Picture Details
Coir yarn-makers, male and female
Partner:
British LibraryImage reference:
BL.Add.Or.1339Origin:
Kerala, IndiaArtist / Date:
Unknown, c.1850Description:
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Water-colour painting done about 1850 in the Malabar style shows a couple, a man ('Nolayen') and a woman ('Nolayechi') making coir from fibre extracted from coconut husks in erstwhile Travancore. Only the upper caste Nambuthiri women or the christians were allowed to cover their breasts at this time. This is the reason the woman pounding fibre from the coconut husks is shown bare-chested. The coconut tree is called the 'kalpavriksha' in these parts because of its general usefulness. A piece of the coconut tree trunk has been used as a pounding base, and the coconut tree itself as a peg to help wind yarns of coir and providing protection from the sun. Coir-yarn making is usually done near lakes or ponds where the husks are weighed down in nets for rotting. This process takes weeks or even months and are finally pulled out of the waters, pounded, drawn and twisted into yarns either by hand or machine. In the late 1850s the first coir factories were established in the town of Allepey in Kerala and even today the State is one of the highest exporters of coir. Coir is used in brushes, doormats, mattresses, insulations, packaging or drawn into strings of varying thickness.
