[Ramie growth]  [Ramie cutting]  [yarn making] [yarn swinging] [sunning] [yarn twisting]
[yarn rolling] [yarn spinning] [thread cooking] [thread washing] [thread dyeing] [sunning]
[thread neatening] [routing] [weaving]

Ramie growth can be described as follows: if starting from root, the ramie grows bud about 2-3 weeks later, according to the fertilizing situation of soil and planting time; break the stick above the root when the height reaches 15-20 cm or around and fertilize then; extracted ramie yarn becomes tough until the ramie stick gets mature and presents brown, so that harvested ramie in the thrid or fourth round are useful as growed from the root and 2-3 times of rammie cutting (mature and brown in color -> ramie cutting process) are required before harvesting ramie and making them to be weaving materials, which is about 6-8 months. For those have been grown in fields for a long time, mature process do not take too long, enable to harvest once a quarter and 3-4 times a year.

Ramie growth process
weeding and arranging the land	soil loosing	growing ramie root	fencing for protection	observation of ramie growth
situations of observing ramie growth
about 2 weeks  (5-10 cm)	about 3-4 weeks  (10-15 cm)	extending growth  after broken stick  (about 1-2 months)	extending growth  (2-3 months)	a cluster of ramie  (6-12 months)

Generally, ramie cutting should be done by female and forbiddens male participation, starting from processing ramie leaves, when harvesters would cut down sticks above root with reaphook while grasping about 10-15 sticks at the bottom adown the part with leaves, and get rid of leaves with the back of reaphook.

Process of ramie cutting
cut the bottom of ramie stick	get rid of leaves	take all ramie sticks

     (3)  Making ramie yarn by peeling off bark

Ramie stick should be peeled off. The operator should sit with two legs straight, fixing 2-3 ramie sticks (suggest using 1 stick for greed hand) at the end by crossing thumbs of the feet while breaking sticks by hands (at two third spot of the stick). When the stick breaks but the cortex keeps connected, scratch the surface with ramie scratching tool made of bamboo, leaving fibre (presenting white), which is not an easy job, requiring use of both hands and feet, as well as waist power. The job was operated by women then and men were forbidden in assistance. If ramie coverage was wide, people would collectively cooperate to accomplish the job by means of “job shift”.

Process of ramie yarn making
prepare ramie scratching tool before making yarn	Break sticks	take ramie cortex when breaking sticks	repeat cortex scratching using hands and feet	roll yarn in palm.

Peeled ramie becomes fibre, named as ramie yarn that should heavily beated the stone to get rid of the residue and obtain products with better qualtiy.

Image source: http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)

After beating yarn, put ramie yarn on hawat by bundle for sunning that makes the fibre tougher and gets rid of the water for handy delivery.

Image source: http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)

Bite one end of ramie yarn with incisors, decompose ramie yarn by hands, and connect them by section in the way of twisting in hands. Takd off yarn when the palm is full and bind them in the middle which is called “Bkuul”.

The other way refers to first encircling thin sisal rope around one’s neck while binding ramie yarn with sisal rope (instead of incisor as a more hygenic way), and then following above operation, which explains why women then usually have think sisal rope around neck. It serves as tools as well as a representation of a “hardworking woman”. Yarn twisting is time consumption, so Truku women know how to utilize time efficiently, who would twist while walking to  and returning from fields or other destinations.

twist yarn with mouth	not twist yarn with mouth (put twine around neck)	decompose ramie yarn	rub, twist and connect yarn in palm

Revolve the twist stick and encicle ramie yarn with the revolving stick with diameter about 10-20 cm.

encircle twist stick around ramie yarn	pack ramie yarn (put in back-basket)

Weaving with spindle, the movement of which is convenient for the next process; ensure ramie yarn to be neat after complex process like handy cooking, sunning, washing and dyeing.

Encircle twist stick around ramie yarn

       (9) Thread cooking (bleaching)

Stir ramie thread and charcoal ash water and cook them in pot, buring wood in the past. Be cautious of the fire. If it is too big, bleaching process may fail, because the cooked ramie thread would be heated uneven. Cooking process lasts about 3 hours, the completion of which should depend on the softness and bleached level of ramie. To check the bleached level, we can take part of ramie out from pot, and rub and wash them with clean water, when the part may present white.

