Dệt Thổ Cẩm Tày
The Tay people — Vietnam's largest ethnic minority group with approximately 1.8 million — produce a distinctive cotton brocade tradition concentrated in Cao Bang, Bac Kan, and Lang Son provinces in the northeastern highlands. Tay brocade is distinguished by its use of a specific natural dye indigo (chàm) producing a distinctive cool blue-black and by a geometric supplementary weft vocabulary featuring diamond lattice, chrysanthemum, and deer motifs drawn from the Tay people's Zhuang-Chinese cultural heritage. The Tay loom (khung cut) is distinct from both the Black Tai horizontal loom and the Hmong backstrap loom — a floor loom with a specific foot-pedal shedding mechanism that allows faster production while maintaining full hand control over supplementary weft pick-up. The Tay tradition is one of the largest-scale ethnic minority textile productions in Vietnam, with cooperative networks extending across several provinces.
Risk level: Endangered · Not inscribed
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