Indigenous traditional dress

There was a time when all the people in indigenous villages wore only dresses and clothes that were woven or produced in the community. Growing up in a Western society I remember my mother was knitting in her free time. I don’t know if this tradition is still alive nowadays. Photographs of indigenous communities, taken 60 years ago, don’t show people wearing industrially produced jeans, shirts, and other garments. I knew little about textiles and traditional dress but in the past few years, I have learned to appreciate traditional, handwoven, or otherwise handmade textiles.

It feels special to wear clothes that someone spent hours or even days weaving or knitting them. Looking at photographs taken in tribal communities in the past, the variety, colorfulness, and richness of textiles are stunning. Will this tradition vanish as it more or less has from Western societies? It is certainly not unthinkable. While tribal people wore these clothes daily in the past, they now only dress up for special occasions such as weddings and festivals. In villages you will see very few men wear traditional dress, only the women sometimes still wear it.