The Naga Shawl

Naga women are excellent weavers and this is reflected in the colourful chang woven by them. There are numerous traditions and beliefs associated with the weaving and wearing of this traditional dress. A chang cloth requires all the zigzag lines to fall uniformly, or else the young warrior wearing it may die a premature death. When a Konyak woman gets married she wears a shatni shawl which is preserved and used later only to wrap her dead body. Convention demands that a rongtu shawl be worn only if the mithun sacrifice has been carried out over three generations.

Textile dyeing is another significant and related art among the hill tribes of the region with each tribe possessing one or two special types of dyes. Superstition and belief also dictates the selection of colour. The weavers believe that if a young woman dyes her cloth red, she is sure to die a violent death and hence only old women dye yarn red.

The Naga shawl is the most important element of Naga dressing. Every major tribe of Nagaland has its own unique shawl pattern, design and colour. The shawl has three pieces of cloth woven separately and stitched together. The central stripe is more decorative than the other two, which generally have more or less the same pattern. Designs vary from a formal arrangement of lines to elaborate patterns of diamond and lozenge shapes. Each tribe has its own patterns involving simple and clean lines, with stripes, squares and bands being the most traditional design motifs.