Re: toughts of a "not turkomaniac"

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: : : Dear Daniel, : : : Much of what you have to say here makes good sense. However, here are a few points to ponder: : : : 1. The braided ropes on my piece are tightly sewn to the sides of the bag everywhere except at the two white bands, where they are left unsewn and separated from the bag to leave spaces big enough for hands. Why? I see no such spaces on the piece in Moshkova's book (p. 216), by the way, so we may conclude that these loops are not a consistent feature (but neither is their absence!). : : : 2. If you want to make a bag to hold a lot of grain, you make it tall and wide (like a juval). But you wouldn't open it all the way to scoop out some of the contents. It isn't clear to me how someone could make a bag with a large capacity and small opening. Instead, you make an opening that can be opened part way when you want to do so. : : : 3. In Tsareva's book, on p. 14 there is a ca. 1900 photo of a Turkmen tent interior. A woman is seated, evidently preparing food and a cradle hangs near her. An ak juval stands against the tent wall. It clearly has a rope hanging down from its top, but the photo doesn't let us tell whether it's a closure or a hanging rope. : : : 4. Robert and Lesley Pinner have a chapter on Tekke juvals in Mackie and Thompson's book, and devote part of it to discussing the very rigid rules of decoration of ak juvals. The number of stripes and their sequence and relative widths are essentially invariant, and there are very few alternative designs for each stripe position. : : : 5. Is cotton too weak to bear weight? Anyway, the warps are wool, and the cotton is only used for weft in the white areas. : : : 6. The ropes seem pretty sturdy to me, although I admit I've never tried to see how much abuse I could make them withstand. I can't tell where the rope is broken in the one in Moshkova (p. 216), or even which rope is the "shoelace" and which is the one sewn to the upper lip of the bag with intermittent spaces for the "shoelace" to thread. : : : Steve Price : : Steve, if I wanted to make a bag with large capacity and small opening I'd make it tall and narrow, like the rest of the world. : : Regards, Yon : Yon, : I would think a household container used for dispensing small amounts of a substance would be constructed to be easily filled, with a design suitable for dispensing various volumes when needed. The method used with the ak juval seems useful for this purpose. The tall and narrow opening in salt bags, however, would be more useful for use outdoors, in the field, rather than in the yurt. : Patrick

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