to me, the next obvious step – which was to explore how these Baloch women who created these incredibly beautiful embroideries lived; what their culture demanded of them, what each stage of their life’s seminal events may have looked like – how much was it in pursuance of their family’s material needs and was any of it part of their own desire to achieve a high level of excellence? I do not claim to have discovered all or even most of the answers to these questions, but it does serve to explain why and how the book came to be written in eight volumes, with the last one being an important supplement to the others.
The section on the material culture of the region – the ‘Anatomy of Design’ – completes my account of each region with a discussion of its textiles. Beginning with a study of historical textiles worn and traded in this region, I first discuss male costumes from the 19th through to the 21st century. The topics covered include important European accounts of local costumes and textiles, the robes worn by the titled elite, differences in detail in the male costumes across the region. It also explores the importance of the colour white in some areas, the elaborate and varied processes of tying turbans, male footwear, male children’s costumes, bags and the elaborately embroidered squares or bukchas that women embroider for their men. These chapters are followed by an exploration of embroidery techniques and motifs, most often in female costumes in each region – counted thread, surface, mirror and metallic embroidery, all of which in their detail vary by history and where a particular style or technique is most frequently used.
Farewell Durbar, Dera Ghazi Khan
When my earliest forays into the research of textiles of Balochistan began, I realised that it could only move forward if it became an honest appraisal, a reflection on a series of paradoxes. The story of Balochistan itself, just as some of its finest embroideries proved to be, was much more violent and yet exquisitely beautiful than what most people can ever imagine. As my discoveries widened, I became aware of the integral relationships within the different regions. Each one had stories that overlapped with the other, yet were simultaneously themselves, each filled with contrasts, ellipses and contradictions.
This book as it progressed took its own trajectory. All the layers parallel to one another, not only within a single complex geographical entity but within the many ‘Balochistans’ – real and imagined, all simultaneously vivid and woven together.
Textiles are focal for unravelling this paradox, beginning from their creation and then leading into the culture, the place of women in this society and revealing the callousness embedded within this tangible beauty. This beauty leads us out of these stories, and creates questions, making it that much more urgent to keep following the trail across mountains, valleys, towns and little-known villages. What comes forth is a recapitulation of the historical path of each region, hovering not only above life as it is lived now, but into its myriad crevices.
The starkest of examples are nothing less than my discovery that the women who do the finest work and create the most taxing embroidery are the ones who lose their eyesight – not entirely in every case, but far more often than is acknowledged. This may happen after they have designed a number of pieces, but more usually by the time they have reached the end of their third decade, or if they are fortunate, a few years later. Then came the vital discovery – that the places where the most beautiful embroidery is created are almost always the least developed.
The lives these women lead impact what they create. The tiniest of innovations made within the constraints of their lives are expressions of identity, agency and creativity. We see this in how they name the designs so as to establish differences that outsiders cannot immediately see. As with travel, history, and rites of passage, creativity, innovation, and renaming have revealed regional variations. At the broader level, this is most transparent and spoken about in western Balochistan (a cultural region that includes Lasbela, the Makran coast, Kech, Panjgur and Kharan).
An artist’s representation of His Highness the Khan of Kalat, Mir Khudadad Khan in the foreground with his sons
However, the larger point is that these intricate and beautiful designs are not simply the outer, external decorative surface of an otherwise extremely undeveloped region and a violent, unequal society and that whether or not the women are innovating in ways that are immediately apparent, they nevertheless are speaking through their creations. Their ‘craft’ is a testament to creativity just as much as a beautiful shrine testifies to the artistry of the architect and artisans, or a painting that of its creator.
The future is also part of this story. The more we speak of Balochistan’s beautiful material culture as the vision of its creators – the artfulness, ingenuity, and striving for excellence within the women’s domains – the harder it becomes to relegate this region into senseless obscurity. And it is then that it becomes difficult to assume that the story of Balochistan will always be destined to be the poorest province of an already beleaguered country.
For me, the textiles summoned up worlds that I had yet to imagine – and it is my hope to reproduce this experience for the readers of this book, regardless of their point of entry into any of the many areas that constitute this series of volumes.
Balochistan’namah will be published in 2025.
Naheed Jafri received her National Diploma of Design from the Camberwell School of Arts, London. Subsequently, she worked as a visualiser for J. Walter Thompson and as Head of Design at the National Book Foundation. In 1979, she set up her fabric printing workshop – Chaman Fabrics, which helped create a cottage industry for block-printed textiles in Pakistan. She is the co-author with Sherry Rehman of The Kashmir Shawl: From Jamawar to Paisley.
Cover photo: A meticulously crafted galla from Sarawan (R) and an artist’s representation of an embroidered galla in the Sayad Hashmi Reference Library, Malir (L).
