Thank you again for a sharply focused, well thought out and beautifully illustrated salon.

I own a Kurdish rug or two but am not a Kurdish rug collector and do not pretend to any knowledge in this area.

But the fact that you made the concept of "authenticity" central, attracted my attention and I wonder about the advantage of doing so. It seems to me that it might function to pre-occupy us with that issue and work to detract rather than to enhance our appreciation of Kurdish weaving.

I have read the John Collins' article but my issue of Hali in which Michael Wendorf's response appears has not yet arrived, but your use of "authentic" tripped a very specific association for me.

On page 27, in his 1980 edition of "Oriental Carpets: A New Comprehensive Guide," Murray Eiland questioned the usefulness of the concept of "authenticity" with regard to oriental carpets and mentions the Kurds as one of his examples. This passage is retained intact in the more recent edition written with his son.

Eiland suggests that two possible distinctions are being attempted with "authentic." The first is to suggest that a given piece was made "for use" rather than for sale. He suggests that commericial influences have been present for hundreds of years and that this distinction cannot be maintained.

Second, Eiland says that the claim "authenticity" is sometimes focused on design. Again he says designs moved around a lot. He talks about the boteh as one such example. You assert several designs that you feel are specifically Kurdish but I am unsure of the basis for that assertion. Even in the remote areas, Kurdish weavers are often described as great borrowers of design, an indication that suggests that their remoteness was not air-tight.

But it seems to me that you are also using this distinction is a possible third way: that of trying to suggest which strain of weaving by Kurdish peoples has the deepest undisturbed historical roots. (This is apparently why the weavings of the Kurds of Khourassan are excluded from this group. They are a transplanted variety of Kurd.) But what is the advantage of noticing which tap root of Kurdish weaving is deepest? Is there something particularly noteworthy or meritorious about the pieces woven by such weavers? Or is historical continuity something to be valued in and of itself?

It does seem to me that some advance is made by identifying specific structures that are apparently produced only by Kurdish weavers and this would seem to be the best ground on which to make an argument of Kurdish authenticity.

But I still wonder about the general utility of this distinction. Would you say a bit more about how it functions for you? What is it meant to pick out and what is meant to be excluded and for was purpose(s)?

Thanks again for a very well articulated initial salon essay.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Thanks for your interest.

You say:
“It seems to me that the concept of authenticity might function to pre-occupy us with that issue and work to detract rather than to enhance our appreciation of Kurdish weaving.”

Can you explain us why this issue would detract our appreciation of Kurdish weaving?

I cited some design that were used only by Kurdish weavers and which I consider as being authentic. I agree that Kurdish weavers often borrowed designs from their neighbors but I can’t accept that Kurdish weavers are always presented as copiers without any identity. Each time they did so they adapted the design using their own color palette, geometrical rendering and woven structure. It’s a widely and wrongly widespread opinion favored by the fact that very old pieces are almost unknown. Except for the Lori also Medes’ descendants I don’t know any weavers who were more inventive.

I agree with Eiland statements, but I don’t really think that flatweaves, bags, … in the Kurdish heartland suffered of any foreign influence. Were the Agros mountains totally air-tight? Certainly not but, according to James Klingner Hali 105 page 86, “…wayfaring in this region in the 1980s was like time-traveling. The rural areas were almost entirely without infrastructure. Roads were like trails and villages were without running water or electricity.” In such conditions I can’t imagine that any commercial production should have been build.

Certainly, specific structures, cited in my introduction, that are still produced only by Kurdish weavers help to define the Kurdish authenticity.

Another odd typically Kurdish practice, which will be developed in another posting, is the often use in their weavings of Mohair tufts in order to gain a wish.

Thanks, Daniel

You express puzzlement about Daniel's interest in "authenticity", and say, Is there something particularly noteworthy or meritorious about (authentic) pieces ... Or is historical continuity something to be valued in and of itself?

I think the answer to your question, for many collectors, is a resounding "YES!". There is nothing new or unusual about collectors getting excited about what they think may be the archetypical specimens. One of the things I find interesting about filikli, for instance, is that they may have been woven more or less as they are today, several thousand years ago.

Perhaps the most obvious example of the phenomenon of attraction to archetype is the "Mother Goddess" interpretation of Anatolian kilims, which claimed to place many of their elements into an unbroken historcial chain dating back to when Catal Huyuk was a flourishing center. After Mellaart's publication of those claims, kilims that most collectors wouldn't use as padding became highly sought.

