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| Sunday, 24 August 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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UNDP biodiversity project : Weaving the patterns back into lives of craftspeople by Jayanthi Liyanage At 53 years of age, Soma Weerakoon, a villager in the rural wetland Gamagedera in Ingiriya, came into national limelight recently.
This honour she earned for "Divi Adiya", the 'pan pedura" (reed mat) she wove, patterned like the foot print of the leopard, a haunter of the peasant life she is familiar with. Soma won the Designer Award in the Rush and Reed section of Designer Fair 2003, for using an art she inherited from her mother and which came to her through maternal generations. Asked if her village has many more weavers like herself, she would shake her head in negation. And would regretfully add that she does not have a successor in her family, to hand her legacy over. "The few of us who still weave cannot find enough rushes and reeds in our paddy fields. The use of chemical weedicides has destroyed them," she complains. "My memory holds a dozen traditional patterns such as Del Kolaya, Lanu Getaya, the Lion and the Stag. I can also improvise on my own in the way I have woven English lettering. With the little weaving I do now, I earn about Rs.4,000 a month but can earn more if I work harder."
The 72-year old Angeline Nona remembers the good times in the fifties when she had a large "pan kotuwa" (reed plot) in her paddy field and an entire lake of 'Gallehe', the mostly commonly used reed in 'pan' weaving. "What a lot of household vessels I wove from my own reeds then!," says Angeline Nona. "For my husband, I wove 'magal' mats for drying paddy and large boxes for bringing paddy to the threshing floor. I took 'ambula' (meals) to him in 'rice boxes' that I made. My family slept on the mats I made. My children went to school carrying books in the bags I wove. On our 'atuwa' (kitchen shelves), we had big 'kuruni' boxes to keep paddy. We also had 'duppis" (dust bins) and 'hendi alu' (ladle holders) which I made of rush and hung in my kitchen." "Alas! Those days are gone," she utters in resigned tones. "Now, we bring paddy in fertilizer bags. Children buy school bags from shops. They don't want my mats spread on the floor and instead, opt for carpets. So, what can I do? I still have a "pan kotuwa" at home, but the weaver badly feels today's scarcity of rush and reed." The Rush and Reed Conservation and Diversification Programme (RRCDP), run by the Committee for People's Rights (CPR) at its Centre in Gamagedara, Ingiriya, is not just a project seeking to provide a mere market place to develop the quality of the traditional village craftsmanship as that of Soma and Angeline Nona.
Within the rural social life of the low-country Wet Zone where rice cultivation forms the backbone of economy, RRCDP tries to revive the olden tradition of growing a "reed plot" in rice fields and cultivate in this plot a bio-diversification of plant and fish, which could supply a whole range of farmer household needs, besides regenerating and preserving the bio-diversity so precious for the sustenance and the sustaining of the native pattern of farmer-life. Reed, a natural formation on paddy fields at one time, provided the mats, baskets and domestic utensils for the farmer, requiring very little effort for its maintenance. "When the Green Revolution technologies were introduced, their chemical input disrupted our natural cycles, bio-diversity and the soil fertility and as a consequence, the process of rural life," says Piyasoma Benthota, Co-ordinating Secretary, CPR. "The increase in use of polythene and synthetic materials replaced the use of rush and reed crafts. Our project trained 20 farmers in the concept of turning fallow fields into micro-land units consisting of the triad - the paddy field, the reed bed of Gallaha and the home garden." In this context, the reed bed is not seen as a mere provider of household vessels and an additional income. Besides 'Gallehe', RRCDP tries to create in this plot a habitat system nurturing fresh water fish such as the now rare Len Iriya, Batta and Handaya, edible 'Pala' (green leaves) such as Gotukola, aquatic rhizomes such as Kohila, and medicinal herbs such as Neeramulliya and Keekirindiya. Ancestral dye plants for the reed craft, such as Korakaha and Pathangi fence the plot. Kathuru Murunga on the field embankment and organic farming for a steady increase in soil fertility complete the picture. The other 'pan' varieties raised at the RRCDP Centre are Havan, Elu Pan, Boru Pan and Hiriya. All this work is parallel to RRCDP's effort to to develop a network of skilled traditional weavers in different districts of the country and collect ancestral patterns native to them, in order create a regular supply of traditional reed craft to meet the marketing needs. One such pattern is "Wankagiriya", depicting the story of King Wessanthara illustrating Anothaththa Lake, animal forms and lotus blooms. "This kind of weaving is akin to meditation," says Benthota. "It involves complex arithmetic but is done by a weaver who cannot even read but stores all the weaving maths in her head. One cannot imitate these designs. They have to be created through individual weaving skills." "Many old weavers now suffer from Arthritis or have relinquished lay duties for meditation and we have a hard time persuading them to take up weaving. Soma came to us after we paid her 30 visits," says Benthota. He has been able to form weaver teams at Eppawala, Kuliyapitiya and Kalmunai. "Some villagers have about 25 differently patterned mats preserved them in their homes but do not want to sell them to the exploiters." Therefore, a fair price needs to be given to the weaver and hence, the crafts are highly priced, seeking to capture the tourist market. They are also an alternative to the use of polythene or plastic. The Centre in Gamagedera is a veritable treasure house of mats, cushions, file covers, peduru anas (mat hangers), kevun boxes, bath pettiyas, kuruni pettiyas, decorated clay pots, marketing and office bags, document sachets and bedroom slippers made of rush and reed. The patterns or 'ratas' range from Dadu Ketaya, Indi Mala, Pichcha Mala, Samadara Mala, Kama Ranga, Diya Rella to a host of others. The work force at the centre consists of school leavers after A Levels and traditional weavers, with the unsliced reed being woven on looms and the sliced reed by hand. "We stand by the credo that if we only study the salient points in our rural traditions and pattern of life, we should be able to find solutions to the degradation brought about by development," emphasises Benthota. "Our vision goes beyond reed weaving to embrace an entire cult of living. Our project has remained sustainable since its inception in 1992 as we strived for self-sufficiency for the farmer all along. Another reason is that "pan" is an accepted craft and not an imported one. " Yet another is that we have added value to the lives of these village folk and given them recognition as valuable individuals in society. Without these three, success could never have been achieved." |
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