Visiting a Lao Weaving Village>>
Shaman and Healing Cloths >>
Motifs in Hilltribe Textiles>>
The Art of Natural Dyes>>
Loom Styles and Weaving Techniques>>
Materials and Techniques>>
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Souk, master dyer, in front of one of the intricate large silk shaman cloths or ceremonial wedding blankets of her design in Houaphon Province, Laos.

Shaman cloths dyed with natural dyes, Indigo leaves, bark, and lac (placed on the textiles) are some of the natural dyes used in these pieces.

Women dyeing silk in mulberry dye.

Freshly dyes skeins of silk drying in the sun in a village in Houaphon Province, Laos.

Sho, our Black Hmong guide, showing her families’ vat of indigo dye near Sapa, Vietnam.

Master dyer in Houaphon Province, Laos, showing two types of dyes she uses on silk.

Mai, our translator and cousin of the master dyer, in the “dye-works” of her cousin’s yard in Houaphon Province, Laos.

Natural Dyes

Despite the invention of chemical (aniline) dyes in the late 19th Century, the hilltribe artists Above the Fray: Traditional Hilltribe Art represent use dyes exclusively derived from natural items using traditional methods. The complex methods for obtaining these permanent dyes have been handed down for generations. We have been fortunate to have formed a friendship with one of the premiere dyeing experts in Houaphon Province, who has taught us a great deal about the art. (This woman also designs shaman cloths and has a cadre of weavers working under her direction. Her works are phenomenal!)

Making Colors

Natural silk is either white or yellow, most raw cotton is white, and plain hemp is light tan. Making these materials into colorful patterns requires a complex knowledge of how to mix and process dyes. Natural materials can create dyes of virtually every color on the spectrum, from subtle gray to electric turquoise, from rich red to luscious orange, from earthy brown to brilliant magenta, and from deep green to canary yellow.

Patricia Cheesman (see our recommended books) has written extensively about the process:

In the historic textiles, red and indigo were the most common ground-weave colors with a great variety of colors for the supplementary designs. Red dyes take well on silk and consequently, red has become the color of festivity and high status whereas cotton is difficult to dye red, usually resulting in pink or brownish hues.

Indigo, on the other hand, attacks silk due to its strong alkaline content, but is marvelous on cotton. Indigo was thus the color of everyday clothing and the farmers’ clothing. Only rarely was indigo dyed alone on silk in historic textiles.

In Laos and Vietnam, red is most often obtained by harvesting the red-tinted excretions of insects from the family Coccoidea. Thousands of these tiny insects colonize branches of suitable host trees and secrete the resinous pigment. This sappy-looking material, called “lac,” was traditionally processed not only for its red color, but also because, with increased acidity, it can be processed into clear varnish (hence the word, lacquer).

The leaves of the plant Strobilanthes (the “indigo plant”) can be mashed and processed to obtain the richest greens, blues, and blacks.

Flowers, roots, bark, wood, fruit and even clay can provide hue that can be dissolved and fixed into textiles. See the dye chart below for the various natural items used by the hilltribe artists.

The Art of Dyeing and Fixing Colors

Dyeing is as much an art as a science. Dyers may alter the mix and amounts of dye, mordant (see below), water or alcohol, vary the temperature or the cooking and soaking time, or experiment with multiple dyes, over-dyes, and rinsing and drying processes in order to obtain certain color subtleties, vibrancies and tones. Dyes are also dependent on the quality and availability of raw materials and the unique preferences of community traditions and individual dyers.

Making dyes fast and maintaining their brightness requires a process using fixatives, called mordants. Mordants make the colors “stick,” or fix, to the fabric despite wear, sunshine, and washings. The primary traditional mordants in dyeing are tannin, lye, slaked lime, and alum. Tannin exists in many woods and gives a yellowish hue to all dyes; lye is made from wood ashes washed in water and provides potassium and sodium salts which fix dyes; slaked line is a calcium mordant that is very strong and only suitable for certain colors, particularly yellows; and alum provides aluminum salt that is an excellent mordant. Most weavers add mordants to the dye bath, a process known as in-mordanting.

Dyeing fabrics or threads in a small village means that only small quantities of yarns for warp and weft threads are processed at one time. Thus, colors may shift in tone midway through a piece as that weaver moves from one season’s silk to the next season’s new dye lot. Expert dyers are often noted for their consistency in coloration.

Laos Natural Dyes Chart

(Information from Cheesman and Kanalaya - see recommended books):

Color	Local Name	English Name	Plant Part Used	Mordant
Blue, black (with maak bao overdye), and green (with jackfruit or haem root overdye)	Khaam Hohm	Indigo plant Strobilanthes	Fresh leaves and stem	Lye (ash solution), white alcohol, lime.
Green	Khaam Hohm	Indigo plant Strobilanthes	Fresh indigo leaves	Slaked lime
Forest Green	Bueak vine	Marsdenia tinctoria	Leaves	Slaked lime
Turquoise	Bueak vine	Marsdenia tinctoria	Leaves	Lye
Light green	Linmai flower tree	Indian trumpet	Fresh bark	Iron
Grey, black	Naakeua	Ebony fruit	Fruit	Lye, lime, mud
Deep crimson, pink, coral, brown, purplish-red	Khang	Stick lac	Resin from the lac (coccus lacca) insect	Sour tasting leaves, Iron
Vermillion, maroon, pink, lilac	Fangdaeng	Sappanwood	Heartwood and roots	Lye
Pinkish-grey, deep purplish red (used for monk’s robes)	Maisak, bai sak	Teak	Fresh Leaves, young teak leaves
Brownish-red	Pueak mai padu	Fresh Burmese ebony	Bark
Brown	Sisiad	Betel palm	Bark	Lye
Brown	Ben	Various species of bush	Fresh leaves	Lime, lye
Gold Brown	Hookwaang	Wild almond	Fresh leaves	Iron
Orange	Maaksaet	Anatto	Seeds	Lye or alum
Deep golden-orange	Kheh	Cundrania	Heartwood	Lye
Golden yellow	Mai maak mii	Jack fuit	Heartwood	Lye
Lemon yellow	Haem	Haem vine or “climbing turmeric”	Root	Slaked lime, plus alum or lye
Rich olive yellow	Mai khae	Emarginate tree	Wood
Pale cream	Pueak mai maak muang paa	Forest mango tree	Bark