Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh.

• Author: Hall, Redecca
• Position: Book review

Mantles of Merit: Chin Textiles from Myanmar, India and Bangladesh. By DAVID W.AND BARBARS G. FRASER. Bangkok: RIVER BOOKS, 2005. Pp. 288, plates.$60.

In recent years collectors and researchers have had unprecedented access to regions of South and Southeast Asia that had been closed to outsiders for many decades. This has resulted in enhanced opportunities to present research about art and culture from these areas, as in the book under review, concerning the textiles of the Chin, a group of people living in mountainous parts of northwestern Myanmar, eastern Bangladesh, and northeastern India. This type of research is particularly necessary in the face of modernization and change, and the consequent loss of arts and heritage of minority cultures. Textiles are particularly prone to loss, as they are perishable, time-consuming to make, and easily replaced by factory-made cloths.

Within the field of textile studies, it is generally understood that basic identification is essential before any further, in-depth research can be pursued. Thus, it is both necessary and expected that publications will provide lengthy descriptions and numerous photographs. In this case, the authors have exceeded expectations. Their photographs of textiles, textile production, people, and environment are both beautiful and informative; without these photographs the text itself would be impossible to read and apply fully to the textiles described. The book has over five hundred color and historical photographs, the majority of which bear witness to the exquisite subtlety and beauty of the textiles of the Chin, for whom textiles are the primary art form, as for many groups lacking the resources or wealth to create elaborate sculpture, paintings, or architecture.

In their introduction the authors state that their objective is "to provide a detailed description and analysis" of Chin textiles (p. 11). The detail and analysis achieved will make this a reference book for most readers. The book is organized into eight chapters. The first chapter provides an introduction to and definition of the Chin. On the evidence of linguistics, geography, and social structure, the Chin are not a homogenous group. In fact, there are a dizzying number of subgroups of the Chin, numbering somewhere between forty and fifty. To make some sense of this diversity, the Frasers have divided the Chin into four groups based on the similarity of their textiles and textile technology; these groupings...