දුම්බර (Dumbara)
Dumbara (දුම්බර) is the Kandyan region's distinctive weft-float weaving tradition — producing textiles and floor mats with geometric patterns of remarkable mathematical density. Named for the Dumbara Valley near Kandy, dumbara weaving uses a floor loom with a complex string heddle system (structurally similar to Nepali Dhaka, CRAFT-0546) to produce patterns where weft floats of varying length create the geometric vocabulary. The Dumbara tradition is unique within Sri Lanka in its mirror-image bilateral symmetry: every pattern element appears identically on both halves of the textile — achieved not by a separate counting system for each half but by a single heddle set that automatically produces mirror symmetry through the bilateral warp arrangement. The heddle set construction — encoding bilateral symmetry into the physical heddle structure — is the primary tacit knowledge.
Risk level: Critically Endangered · Sri Lanka national ICH list
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