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Tibetan )2gs and Te6tilesDaniel Miller &arpet is Tibetan horse blanket, 19B0s

Tibetan nomads, known as drokpa, meaning ‘people of the high pastures’ continue to fascinate us. Moving across the grasslands with their animals, their home a tent, nomads evoke freedom. Their world cherishes mobility and the liberty to roam in search of grass and water. The animals the nomads raise – sheep, goats and yaks – provide the wool and fiber that are the elemental raw materials used for making Tibetan carpets and textiles.

Although Tibetan nomads do not make knotted pile carpets they use them in their tents for sleeping on and as blankets and saddle carpets for their horses and yaks. Nomads do weave sheep wool and yak hair into blankets, bags, tent material and make ropes, sling shots and other items for their daily use.

&arpet from the Thomas Fild &ollection

The grazing lands of Tibet are one of the world’s great grassland ecosystems. This is the heart of Asia. The highest elevation grazing lands in the world are found in the Tibetan pastoral area. Most of the area is above 4,000 m and some nomads maintain permanent camps at elevations as high as 5,000 m. Snowstorms are common even in the summer. Growing seasons are short and cold. As such, the area that Tibetan nomads call home is one of the world’s most extreme environments.

Despite the harsh conditions, the Tibetan plateau provides nutritious grazing for the nomads’ flocks of sheep and goats and herds of yaks. These grazing lands have supported nomads and their livestock for thousands of years.

For the nomads, sheep provide wool, meat, hides, milk and dung for fuel. Sheep meat is the preferred meat among Tibetans. The wool from the highland Tibetan sheep ranks among the best carpet wools in the world. Tibetan wool is highly prized for its great elasticity, deep luster, and outstanding tensile strength. The fibers of Tibetan sheep wool have an exceptionally smooth surface which reflects light, making them more lustrous than wool from other breeds of sheep. These factors help give Tibetan carpets their unique characteristics: the subtle, shaded abrash; supple resiliency; and a potentially radiant patina.

Yaks not only provide milk and meat, but valuable fiber. The long hair of the yak is used for making nomads’ tents, bags, blankets and ropes. The fine, inner wool of the yak is used for making clothing. Without the yak, it is doubtful if Tibetans could live as well as they do.

Women weaving yak hair that will be used for making a tent.

Background photo is detail of a Tibetan yak-hair tent.

Nomads are constantly exposed to the elements of nature – rain, snowstorms and drought; they take these events for granted and face them with remarkable equanimity. Values that humankind admires – courge, integrity, generosity – are principles instinctive to nomads. They also have an intimate knowledge of their environment and an amazing ability to handle animals – a skill rare among most people today.

With their homes rolled up in bundles and lashed to the back of yaks as they move across the grasslands, Tibetan nomads offer a rare perspective on life. Their world operates on a rhythm completely different from the one to which we are accustomed. Nomads’lives are finely tuned to the growth of grass, the births of animals and the seasonal movement of their herds.

Among Tibetans, working with wool to create functional blankets, bags, tents, rugs and horse and yak accouterments is an ancient craft. Since people first started raising yaks and sheep on the Tibetan Plateau, perhaps 4,000 years ago, their very existence has depended on spinning and weaving skills. It is not known when the making of knotted carpets began in Tibet, but it may be as old as Buddhism is in the land.

Beginning in the 7th Century, when the expanding Tibetan Empire conquered many of the Silk Road oasis city-states, such as Khotan where carpets were known to be made then, Tibetans were exposed to various Central Asian weaving traditions. It is highly probable that Tibetan knotted carpet making arose from rugs made along the Silk Road.

Regardless of how or where Tibetans first learned the technique of making knotted, pile carpets, weaving techniques and designs would have moved along the Silk Road and the frontiers of the Tibetan Empire, linking cultures and weavers and enriching Tibetan civilization. Over time, designs and trends were absorbed by Tibetan weavers and incorporated into the formation of their own unique aesthetic carpet styles. Tibetans began to create carpets invigorated with dramatic colors and patterns of good fortune; carpets thought to be auspicious by the people who wove them.

Carpet photo (left) shows one side of a saddle carpet.

Nomads from Dolpo, Nepal ca. 1978. Background photo is Dolpo blanket woven on a backstrap loom.

Nomad from Dolpo, Nepal spinning yak hair. Background photo is blanket made from yak hair.

Details of slings shots made by nomads.

Tibetan nomad couple outside their tent. Background is detail of Tibetan yak hair blanket

Tibetan nomad on horseback with traditional saddle bag. Background is detail of saddle bag.

Tibetan nomad women wearing the traditional multi-colored apron. Background is detail of apron.

Carpet making in Tibet was a folk art since it was not accorded the seriousness of design of such religious arts as painting and sculpture. Tibetan carpets did, however, have a purpose and a function and there was a remarkable design tradition. It was a tradition that was incredibly vast and of immense creativity.

Carpets were made for a variety of everyday and ceremonial purposes. There were carpets to sleep on, long runners for rows of monks to sit on while saying prayers in monasteries, carpets to hang as door curtains, sitting rugs, meditation carpets, saddle carpets and horse blankets. Narrow strips of woven pile were even used for bell straps on horses and yaks. Tibetan carpet making may turn out to have been one of the most prolific indigenous design traditions in the world.

The Snow Lion is a magical animal of Tibet. Snow lions range over the mountains of the Land of Snows, leaping from mountaintop to mountaintop without touching the ground; a personification of the primordial playfulness of joy and bliss. In Tibetan legend, the snow lion represents boundless energy and fearlessness, based on purity of spirit, perfect wisdom and compassion. With a white body and turquoise mane and tail, the roar of the snow lion embodies the sound of emptiness, courage and truth. Because of this, the snow lion is often a synonym for the Buddha’s teachings, as it implies freedom from worldly karma and the challenging call to awakening the mind. Snow lions are also found as a design element on Tibetan carpets. They are an indigenous design aspect that is totally Tibetan. The snow lion motif is found in no other culture and presents a unique outlook in the Oriental carpet world.

Since they are symbolically sacred, the use of snow lions on Tibetan carpets helps create an auspicious environment, a field of good fortune, promoting success and wealth. As the late Ted Worcester so eloquently noted, “In the Tibetan view, they are like auspicious companions, helping to light up the day and night with positive energy. The designs are transcendently playful, a pleasing vision of the propitious. They are auspicious carpets. Snow lion designs on carpets are often very whimsical, “They are imaginative, animated, colorful, playful and alive with individual character. They show an imagination that was at the outer limits of human consciousness.”

!ll r2gs, te6tiles and photos from the Daniel Miller &ollection e6cept where noted