War prayer rug

Yesterday I bought a war rug.


In my weaving class, one of the women is a volunteer at the Textile Museum of Canada. She told me that their director, Max Allen, was selling off a bunch of Afghan war rugs that he had collected in a special sale to benefit the museum. You had to buy a membership in the museum and then could pay $50 for your choice of small rugs available, about 80 of them. You could also bid on one or more of the larger rugs that would be on display.

The sale was yesterday. I went downtown to the sale location to arrive right at opening time, but there were already fifty people ahead of me, and Max had decided that each person could buy up to two rugs apiece. I guess he was worried not enough people would come to buy the rugs.

Of course, they sold out within ten minutes of opening the doors. When I got in, there were three rugs left, and two of them appeared to be claimed by a young couple standing by them. I picked up the third rug.

I've kind of been thinking about getting a membership in the Textile Museum, so this was an incentive to do it. And looking up my rug on warrug.com, I figure it is probably worth around $200. Some of the larger rugs that were snapped up in the first few seconds of the sale were in the thousand dollar range.

As you can see from the picture, this is not the most beautiful rug, filled as it is with images of war (mostly vehicles, some rugs are more blatant with images of weapons). It is small, about 2.5 x 1.5 ft. This would be a prayer rug. Can you imagine praying on a rug like this? What would you be praying for? Or about?

I wrote last year about the war rug exhibit at the Textile Museum, and there is a lot of information at warrug.com about this subject. There are also videos of Max Allen speaking on the subject (a short video here, and a longer one here). He was at the sale, wandering around explaining the details of the rugs, about how they were made, how you could tell where they came from, what the imagery signified, that sort of thing.

I think the beauty of this rug for me is in its construction and its backstory. I do not know the details of the weaver's life and circumstance but I do know some generalities. She is most likely a woman. She incorporates images from her life, and with Afghanistan being a battlefield for more than thirty years now, war defines her life. In all likelihood she lives or has lived in a refugee camp. She may have learned her craft there, she most certainly was influenced by the refugee camps.

Before the war, Afghan women rarely left their home towns, and this was reflected in the design of their rugs, you could tell where a rug came from by the details of its design and imagery. No more, for weavers forced into refugee camps learned the styles of weavers all over their country, they melded their imagery and techniques. Today it is very difficult to tell where an Afghan rug was made, there is very little specific imagery based on locale.

They say you should write about what you know, weavers weave what they know.

Textile Museum, part II: War Rugs of Afghanistan

The plaque on the wall at the start of this exhibit says it all.

There have never been rugs like this before.

This exhibit at the Canadian Textile Museum was amazing, shocking, beautiful, haunting.








A traditional Persian or Afghan rug is based on the concept of a walled garden, beautiful flowers, birds and trees represented in the centre or main body of the rug, and a protective wall or border surrounding it all.

Look closely and you will see in this rug that weapons and military vehicles have replaced the flowers, trees and animals. Click the image to see a more detailed view of it.







All of these carpets were filled with images of war, either blatantly or subtly.







Four million Afghans have fled to refugee camps, one of the largest refugee populations ever. People who had lived their entire lives in small villages, never travelling very far, now trekked across their country to find safe haven, passing through cities for the first time ever. They have ended in massive refugee camps, people from all parts of this country jumbled together. Once you could tell where a rug came from by its unique design and patterns, now the rug weavers from all over share images and weaving heritages in the camps, it is impossible to tell anymore where a rug comes from, or whether its content is a comment for or against war.

A kalashnikov is an Aghan man's most prized possession.

















A very sad rug, a lady lute player surrounded by tanks and grenades.

















Afghans have been exposed to the world, whether by foreign soldiers, news broadcasts on TV, or their own relatives fled to other countries and sending postcards home. Several of the displayed rugs showed foreign cities: Melbourne, Paris, London, New York. Each one incorporating weapons and machinery of war (a carpet depicting London showed the sky filled with bombers).

This rug shows the Twin Towers of New York City.





Afghans struggle to understand what is going on in their country through the stories and symbols of mythology. This rug depicts the story of Rustam and the dragon, how Rustam's trusty horse Rakhsh saved his master and aided in the destruction of the dragon.











This rug is a symbolic representation of the battle between good and evil, being fought in the land of Afghanistan.








The military insignia worn as patches by foreign soldiers are a rich source of images and symbols for Afghan weavers.





This rug bears a terrible message. In the centre you see a butterfly. At the bottom you see the butterfly landmine (small pink shape). This was widely used by Soviet soldiers, and Afghan children would pick them up because they looked like interesting toys, with devastating results.

Afghanistan is still heavily mined, most of the Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan action were killed by landmines. Some of the rugs depict Afghans with missing limbs, due to landmines.

The Ottawa Convention (Mine Ban Treaty) was signed by 122 nations in 1997, banning the use of anti-personnel landmines. Princess Diana worked hard for this treaty, and her death spurred many recalcitrant nations to ratify it. However, thirty nations have yet to sign, including Russia, India, China and the United States. Although this treaty was historical in gaining widespread ratification of a weapons ban, it is still almost useless because those four great nations refuse to sign.

The exhibit included a slide show of photos gleaned from various websites depicting the war in Afghanistan. A few minutes of watching the endless loop of grim photos conveyed what a little of what it was like to live there.

The photos in the slide show are mostly taken by foreign soldiers and show what they see there every day. There were a very few photos of battlefields, but most of the photos were of everyday life. It painted a pretty grim picture. Thirty years of war! Many people there have never known another way of life!

This exhibit of exquisite workmanship and artistry is indeed an eye-opener!