Lizhnyk - primitive hairy rug

Faux fur self born Samoridny Lizhnyk, Yavoriv - Carpathians Ukraine Circa 2005

Lizhnyk are said to be self born - samoridny, shorn from the back of sheep, vigorously washed wool is loosely spun then carefully woven. Plunged into a hole in the river bed, forces of nature act on every fibre, fast running water guided by a water wheel pulverise the lizhnyk creating a matted felt like finish. The resulting imitation fur lizhnyk is dried in the sun then both sides are teased and combed to achieve the final effect resembling a hairy primordial faux beast from the wilds of the Carpathians. Unique in shaggy rug weaving worldwide the lizhnyk bears the hallmarks of being truly samoridny. The combined effects of loosely spun thick wool wefts, their subsequent punishment in the valylo and final teasing of the fibres resulting in a furry matted animal fur-like product is not only ingenious but practical in it's many uses. No where else has the wool of sheep been rendered in such bestial form, a true primitive rug type.

Lizhnyk blankets could be considered as woven felts, see the post titled "woven felt" for more on the valylo - lizhnyk woven felt connection.

Woven Felt

The Lizhnyk illustrated is small measuring only 127 cm x 70 cm. the colours are all natural. The colours are all natural sheep wool from the Carpathians.

Lilya at Etnostyle has written a very informative post about Lizhnyk with amazing pictures of a Valylo. http://etnostyle.org/lizhnyk-hutsul-handmade-blanket/

Samoridny the self born rug called Lizhnyk

The Hutsuls describe their lizhnyk rugs as samoridny literally self born. Samoridny rugs called lizhnyk are created by Hutsuls, highlanders who have inhabited the Carpathian mountains of the Ukraine for centuries. Yavoriv village is famous for creating self born lizhnyks. ¹ Ancient myth, magic, folklore, fable and customs bind the Hutsuls to nature, spawning the concept of self born or samoridny. Lizhnyk history spans four hundred years or more, the Hutsuls still weave lizhnyk rugs in the 21st century. The tradition of the lizhnyk is noted as being important for wealthy Carpathians in the 17th to 19th centuries and then dying out only to be revived in the 20th century. ²

Origins of the Hutsuls are clouded. Sarah Johnstone and Greg Bloom in their book "Ukraine" give the following description "They were first identified as a separate ethnic group at the end of the 18th century. According to some accounts, the "Hutsul" encompass several tribes - including Boiki, Lemi, and Pokuttian - so who and what they are is open to some interpretation. Ethnographers describe Hutsul life as dominated by herding sheep from high mountain pastures (polonyny)  to lowland fields, with a little agriculture and forestry thrown in. They point to a dialect incomprehensible to other Ukrainians." ³ Another account has Romanian shepherds in the 13th and 14th centuries wandering with their flocks moving along the Carpathians into what is today the Ukraine. ⁴ Wikipedia records their origins in the Slavic kochul - "wanderer","migrant", in reference to their semi-nomadic lifestyle, to the name of the Turkic tribe of the Uzy.⁵ Shepherding and the nomadic life of heading for high ground in the summer and returning to lowlands in the winter are synonymous with long piled primitive rugs. Early shepherds settling in the Carpathians could have brought with them weaving traditions passed on through generations of nomadic ancestors wandering through time and space.

Lizhnyks are woven on handmade wooden looms. With deep respect for tradition the primitive looms are created with as much care as the lizhnyks themselves. The process of weaving begins with the selection of the highest quality local wool which is then washed. ⁶ Spinning wheels, vereteno, are employed to spin the wool. ⁷ Wool for the wefts is loosely spun and woven into a weft faced plain weave, this allows for the subsequent "softening" of the wefts in the valylo. Many different sizes and formats are produced from small items up to large bed covers to ward off the bitter cold of Carpathian mountain winters.

After the lizhnyk is woven it's taken down to the nearest stream and plunged into the "valylo". Water is channeled along the stream in a wooden structure known as a "dzholob" . Water gains momentum for some distance before it smashes into a water wheel inserted into the valylo. The lizhnyk is churned about in the valylo, also known as Валило, until the loosely spun wool wefts take on a felt like consistency. Once this intensive process is completed the lizhnyk is retrieved and dried in the sun. The final hairy woolen form of the lizhnyk is created by combing the rug in a similar manner as Anatolian and North West Persian blankets named after the town of Siirt in South Western Turkey. ^8,9 Lizhnyk fibres are teased up forming a nap on both sides unlike the siirt's where the nap is only teased up on one side to form a raised design. The year 1515 is the earliest date where the use of the valylo is recorded. The method was known to ancient slavs in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.¹⁰ Variations exist in the description of the process at the valylo, some simply describe this as a hole made in the river bed where the fibres of the lizhnyk are beaten until soft.

