Japan · Textile / Weaving / Ikat
琉球絣 (Ryūkyū Kasuri)
Ryukyu kasuri (琉球絣) is the ikat of Haebaru, a town next to Naha and the largest textile producer in Okinawa. Warp and weft are hand-bound to a pattern, dyed, unbound and hand-woven with a thrown shuttle. It draws on a vocabulary of some 500 traditional pattern units named after everyday things in Okinawan dialect: tōigwā (swallow), tīzukun (fist), jindama (coin), kūrugumu (cloud). Designers rearrange, rescale and combine these units rather than invent new ones. Most Okinawan textiles are made start to finish by one person. Ryukyu kasuri is different: a division of labor across 16 steps (design, binding, dyeing, loom preparation, weaving), plus a pattern-chart method (ezu-shiki) for marking the weft, lets a weaver finish a bolt in about a week. The result is roughly 5,500 bolts a year, far more than any other Okinawan textile. Haebaru became a weaving center in the Taishō and early Shōwa eras, forming its weaving association in 1930 and absorbing weavers from Tomari in Naha. It rebuilt quickly after the war from about 1949, helped, local weavers say, by having no US bases: its people went back to looms rather than base jobs.
Risk level: Stable · Not inscribed. METI Traditional Craft Product (27 April 1983)
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