Cloth: cotton; floating relief warp and weft (Yomitanzan hanaori), yoko-gasuri (weft ikat)expand_more
The John R. Van Derlip Fund and the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; purchase from the Thomas Murray Collectionexpand_more 2019.20.191
This decorative scarf is called tisaji in Okinawan. By Okinawan custom, a young woman would weave such a scarf from yarn she dyed herself and then present it as a token of her romantic interest to the man she wished to marry. Such scarfs were also believed to carry talismanic powers, and they appear in several traditional Okinawan dances.
Like the nearby winter robe, this scarf is made with the exclusive Yomitanzan hanaori technique, introduced to the Ryūkyū Islands from Southeast Asia via trade routes in the 1300s or 1400s. Sumptuary laws restricted the technique under Ryūkyūan rule.
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