Bangladesh · Spinning / Textile
ফুটি কার্পাস (Phuti Karpas)
Phuti karpas (ফুটি কার্পাস) is the specific cotton variety that produced Dhaka's legendary muslin — a cotton so fine that a full sari (5.5m) could be folded and passed through a signet ring, or stored in a matchbox. The cotton itself is near-extinct — a wild or semi-wild variety growing on the Meghna river islands with fiber so fine that it can only be spun using a specific technique: the takua spinning wheel, operated only in the pre-dawn hours when riverbank humidity peaks. The spinner dampens the fingertips with water from a clay pot and drafts the fiber without any twist pressure — 'the fiber joins itself; I only guide it.' The finger pressure is so light that the finished thread can be broken by a breath.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · UNESCO Representative List (2013) — Dhakai Muslin; Bangladesh national ICH list
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