Growing up, woman artisan Luru-Dashima never imagined such a possibility: her scarves, resplendent in colour and painstakingly hand-woven, sit atop shiny modern surfaces in Tangs, an upscale Singaporean department store. This year, for its Christmas sale, Tangs chose products not from one of Europe’s famous fashion houses but rather from villagers located in a remote part of Yunnan Province, China. This exclusive collection of artisan-made scarves is the proud handiwork of Luru-Dashima’s people, the Mosuo.
The last-remaining matriarchal society in China, the Mosuo are a culturally-rich people who live by their own alternative social institutions and unconventional gender roles. The Mosuo community brims with unique traditions, among them the practice of tracing family lineage through the female side; an embrace of “walking marriages,” which holds love above all else; and persisting in the use of time-honoured techniques to weave their scarves and other handicrafts.
In Mosuo society, weaving is an important cultural skill symbolizing the ability to provide for the family. Mothers weave to clothe their children – and at the same time, to reinforce the notion that they are heads of households. Luru-Dashima and many women like her spend most of their waking hours weaving, hard work and dedication crystallized in every thread of their craft.