Hutsul women also wove kilims and weaving is an important part of traditional Ukrainian life, this is highlighted by the following account by Natalia Havryl’iuk of Hutsul funeral rituals. For women, tools associated with the fiber arts are commonly placed in the coffin. Thus, weaving implements, drop spindles, a distaff (kuzhil), a needle and thread, some wool or a plaited straw band (pereveslo) are items routinely placed in a woman’s coffin. ¹¹

Samoridny lizhnyk's have many uses, as blankets, floor rugs, chair covers, and some even take the form of tailored jackets. When the Hutsul's say that their lizhnyk's will keep you warm in the winter they mean it, I've owned one for a few years now and with it's extraordinary samoridny properties it will out perform any Central Asian julkhyrs, Anatolian tulu, yatak or shaggy rug creation from Morocco for warmth. Lizhnyks are seen at wedding receptions or draped over chairs in halls. At funerals lizhnyk's are offered as gifts. Someone in the procession takes it upon himself to carry ritual food as well as sacrificial and memorial gifts to the cemetery. These are given out in commemoration of the deceased (na spomyn dushi, or among the Hutsuls, na prostybih). In Bukovyna, these gifts are called pomany and are especially numerous. They always include a kalach and candle, as well as a household item, such as rushnyk, kerchief, rug (nalavnyk or lizhnyk) and sometimes even a chicken or a sheep. ¹² Also noted as being used in the church and at weddings, laid on the floor the lizhnyk is meant to bring wealth and happiness to the couple. "Lizhnyks are also used as rugs laid on the floor at home or in church. Before the worshippers enter, they take off their footwear — I saw it in a church in the town of Yavoriv, the centre of Hutsul lizhnyk-making." ¹³

Take a tour of the numerous small museums of the Carpathians, littered with examples of lizhnyk's, hung on walls, draped over chairs and on the floor. Alongside the many lizhnyk's are historic hand made looms.

Recently lizhnyk's have appeared in the international market in many varied colours, some with brightly dyed wool and others using all natural wool to form the diamond shaped patterns. Sometimes mistakenly referred to as Indian blankets.

For many examples of early Ukrainian weaving visit the The State Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art. The  Museum Circle of Prykarpattja consists of many small museums housing examples of Lizhnyk's and looms. Of particular note is the  Museum of folk art of Hutsulschyna.

The Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford contains many historic photographs of the Carpathians and Hutsuls at work and play.

Next time someone's ill or it's cold at your place consider the magical and warming properties of the samoridny lizhnyk, the self born rug from the Carpathian mountains of the Ukraine.

Bibliography LIZHNYK

1. "Lizhnyk" Welcome to Ukraine. Web 14 December 2006 http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20034/20

2. "Lizhnyk" Ukrainian RUG blanket LIZHNYK 57"x30" wool handmade. Web. URL no longer available. 12 July 2006

3. "Hutsuls Sheep" Google books. Web. http://books.google.com.au/books?id=1CcQj3DjrHAC&lpg=PA140&ots=6N7BUiEs7J&dq=hutsuls%20sheep&pg=PA140#v=onepage&q=hutsuls%20sheep&f=false 14 January 2011

4. "Carpathians" Web. http://www.carpathians.pl/carpath_map.gif 14 December 2006

5.  "Hutsuls" Wikipedia. Web. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hutsuls 15 January 2011

6.  "Lizhnyk" Ukrainian RUG blanket LIZHNYK 57"x 30" wool handmade. Web. URL no longer available. 12 July 2006

7.   "Lizhnyk" Lizhnyk - Traditional coverlet from Carpathians. Web. URL no longer available.  6 May 2009

8. "Valylo" Etnostyle. Web.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethnostyle/5242003205/ With thanks to Lilya from Etnostyle for describing the process by which lizhnyks are felted using the Valylo and the final stages of drying and further teasing of the nap.

