Hand woven fabric of the Aimol Tribe







Aimol tribe



The Aimol tribe has about eleven kinds of cloths. Out of these, three are female dresses. They are saipikhup, senchal and arisan. saiphkhup is a phanek and its literal meaning is elephant’s knee. At the borders in the lengthways, the saipikhup design is red and yellow color is interlaced adopting extra weft weaving on the black background.
 Another decorative pattern of design woven with extra warp is Thabi maru meaning cucumber seed. Senchal is a wrapper having black and red stripes. The two borders are decorated with extra warp. Arisan is a women’s shawl. It is a white cloth having blue border. One of the clothes of the Aimol community, ponchial rulpuiyeak cannot be touched by the women folk though.


Reference - Traditional hand woven fabrics of Manipur by Mutua Bahadur


Disclaimer - I do not own any of the images in this post

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