Toda embroidery

What is Toda embroidery?

Toda embroidery, called pukhoor locally, is needlework from the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu. Toda women alone make it, stitching red and black wool threads onto a coarse, half-white cotton cloth. The stitches are counted over the fabric's even threads, so the finished piece looks woven rather than sewn, and both faces can be shown. The patterns are geometric: suns, moons, buffalo horns, reptiles, and rabbit ears along the edge. Toda men and women alike drape the cloth as cloaks and shawls, at ceremonies, at funerals, and, among the elders, every day. About 400 of the community's roughly 1,600 people do this work, which the women call a tribute to Nature.

Where does Toda embroidery come from?

The Todas, also called Tudas, Tudavans or Todar, are pastoralists of the Nilgiris, the 'Blue Hills', where their land lies between 900 and 2,636 metres. A community of about 1,600 people across 69 settlements, they herd buffaloes and cultivate the grasslands, and their women have long worked red and black embroidery on the family cloaks. Earlier ethnographic documents record Toda women at this needlework in the western Nilgiri plateau, and in 1937 the linguist Murray Emeneau described nine embroidery designs in a paper on the Toda language. The push for a Geographical Indication, a tag tying a product to its home region, began in 2008 and ended with registration in March 2013, supported by the Toda Nalavaazhvu Sangam, the Keystone Foundation and Poompuhar.

How is Toda embroidery made?

The base cloth is a roughly woven, bleached, half-white cotton carrying two woven bands, one red and one black, set six inches apart; the needlework stays within these bands. Women use a single darning needle, a long needle with a large eye, and occasionally blue wool thread, and they work without an embroidery frame. Instead they count the warp and weft, the lengthwise and crosswise threads of the evenly structured cloth, and stitch in reverse, so the pattern builds square by square. To give the surface its dense feel, a small tuft of thread is deliberately left to bulge as each stitch passes through. Local words name the craft: kuty or awtty for stitching, kutyvoy for the finished piece. The Textile Committee of the Ministry of Textiles checks the quality.

Colours, motifs and borders

Red, black and occasionally blue wool threads on white cotton carry patterns drawn from nature and the round of daily life. The sun and moon appear, with reptiles, animals and the horns of buffaloes. Rabbit ears run along the boundary of the cloth as a constant mark, and a box of black triangles is stitched to honour the community's first priest. Flowers might seem the natural subject in these hills, yet floral motifs are few; shapes counted thread by thread dominate, in crimson and black. Cloths for daily use carry coloured stripes instead of figured work.

How Toda embroidery is worn

The embroidery is worked on the pootkhul(zh)y, the cloak that Toda men and women both drape. It is worn at every ceremonial occasion and at funerals, and the elders use it as everyday dress. When a Toda dies, the body is wrapped in embroidered fabric with the traditional designs and then buried. For ordinary days there are cloths marked only with coloured stripes. Because the needlework is finished on both faces, either side can face outward when the cloak is worn.

When Toda embroidery is worn

Within the Toda community, the cloth marks the turning points of life: ceremonies, funerals and the daily dress of the old. Women stitch it, men and women wear it, and every burial calls for a traditionally patterned wrap. Beyond the hills, it now carries official standing as a Geographical Indication, registered in March 2013 under the classes for textiles, clothing and embroidery, with the certificate presented to community leaders that June.

Styles of Toda embroidery

Two kinds of cloth are described. The fully embroidered fabric, dense with counted geometric patterns, is kept for ceremonies and funerals. Cloth for daily use carries only coloured stripes. Threads vary a little too: black and red wool are standard, with blue appearing from time to time. The work stays hand embroidery throughout, counted over the ground cloth's own weave rather than traced onto the surface or held in a frame.

What Toda embroidery means

The Todas hold this needlework among the parts of their heritage they take pride in, and the women who stitch it speak of their work as a tribute to Nature. In 2013 it became a Geographical Indication, protected under India's GI Act of 1999 and entered as application number 135 in the classes for textiles, clothing and embroidery. The Toda Nalavaazhvu Sangam, the Keystone Foundation and Poompuhar supported the bid, and the Textile Committee of the Ministry of Textiles now oversees quality. For a community of some 1,600 people, of whom about 400 embroider, the craft is both a livelihood and a mark of who they are.

Questions people ask about Toda embroidery

Good reading and sources

• Toda embroidery gets GI statusThe Hindu, Article

• Toda Embroidery on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data