x0x Traditional table napkins

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        http://www.sinop.gov.tr/ElSanat/elsanat2.asp?foto=13 ]
        
x0x Traditional table napkins

By Sabiha Tansug

Turkey is a cradle of civilisations, and Ottoman art
which developed and matured here created syntheses
whose roots stretch far back in time. Textiles are a
particularly fascinating example of this process, with
their extraordinary diversity of materials, colours,
designs and techniques. They have been woven by
Anatolian women over the ages, and their origins can be
traced back nearly three thousand years to the
Phrygians, a people who arrived in Anatolia from Asia
and settled around Gordion near Ankara. In the 8th
century BC Phrygian textiles were so admired that the
people of Pontus set about learning the technique, and
so the chain of Anatolia's weaving tradition began.
Table napkins known as peskir are a traditional Ottoman
textile that today have fallen into oblivion in towns
and are becoming steadily rarer in villages. At one
time these napkins were used by everyone in Ottoman
society, from sultans in their palaces to nomads in
their tents.

Decorative as well as functional, peskirs were
presented as gifts to those who officiated at wedding
ceremonies, served as wedding invitations (known as
okuntu) sent to friends and relatives by the brid'si
family, were among gifts taken by the newly wedded
bride when paying courtesy visits to the friends and
relatives of her husband, and a part of every brid'sd
trousseau, which included numerous different examples.
Sometimes a single long peskir was laid over the knees
of those seated around the table, and these were of
different lengths depending on the number of people.
These long peskir for 12 or 24 people were known as
dolak, and used at meals for large numbers, such as
wedding feasts, meals on religious feast days, and
large family gatherings. Small rectangular peskirs for
just one person denoted social status, and these were
used by the sultans, men of rank, and by grandfathers
and grandmothers as head of the family.


Newly married and young couples used a double peskir
symbolising the hope that they would enjoy a life-long
marriage together. These napkins woven in many colours
and patterns protected the clothing of the diners from
being stained and crumbs from being scattered on the
floor. They were also used when carrying covered copper
dishes of hot food to the table to prevent the hands
from being burnt, and also to dry the hands after
washing at the end of meals, for which ewers and basins
were taken to each person in turn. In addition, when
serving coffee after meals, it was customary for
servants to hang an ornate peskir over their left
shoulder. Until a century ago every home, even in
Istanbul and other large cities, possessed one or more
handlooms on which the women and girls of the family
wove garments, household linen, carpets, rugs and
kilims. Girls learned to weave as children from their
mothers, and became dextrous at handling a shuttle
wound with coloured yarn.


Girls who won a reputation for weaving expertise in the
neighbourhood were sought after as daughters-in-law,
and so found husbands easily. Like artists working on
canvas they wove their paintings on the loom; using
yarns coloured with vegetable dyes as their paints, and
shuttles as their brushes. But with the mechanisation
of the textile industry, this ancient craft gradually
went into decline, unable to compete with imported
European textiles which began to fill the shops and
markets of Turkey in the 19th century. First the
handlooms of the cities, then those of provincial towns
and villages were abandoned, even in areas where
weaving had once been an important part of the local
economy. So handwoven textiles silently made way for
mass produced goods. Unlike stone and metal artefacts,
which can survive unimpaired for thousands of years
beneath the ground, to be discovered by archaeologists,
textiles are fragile and quick to disintegrate.

Ancient textiles are therefore extremely rare anywhere
in the world, only surviving under unusual conditions.
For textiles to survive even a few centuries they must
be carefully protected from light, damp and other
harmful conditions.  Fortunately traditional handwoven
textiles have not died out in Turkey altogether, and
those that still continue to be produced are a precious
and vivid link with past centuries. Today lovely
examples of traditional textiles are woven in villages
around Denizli and Buldan in western Turkey, and in
June every year a textile festival is held in this
region. Peskirs decorated with flower motifs made of
needle lace, table mats, table cloths, bedspreads,
sheets, pillowcases and curtains woven at home by girls
and women are displayed here in heaps, all having a
charm that factory made textiles cannot match.

Those made for trousseaus are particularly beautiful
works of art, and are displayed separately at the
festival. The photographs seen here are of antique
peskirs dating from the 19th and early 20th centuries,
each of them an invaluable document of historical,
artistic and social interest.

* Sabiha Tansug is an ethnologist, researcher and
writer.