Rongsu (Lotha term for the principal male prestige shawl)
The Rongsu is the male prestige shawl of the Lotha Naga people of Wokha district, Nagaland. One of the smaller Naga tribes (approximately 170,000 people), the Lotha have one of the most technically precise loin-loom weaving traditions in Nagaland — the Rongsu is characterized by a complex horizontal band structure in red, black, and yellow-white, with narrow supplementary weft motif bands that must be exactly even in width and spacing. The yellow-white bands, worked in a specific short-float supplementary weft that creates a raised, almost embossed surface effect, are the Lotha technical signature — produced by a pick-up technique that differs from both the Angami and Ao approaches in the precision of float length control required. The Lotha also weave a distinctive female prestige cloth (Eentsü) with a separate but related pattern vocabulary.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed
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