| Dear Daniel (and others), I have a few comments on the Milan bag face.
At the 1993 Textile Museum Rug Convention entitled "A Kurdish
Kaleidoscope," the speakers were Mehrdad Izady (himself a Kurd and a
professor at Harvard), Jim Burns (one of America's foremost collectors,
now working on his own book on Kurdish rugs), Jim Klingner (a Belgian
dealer specializing in Kurdish rugs from Turkey), Alberto Levi (the
Italian dealer who wrote an article for Hali on "proto-Kurdish" rugs) and
me (an eclectic collector with 15 or 20 Kurdish rugs). At the show and
tell on Sunday, a number of rugs were brought in with the question to the
speakers (as well as the collectors and dealers in the audience): "Is this
Kurdish and, if so, from where?" Floyd Patterson never did as much bobbing
and weaving as we "experts" did. Sure, there were a few solid answers, but
that episode demonstrated just how little we really know about Kurdish
rugs. To address the complex issue of Jaf versus Sanjabi, let me recite
portions of Mehrdad Izady's book "The Kurds - A Concise Handbook." To
begin with, in his table categorizing the various Kurdish Tribes and
Tribal Confederacies, Izady lists the Gurani-speaking tribes of the
Sanjabi Confederacy as being geographically situated (if I understand
correctly in about 1925) in Southern Kurdistan between Pawa and Maydasht.
I hope that I correctly state that this is an area south of Sanandaj and
north of Kermanshah, but west of both - straddling the present Iran-Iraq
border. He lists 20 tribes in the Sanjabi Confederacy. The South
Kurmanji-speaking Jaf Confederacy is evidently much larger and Izady shows
14 tribes in the Jaf Confederacy in the Central Iranian plateau between
Jawanrud and Sanandaj and the largest portion of the Jaf Confederacy with
another 25 tribes in Central Kurdistan between Sulaymania, Klar and
Halabja. For as long as I can remember, I have referred to the diamond
bags with offset knotting as Jaf Kurds, probably because everyone else
did. Ambassador Eagleton has undoubtedly visited the Jafs and seen such
weavings among them, confirming that they wove such pieces. That does not,
however, preclude other Kurds from doing likewise. Bags and other textiles
from other groups in other areas use hooked diamonds and offset knotting
can be found in many areas - although never as profusely as we find in
what we call Jaf Kurds. Given the large number of different Jaf tribes, it
is logical to assume that we would find at least some variation in format,
colors and structure even among just Jaf production. In fact, there is
variation. Whether that variation is due to tribal differences or time or
due to that fact that the diamond design with offset knotting is
replicated by other Kurdish (or even non-Kurdish) groups is perhaps open
to question. Perhaps Amb. Eagleton could provide information as to which
group has produced bags of the "Milan" type Daniel presents. Years ago I
heard this type described as Turkish. I now don't believe that to be true.
On that issue I can make one observation that probably doesn't mean very
much. I have seen a few complete bags similar to Daniel's Milan khordjin
and all had a "slit" closure system, common to Persian or Persianate bags.
Regardless of whether they are Sanjabi or Jaf or Iranian or Iraqi, these
bags all seem to use the Persian method for bag closure. I believe it
remains true about Kurdish rugs (as perhaps it does with many other
categories as well) that we know far less than we think we do. The trade
has given us terminology (sometimes inaccurate, often insufficient) while
academics provide usually overwhelming political, economic and historical
information, but little information about the textiles themselves. Daniel
asks a question: "Is my Milan khordjin a Sanjabi or a Jaf Kurd bagface or
something else?" I have a definitive answer: "Yes." Regards,
Wendel |
While researching this topic, I was drawn to the book Yastik, by Brian
Morehouse. There are similarities with the layout of many of the yastiks
from all over Turkey. I have an old, ragged Eastern Turkish yastik with an
eerily similar "latchook" motif (crudely rounded "hooks" and
brown/aubergine color: 
You
can see from the back the offset knotting: 
The whole enchilada: 
It also has a very light green
ground color as has been mentioned in regard to the Kurdish weavings. Does
this mean Daniel's bagface came from an area between these? Is the bagface
tradition a nomadic Kurdish variant of the more settled yastik tradition?
Or did the weavers just borrow from several traditions? There is another
example of this type of bagface on the Lenkoran website labeled Shiraz
mat. I suspect it could be from the same region, but rather later. It is
not the most popular vacation spot in the world, so these questions may
never be answered. Piece by piece the answers may present themselves.
Patrick Weiler