9. Wertime. J Back to Basics. Primitive Pile Rugs of West and Central Asia Hali 100 1998  pp.86-87.

10. "Lizhnyk" Etnostyle Lizhnyk Valylo Photographs.Web. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethnostyle/5242003205/

11. "Ukraine Ethnography" Havryl’iuk, Natalia The Structure and Function of Funeral Rituals and Customs in Ukraine
 Institute of Ethnomusicology, Folklore and Ethnography of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Web. pdf  https://journals.ku.edu/index.php/folklorica/article/view/3738/3577

12. ibid.,

13. "Lizhnyk" Welcome to Ukraine.op. cit.,

MUSEUMS and OTHER REFERENCES

The State Museum of Ukrainian Decorative Folk Art

The collection of rugs, carpets and hand-woven and printed fabrics
contains over 5,000 exhibits. Rugs and carpets alone are not very
numerous, but those on display in the museum give one an
opportunity to trace the development of rug-making in the Ukraine,
a craft noted for its distinctly national style and the great variety of
local peculiarities. http://www.ukraine-gateway.org.ua/

Museum Circle of Prykarpattja
 Museum of folk art of Hutsulschyna

The museum was created in Yavoriv village in October
1961 and transferred to Yavoriv secondary school in 2004.
It is located on the second floor of the school, occupies one
room with the area 36 sq.m. There are 255 main exhibits.
Museum profile: art. Among the interesting exhibits:
objects of wood, carved boxes, ceramics, homemade
weaved goods – “lizhnyk” (blanket-cover). Just lizhnyk 
from Yavoriv village is one of the most popular kinds of interior weaving that accomplish both decorative and
 customer functions. http://en.museum.if.ua/


Ukrainian Museum and Library of Stamford Conneticut 

The Library collection has in its holdings three albums of original photographs depicting the  Carpathian Mountains and its inhabitants- the Hutsuls. The photographs were taken by Henryk Gasiorowski  (1878-1947) in the 1920-30s. He was a Major in the Polish Army, a geographer and an author of one of the best tourist guide books to the Carpathian mountains and its environs, which was published in L’viv in 1933. He considered the Hutsul region to be on of the most beautiful corners of the Carpathians and the Hutsuls to be the most fascinating ethnographic group of people not only in the Halychyna area but in the whole of Europe. http://www.ukrainianmuseumlibrary.org/

National Geographic Society Portrait of a Hutsul Village November 1997

Polec. Andrej Distant Glens and Moors: The Hutsuls Today Warsaw 1997

Bandit Robber Nomads

Next comes creeping along a small caravan of camel-mounted Mongolians or Tibetans, clad in their ugly sheepskin gowns and big fur caps........

Four men in costume outside tent March 1892

It's as if Dr Susie Rijnhart knew this photograph by William Woodville Rockhill intimately, when she wrote about the nomad caravan in 1895 - Next comes creeping along a small caravan of camel-mounted Mongolians or Tibetans, clad in their ugly sheepskin gowns and big fur caps........Noted as "Chinese who left Lusar with me" The skin jackets and hats worn by each of these men are another version of nomadic tailored animal skins. Previous posts on this blog have shown images of Afghan men cloaked in animal hides. This happy band of hide wearing men were photographed by William Woodville Rockhill probably near Lusar Tibet (Also noted as possibly China / Qinghia Province / Gansu Province)

First account with bandit robber nomads

Near Lusar Tibet 1895 - " Mr. Rijnhart threatened to shoot if they laid hands on a thing. After some further altercation we gave them some cash for catching our mule – Ishinima gave them a mani, or rosary, of great value, and the entire band rode off. Ishinima declared that the Tibetans who had just left us were Tangut robbers, and that they would most assuredly return presently with reinforcements to attack us "¹

Dr Susie Rijnhart spent four years with the Tibetans between 1895 and 1899, she is scathing in her description of the Camel Caravan of Mongolians or Tibetans. "The western portion of the province of Kansu, variously denominated by geographers as part of Chinese or Outer Tibet, is known to the Tibetans as Amdo, and the inhabitants are called Amdo-wa. According to Chinese ethnographers the foreign population of Amdo may be divided into two great classes, the T'u-fan, or "agricultural barbarians," who have a large admixture of Chinese blood, and the Si-fan, or "western barbarians," who are of pure Tibetan stock. The Si-fan live, for the most part, a nomadic life and are organized into a number of bands under hereditary chiefs responsible to the Chinese at Sining, to whom they pay tribute. Chinese authors further say that the present mixed population of Amdo is the progeny of many distinct aboriginal tribes, but there are some elements of it that must be accounted for by later immigrations.  On the road one meets groups of merchants, partly Chinese, but bearing a strong resemblance to the Turk and distinguished by a headdress which seems to be a cross between a Chinese cap and a Moslem turban. These are Mohammedans going down to trade in Sining. Next comes creeping along a small caravan of camel-mounted Mongolians or Tibetans, clad in their ugly sheepskin gowns and big fur caps, on their way to see the Amban of Sining, or perhaps going to Eastern Mongolia or Pekin; or one may meet a procession of swarthy faced Tibetan pilgrims returning single file, with slow and stately tread, from some act of worship at Kumbum, to their homes in the valleys north of Sining. The entire western portion of Kansu, so far as its inhabitants are concerned, marks the transition between a purely Chinese population and a foreign people, the Chinese predominating in the larger centers but the villages and encampments being made up largely of foreign or mongrel inhabitants."²

