I'm told a program broadcast by the ABC recently allegedly claimed that ecoprint bundling is a practice originating from and belonging to indigenous Australian culture. The truth is that it is derived from Latvian Easter Egg dyeing, a pagan tradition pre-dating Christianity, involving the wrapping of hens eggs with plant matter followed by boiling them in a pot full of onionskins and water. I transposed it to cloth (experimenting with steaming as well as boiling) substituting eucalyptus leaves for onionshells. They smell a good deal nicer, for one thing.
As far as I know metal pots, as well as woven wool and silk, only came to this country with the European invasion of 1788 (other than accidental arrival via shipwreck) and it wasn't until they became available that eucalyptus leaves could be boiled in water to reveal their extraordinary colour potential, now in such demand whirled-wide.
But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps metal pots were salvaged from the shipwrecks that occurred along the West Australian coast from 1622 onwards (though that first one, the Tryall, was quite a distance offshore). If you have information I'd be very interested to read it, especially if you can back it up with references. Dye history fascinates me.
I have a theory that dye traditions around the planet follow traditional regional cooking practices quite closely...for example the slow-brewed indigo of Japan relating to their fermenting of foods, the soup-like dye extraction traditionally used in Europe and the stone-ground ochres and stains of indigenous Australians that echoed the ground pastes of seeds that formed part of their diet. The absence of boiled food in aboriginal cooking pre 1788 seems to be a clue about dyes.
I'm not being picky, I really want to know.
Some thoughts from my part of the world ... I don't know much about the history of dyeing planet-wide but there are some interesting details surrounding the food/dye practices of the local Coast Salish People.
ReplyDeleteA hunter-gatherering nation, they were known for their basketry & loom weaving work - which included, apart from plant fibers, mountain goat wool and fur from the specially bred wool dog [yes, dog!], dyed with materials on hand: berries, seaweed, black [iron rich] mud from the salt marshes, roots of the Oregon grape [Mahonia sp.] & wolf lichen for yellows, inner bark of alders for red, willows & hemlock bark for browns etc.
Food cooking was done in highly decorated bentwood boxes over hot stones but also in tightly woven baskets ... "The Coast Salish used cedar root to create a unique type of coil basketry. With the right technique, a cedar basket can be made watertight and heatproof. As a result, cedar baskets are used as 'pots and pans' for cooking and boiling water. Water is heated in baskets using hot rocks, and once it comes to a boil, foodstuffs can be added." [courtesy UBC]
Here's an excellent list of Coast Salish traditional foods from the Burke Museum, many also being dye materials:
http://www.burkemuseum.org/pub/reviving_traditional_food_knowledge.pdf
Historians state when the Europeans came they traded their iron, copper & metal cooking pots for the Salish's valuable dried foods, like salmon. And in the 1860s these European traders introduced their 'brighter' aniline dyes. And so it goes ...
sorry, have rambled on a bit but such a fascinating subject!
lovely added bits sweetiepea --- I really love to learn new things
Deleteexactly the sort of comment (full of things to tickle the grey cells) that i was hoping for Christi, feel free to ramble further. there's an enormous basket in the deYoung Museum in San Francisco that is lined with mud after that fashion. cannot recall whether it is form the same region though. the thing about eucalyptus colour is that it requires sustained boiling as a catalyst to flip the dye into red and though i have experimented i have not been able to achieve that with hot stones. BUT what the hot stones do is keep things warm consistently and i have found that with the colours of the Northern Hemisphere, slow sustained heating (rather than rapid boiling) often brings out the best
Deletesome folk comment how great this age is where there's a world of information just a click away.... I think there is an even larger world of misinformation available in that same click.... and the media seems to find (and perpetuate) the furphies more often than the facts.....
ReplyDeleteDo other cultures do the egg dyeing thing? My Old Nan always dyed our eggs for Easter with onion skins and string, sometimes even painting patterns with wax relief, but there's no Latvian blood in our family (strictly Irish, Scottish, and the tiniest bit of English :) ). It would not surprise me if she read about the practise and recreated it but it was very common in their small country town.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is Aboriginal and I've never heard or come across ecoprinting in my talks with his family. Perhaps it's the colours of the Australian earth that makes one assume Aboriginal? Will be checking back here to learn more!
lots of cultures dye eggs...and the wrapped onion skin version is common to all the Baltic states and has probably drifted widely around the whirled with the disapora and i expect happily shared with new friends and neighbours :-)
DeleteI have just done a quick bit of research. Although not a deliberate practice I wonder if some of the process of barkcloth textile creation from Sulawesi may have inadvertently created something like the eco print at some stage. These fibres were wrapped in leaves during the fermentation process and fishermen from Sulawesi were known to spend time in Northern Australia and trade with indigenous people for the right to stay and fish. Would be an interesting topic for research. Obviously some processes develop in different areas of the world, sometimes completely independently, due to local need and creativity.