Absurd, you say? Sure, but what ever made you think collecting (of rugs or anything else) is a rational activity?

Happy New Year!

Steve Price

The reason that I feel that the issue of whether a given piece is or is not an "authentically" Kurdish weaving could distract us from appreciating Kurdish weaving more tentatively defined, is that I doubt that we are in a position yet to be so conclusive. It seems unlikely that there is much Kurdish scholarship yet to share.

If you had suggested that we explore "Some Indicators of "Kurdishness" in Selected Flatweaves," I think Eiland's argument would not apply but the title seemed to suggest that we can in fact indicate what authentic Kurdish weaving is, and that seems to me likely to lead to an exchange of opinion not heavily enough laden with information. Perhaps your word "introduction" and your acknowledgement that indicators you cite are "incomplete" are in fact the tentativeness I would seek.

I acknowledged that your examination of flatweaves and their structure is the best ground for your search but do I understand that you will not be suggesting that any pile pieces are authentically Kurdish?

You mention the mina khani design and I would be surprised if this could be shown to be strictly Kurdish in origin. It is usually described as "Persianate" but as I'm sure you know was used in quite sophisticated versions by the Turkmen and the Balouch, among others. Perhaps you have said but I'm not clear yet about the basis for your indication that specific designs are Kurdish.

Anyway, the reason why I jumped on your word "authentic" is that it seemed to me that a debate about what is authentically Kurdish could focus our attention on a "side issue," so to speak, when the central thing to notice might be that a rug suspected of being Kurdish (but without any real ability to prove it conclusively) has beautiful color, wonderful wool, has a wonderfully imaginative design drawn with great skill. Here is a rug I encountered by chance this afternoon.

It is labeled "proto-Kurdish," which I guess means "not quite." But it seems to me that its merits are largely independent of whether we can determine whether it is authentically Kurdish.

Steve -

I did not quite ask "Is there something particularly noteworthy or meritorious about (authentic) pieces?" What I questioned was the usefulness of a sharply focused pursuit of the question of "authenticity." If we could determine what pieces are authentically Kurdish we could then ask as a separate question whether we found them meritorious in some way(s).

Steve you also say:

"One of the things I find interesting about filikli, for instance, is that they may have been woven more or less as they are today, several thousand years ago."

My thought:

I have to be careful here. I do not think it legitimate for any of us to recommend interests in collecting to anyone else. But there is something about this very real interest in the "old" that often seems odd to me. It seems frequently to be the occasion for inconsistency. Some very experienced collectors who apply very high standards to the weavings they see generally to be worthy of attention and of collection, seem to suspend many of these criteria when they encounter contemporary rugs with structures that appear to resemble that of very old weavings. I ask this question as a student but why are fikili worthy of the kind of interest being paid to them? Bold graphic impact and colorful but also crudely drawn at a level it seems likely any of us could manage and their brilliant colors may often owe something to synthetic dyes. Their structural similarity to the very old doesn't do much for me. Perhaps I am a victim of Mr. Emerson's hobgoblin.

Having spoken my piece here, I stand ready to learn about further indicators of authentic Kurdishness that Daniel indicates he will supply.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Your last post goes straight to the heart of the Collector Neurosis. It's not peculiar to rug collectors, but a very general element of the collector psyche. It isn't rational - you are, indeed, afflicted with Emerson's hobgoblin.

Collectors of ethnographic textiles, which is a first approximation description of the main audience of this site, are attracted to the objects of their desire by a great many factors. Everyone admits to aesthetics being one of them, of course, but the list of other things and their relative importance varies from one collector to another and even within a collector from day to day.

As for filikli, I can't imagine having a houseful of them, but they make a nice counterpoint and do have historical interest. Whether they are artistic is in the eye of the beholder. I recall entering an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art some years ago where the thing that most caught my eye from across the room turned out to be a brown door with a chrome doorknob, not a painting at all.

Regards,

Steve Price

The term "proto-Kurdish" was coined by Alberto Levi to describe a relatively early (roughly circa 1800) family of Kurdish rugs whose designs were based on classical designs that migrated from central and southern Persia to Kurdistan and Azerbaijan. Levi first announced his thesis at the ICOC in San Francisco in 1990, but expanded upon it for an article in Hali 70 (August/September, 1993).

