Tantye, tanche, qashoqdan, kurteh, kailandan, hubble-bubble, aina-khalta.
This salon has entertained us with quite a few unusual words and weavings. Chuck Wagner introduced Turkmen football shouder pads for babies, Empress sewing machines, Uzbek gentlemen and counterfeit cowries. John Howe produced a grand embroidered mirror bag. Wendel Swan actually showed a couple of chanteh, along with what may be a pipe bag, yet no one proffered a pipe. Steve Price will be leaving the country soon on a research project to find the rare Turkmen Small-Nosed Horse that would fit the nose bags we know from the Turkmen weaving tradition. Kenneth Thompson confirmed the accuracy of a long-speculated dealer tale of mafrash being used for baby cradles. A generous and interested dealer provided a delectable selection of chanteh for comparison. I suspect future collectors will be cataloging the various sizes of plastic buckets and boxes WE use for various storage purposes.
Several conclusions were made:
The design elements of weavings this size are small enough that provenance is difficult to determine in many cases. Chanteh were made for various uses and are of varying sizes. Extant chanteh are not of great age – similar to tribal rugs of the same areas, and sweetmeats came in very lovely bags. I leave you with the confidence that chanteh will continue to be made, as evidenced by this little charmer that is obviously Turkmen of recent vintage, and woven curiously with the warps sideways and the wefts top-to-bottom. It is sewn together at one side and the back is plain weave red.
Long live the chanteh!