ReplyDeletewould indeed make a good research project.
Deleteit's understood that dyers in the north shared plant knowledge ie that roots of Morinda citrifolia [common to the top end as well as Papua New Guinea, the various archipelagos and throughout Asia] could be used to dye yellow and red [with the addition of an alkali]. Morinda sp don't need boiling, extended soaking will do the trick.
I find your reasoning by analogy from cookery quite compelling. For one thing, we tend to try what we know and experiment when it fails...
ReplyDeleteThe only other practice I have seen that seemed like the eco print to me--and that I saw in Australia--was nothing to do with cooking. I saw drums being sold by their maker years ago. He had been treating the hides he was using for the drumheads by soaking in water and either added eucalyptus leaves (for tannin?) or perhaps they fell in. The resulting shapes on the surface of the drumhead were just lovely. I did ask a few questions and his eyes popped when I mentioned textile dyeing. I don't think he had ever thought about it!
Yes. I think his name is Peter and he uses a cold process...much like the prints we see on footpaths but with assistance from pressure. The drums are gorgeous (cannot recall his surname at present!)
Deletehere he is http://petedrumsandmore.weebly.com/
DeleteYes, that's him! Might have known you would know him. It did sound like a cold process. And they are indeed lovely!
Deletethis is a really interesting discussion, and i'm not sure i can add much to it. it did, however, entice me to think, and i'm particularly intrigued by the reported (by white ethno-researchers) uses of plants by first nations people for dye and fiber and the actual work. this would include the arctic and subarctic peoples practices...and by extension here their uses of plant fiber for textile and for writing substrate...i had long wondered why arbor vitae isn't used by contemporary basketmakers until just a few years ago when i purchased a small lidded vessel made by a young man whose name escapes me just now who told me he had asked permission from the elders to work white cedar with sweetgrass and black ash...and so my thought is that the uses, the traditions, the knowledge is wrapped up with appropriateness and with gratitude. have we lost some of this knowledge through lack of gratitude? india, you always include that piece when you teach, appropriate gathering, thanking, etc, but it's too easy to let it go and forget, and then, maybe forget much. so back to the dyestuffs: i've always been interested in how the northeast native peoples colored quills and gut and hide. i know this is long and convoluted, but, well, you've got me thinking! glory!
ReplyDeletei do like that line about uses, traditions,knowledge, appropriateness and gratitude.
Deleteit goes hand in hand with respect and care.
...must say i'm really enjoying the developing conversation(s) here
Thinking is indeed glorious! I notice the relationship between knowledge, appropriateness and gratitude that you're describing here in conversations and writings by Indigenous Australians. And completely agree that in the absence of gratitude and appropriateness, much is lost. I'm grateful for all reminders--yours and India's very much included.
ReplyDeleteHi India, I've come into this late but from an Australian perspective, there is some ethnographic evidence in northern Australia for soaking dye stuffs in baler shells (Melo amphorae shells modified as bowls) (West 1999: 9-11) and the use of redroot to dye twine in Queensland via soaking (Roth 1901: 11). Aboriginal people from Arnhem land and the east Kimberley would have seen Macassans dyeing cloth well before Europeans settled here (c. 1600s and most likely earlier) and there is a suggestion that the northern evidence of dyeing fibres come from this exposure. West 1999 discusses the evidence for dyeing fibres in more detail.
ReplyDeleteThe I haven't been able to come across any ethnographic evidence for boiling fibres in an eco-print type approach.
Roth, W.E. 1901. North Queensland ethnography. String and other forms of strand, basketry, woven bag and net-work. Bulletin 1. Government Publisher, Brisbane.
West, A. 1999. Aboriginal string bags, nets and cordage. Occasional papers, Anthropology and History Number 2. Museum Victoria, Melbourne.
I've asked a couple of colleagues if there is any other early references to dyeing fibres in Australia by Aboriginal people
thank you very much indeed. suspect the 'redroot' to be Morinda citrifolia [with addition of ash/alkali]. grateful for the references.
DeleteHi Inda, the redroot is Haemodorum coccineum
Deleteanother red dye source was Morinda reticulata with the dye extracted with water, saliva , wax or grease (Roth 1901:11)
Deletethanks for clarifying.in which case alkali is NOT required for a red result. Haemodorum is something i'm going to try and introduce in my plantings at home...if i can stop the wildlife eating it
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