The large carpets used to illustrate that article bear little resemblance to the pieces that Daniel has used in this Salon, although the rug you showed would be somewhere within the "proto-Kurdish" continuum.

Wendel

P.S: message written before Wendel posted his
Thanks,

Daniel

Would you go so far as to say that the rug I put up is not an "authentically Kurdish" piece and that the rationale would be that (1) it is recognizably a "workshop" rug and (2) it's designs have been adopted/adapted from known non-Kurdish design repertoires?

Daniel, perhaps you plan to say but are there pile pieces that in your view are "authentically Kurdish?"

Also please feel free to ignore these further questions. My original point was cautionary rather than central and I am willing to learn about the "authentically Kurdish." Perhaps it would be better to move to the further indicators that you have to share.

Note to Steve:

One sign that our endeavors have an occasional foot in the world of rationality is that we continue to give reasons for our assertions as Daniel has in some cases done here. The difficulty is in detecting when to apply rational considerations and when to suspend them.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Like Daniel, I have reservations about the very term "proto-Kurdish."

However, I also see problems in applying the term "authentic" to any group of weavings. I applaud John's effort to request a definition, much as he asked us to define "ethnographic rugs" in December of 1998 during Jerry's salon on that topic. That salon reminded many of us of an inconclusive Textile Museum convention on the topic of What is a Tribal Rug?

The issues in determining what is "authentic" are extremely complex. We need to know who wove what, where, when, why, how, in which structure, with what, for what and on what. Even then, we have only the basis for making a determination.

In Jerry's Ethnographic salon, many of us commented that there was no correlation between aesthetics and ethnographic origin. Here again, I would remind Daniel that there is not necessarily a relationship between "great beauty" and authenticity.

I like Daniel's approach of connecting structures with design in utilitarian pieces, but authenticity, like beauty, may be in the eyes of the beholder (or the definer).

Wendel

Thanks, Daniel

My initial reaction to your salon posting was to chuckle at the Northwestern European desire to identify the "ur" (a German prefix meaning real or original, for the non-sprechers out there). That made me think not of rugs, but of beer - where the term is used frequently (Urbock, Urbier, Urquell...). That made me thirsty. Now, thoroughly fortified (thanks not to the Germans, but those wonderful Belgians), I will commence to agree with John.

I do understand the desire to be able to identify Kurdish weavings. Structure, palette and design are, as we all agree, the standard tools in this regard.

However, how can we determine what is truly "authentic" (by which you seem to mean uninfluenced by non-Kurds). Who is to say that those characteristics of aesthetic or technique that scream "Kurd" to us originated with that ethnicity? Yes, those mountains are remote, but many peoples have travelled through them over the millennia.

Instead of creating ever narrower distinctions in an effort to identify "pure" Kurdishness, would it not be more beneficial to our understanding of Kurdish weaving to identify those qualities that let us declare an item to be a Kurd?

By the way, to apply your argument to my area of personal interest, you'll never convince me that a Balouch with guls isn't a Balouch.

S.

I think that I was off imbibing when your last posting went up. If I interpret it correctly, we are on the same page (almost?), after all.

S.

I believe that John Howe has raised an important point in questioning the use of the term "authenticity." In fact, in responding to Mr. Collins' article you will note that I was careful to use quotation marks when using the word "authenticity". Daniel is merely responding to the use of this word by Collins, much as I did in Hali 113.

Perhaps a little context with allow us all to focus our inquiry and discussion. Last year I was invited to present a program on Kurdish rugs to the New England Rug Society. In preparation for this program I wrote a short paper which was handed out at the program. The paper was entitled "Traditional Kurdish Rugs." After the program, the NERS asked me if they could publish the paper in their newsletter. With the help of Yon Bard, this was done. Although Collins did not attend the program, he doubtless read the paper. In fact, it was my impression that his first two pages of text in Hali 111 was a response to my paper. Whether this is true or not, I do not know. Regardless, my reaction is set forth in Hali 113.

All personalities and egos aside, I think the issue is one of "tradition" and "traditional Kurdish weaving" rather than "authenticity" and I would propose that someone begin a new thread on that topic. The point of this Salon, I think, is to put some perspective behind the remarkable fact that sheep and goats were domesticated in what is today Kurdistan and the Kurdish weaving heartland as early as 6000 BC. Nomadic pastoralism dominated all aspects of economic and cultural life in Kurdistan continuously until the end of the 19 th century. The herding of sheep and goats, the production of wool and the weaving of carpets and related utilitarian weavings were fundamental to this way of life. In this context it is relevant and worthwhile to consider the attributes and characteristics of this tradition, a tradition that has been largely ignored by the rug world despite its significance and richness.