Process of ramie thread cooking
Make fire in the stove	Cook charcoal ash water in the pot	Get another basin of charcoal ash water	Take sunned ramie yarn	Stir with charcoal ash water
Charcoal water starts boiling	Put stirred ramie  yarn in	Put charcoal water to about 90 percent full	Cover the lid and cook for 3 hours	Until the water is vaporized

Thread washing purposes to get rid of residues and black soil from ramie thread and make them whiter. Thread washing requires plenty of clean water, and experienced weavers would use brook nearby (fluid and clear) to take residue and black soil away from the thread, which is evident of better effect than washing at home. Accessing to water was not handy in the past, as some interviewees mentioned that before actually learning weaving skills, they had to obtain water from the source after woken up by elderlys early in the morning, which should reveal direct relationship between thread wash and plenty of water.

Image source: http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)

Traditionally Truku does not have much impregnant but just red and black, leaving weaving thread with three colors: white, black and red. Red: chop corm of dioscorea ehipogoniordes got from the field, rub and stir them with ramie thread to infuse the color into thread, and eventually the thread turns to red. Black: adopting leaves of Lagerstroemia subcostata is one of dyeing methods, embeding dipped ramie thread in paddy field for 1-2 days, which would present black after cleaned. White: thread cooking bleaches it.

Extract of corm of Dioscorea ehipogoniordes after chopped	Cook ramie thread dipping in extract of Dioscorea ehipogoniordes
Image source: http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)

After dipping and cleaning, place thread on bamboo shelf outdoors for sunning, lasting about 1-2 weeks.

During sunning, neatening thread is necessary to check if ramie thread is broken or messed together, and solve the problems.

Encircle ramie thread around routing frame accroding to needed figure and color, effort on which decides the success of works.

The Truku weaving method spends lots of time on previous 14 steps, but the actual time consuming and testing step just starts. It is said that weaving method and process decide the looking of final work, because nice and durable work depends on the texture. Generally speaking, Truku has five weaving methods, including tabby, diagonal, diamond, anthemion, and rick-like or float weaving, which will be briefly introduced as follows.

Tabby weaving: is regarded as the simplest and most disciplined weaving method, and can be used to weave a large piece as well as accompanied with different colors (only red and black were available in the past) to form stripes. Basically, tabby cloth is used to make coverlet and tablecloth, or carry babies.

Large piece of tabby cloth (presented by A-hsueh Liang Li)	Texture of tabby weaving (partial magnification of label 1 in left picture)	Texture of tabby weaving (partial magnification of label 2 in left picture)

Diagonal weaving: the method and routing are different from tabby weaving, but can be learnt quickly if one studyeing hard.

Image source: Traditional Atayal Sediq Weaving Culture, by Tiemi· Nawei  (Zeng, Ruilin)

Diamond weaving: the weaving method and routing are the same with diagonal weaving. The process adopts diagonal first, and then uses weaving tools (thread heddle rod and separating rod) in turn which is called “reverse” production method.

Source of works:Yusi•Yutaw Daughter of A-hsueh Liang Li	Partial magnification of left picture

Float weaving (rice-like method):Float weaving has the same routing methoud with tabby weaving, drawing figure with thread drawing rod and requiring many separating rods. As mentioned in the weaving meaning, those who want to pass rainbow bridge should know how to operate weaving of miri ratuk and pala msabung.

Source of works:Yusi•Yutaw Daughter of A-hsueh Liang Li

Information source:
(1)http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)
(2)Traditional Atayal Sediq Weaving Culture, by Tiemi· Nawei(Zeng, Ruilin)
Image source::
(1)http://www.shanli.org.tw/saw.htm (Making Rainbow with Ramie - Shanli Tribe)
(2)Traditional Atayal Sediq Weaving Culture, by Tiemi· Nawei(Zeng, Ruilin)