I also agree that the term "proto-kurdish" is not descriptive and is actually counter-productive. If you wish to talk about proto-kurdish you have to start by looking at some of the ancient techniques that Kurds have used since antiquity and continue to use to this day. The carpets identified by Levi have nothing much in common with this and suggest that somehow Kurds began weaving in the 17th century. Kurds and their ancestors, in my view, have been weaving since antiquity.

For the record, the carpet in the image posted by John Howe is in the James Burns collection, purchased at auction where it had been consigned by Lawrence Kearney. It is a beautiful carpet of a well known type. In the exhibition I mounted 14 months ago, two related examples belonging to Aaron Zuckerman and the U.S. Department of State, Diplomatic Reception Rooms were exhibited. Images can still be seen on the website.

Thanks to Daniel, for whom English is a second language, in crafting this Salon.

-Michael Wendorf

Two brief points.

Authentic has, I believe, to do with the root "auto" which means self. The word authentic haveing to do with textiles would mean that the textile was created in and from a culture without outside influences. This cannot be the case in the areas under disscussion. There were exchanges of textiles since before the common era [see "When Silk was Gold"] that must have proliferated slowly into all the areas under discussion because of the value of the pieces they were recycled and copied.

There seems to be a differentiation made between work created for the use and/or enjoyment and/or expression of its creator and work that was made for [crass?] commercial intent. Although I agreed that a lot of stiff, uninspired pieces were made to be sold I do not think that pieces made for sale in all cases are foreign the expression of the person making them or not part of the zeitgeist of the culture. In an area less explosive, lets consider the song. Songs written to be performed in the 'salon' of creator--whether hovel or palace--are not neccessarily more "authentic" or more beautiful than those composed by professional composers.
Gershwin songs [composed to sell] are not less authentic than those of a down and out sharecroper who sang for his soul. They are just representative of a different set of influences. Authentic tin pan alley as opposed to authentic Mississippi blues.

Thanks for the salon Daniel.

Richard Farber

I am seeing that you have provided two pile examples. The filikli and the siirts (I actually own one of the latter) although clearly on the pile side of things, seem to me a kind of aside. But the Turkish rug is a clear example.

Would you be offended if I said that it looks rather Caucasian to me? (I am not suggesting that it is.) A more obviously Turkish Kurd pile piece for me is this one from the Eilands' new revision.

The Eilands' also offer an image that seems to me a good candidate for an authentic Persian Kurd pile piece.

Regards,

R. John Howe

Perhaps you could explain what is so obvious about the Turkish Kurdish rug and why you are calling it "authentic" given all the keystrokes used above.

The blue ground rug does not seem so obvious to me. Several years ago when it was on the market, it was labelled Luri by its widely respected owner. In addition, the animals depicted are not found on many Kurdish weavings that I have seen. Moreover, the Eiland's have not much to say about Kurdish weavings in their nice book, certainly very little beyond a broad overview.

Daniel has started to lay out some factors that he considers helpful to identifying what I would like to call traditional Kurdish weavings, just scanning a few images of what other people label Kurdish does not much advance the discussion unless you provide an analysis of why such examples are Kurdish and/or why they fit or do not fit some of the criteria proposed by Daniel.

-Michael

I mean nothing very serious, certainly not rigorous. I have not changed my view of the utility of "authentic." I should have been careful about my quotation marks.

It's just that Daniel's example "looked" rather similar to some Caucasian rugs. So obviously I'm working off design. I've attended enough sessions where folks have put up what they called Kurdish rugs to have a little of that rub off. So, as a pure neophyte in this area, I tend to see "Kurdishness" in certain designs (as indefensible as I think this is at bottom).

As for the blue rug, I wouldn't defend that choice if someone who has studied Kurdish weavings as you have disagreed. The Eilands caption says that they see it as "Kurdish village weaving at its vigorous best." Perhaps they too are mistaken.

I was just suggesting that the design stereotypes that I've been informally socialized into that are labeled "Kurdish" are different than Daniel's example about which he waxed fairly eloquently.

Regards.

R. John Howe