Susie Rijnhart's account and William Woodville Rockhill's image of the men in skin jackets complete another piece of the puzzle of the Primitive Skin Rugs and clothing of Central Asia. So far we've identified the use of Pashmani as shoulder covers, simple skin rugs as used by Kutchi nomads, animal hides used by the hearth fire in Kirghiz yurts, Kirghiz Postak produced for the dowry of the bride, simple shoulder covers from the 19th Century as worn by the horse traders, and the more tailored solution shown in Rockhill's photograph. The use of primitive softened skins covered a wide geographic area and was manifested in many varied forms.

1 Carson Rijnhart M.D.S With the Tibetans in Tent and Temple Fleming H. Revell Company Chicago New York and Toronto 1901 27

1 Carson Rijnhart M.D. loc. cit.

Photographer, William Woodville Rockhill. DOE Asia: China: General: Rockhill Collin 04487900, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

Primitive Skins from the Stone Age Part 5 Bearskin Postak

Bearskin Postak

Kirghiz Hunters

Group in costume with dogs, yaks, horse and mountain sheep head, returning from hunt for wounded mountain sheep.

Himalayan brown bears are found in the Afghan Pamirs, usually seen running helter skelter across the jagged mountains and valleys displaying shaggy coats of a reddish-brown or sandy colour. This Postak is in the collection of Karl-Heinz Breuss and was published in 2000 und 1e Nacht¹ It has been suggested that the central skin panel could be the hide of an unlucky bear. The colour certainly matches that of the Himalayan brown bear.

Kirghiz pelt rug Karl-Heinz Breuss probable bearskin central panel

These shaggy fur rugs would normally consist of Karakol sheep skin, Yak skin or Mountain Goat. The Kirghiz were not noted for hunting bears. M. Nazif Shaharani wrote, "Hunting, trapping, and collecting are very marginal activities among the Kirghiz. The Kirghiz, I was told, relied more heavily on hunting for their food in the past than they do now. The Kirghiz never go out solely for the purpose of hunting animals regarded by Islamic doctrine as unfit for human consumptoin-wolf, fox, bear or marmot. They shoot wolves and foxes if they run into them."² The Karl-Heinz Breuss Postak is most certainly one of the rare group of late 19th Century examples. It's plausible that a Himalayan brown bear ended up in the sights of the hunters rifle, perhaps the result of an encounter that neither man nor bear had wished for. The Wakhi and Kirghiz did hunt mountain goats for their hides, the Wakhi were noted for making long skin coats of mountain goat.³ The attached images all shot in the 19th Century indicate that hunting in the Wakhan corridor was common practice. The Marco Polo sheep has been hunted in the area for centuries.

From the Kirghiz legend of Jalyil "Over mountain and valley he hunts the Marco Polo sheep, the one of a kind" ⁴

Inevitable change impacted on the traditional ways of the Kirghiz. This rare group of pieced-skin Postak remain. Bear or no bear, the Karl-Heinz Breuss example is a tangible link to a primitive past that pre-dates the woven carpet.

 Hunters late 19th Century Wakhan Corridor

Hunting 19th Century

1 Gerhard M. Dienes,  Helmut Reinisch 2000 und 1e Nacht. Teppiche und textilen aus Privatsammlungen - Stadt Museum Graz 2001 , no. 161 pg 227

2 Shaharani M. Nazif  The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan  Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War University of Washington Press 2002 108

3 Dor, R. & Neumann, C. Die Kirghisen des Afghanischen Pamir Akademische Druck- u. Verlanganstalt, Graz 1978 37

4 Dor, R. & Neumann, C. Die Kirghisen des Afghanischen Pamir Akademische Druck- u. Verlanganstalt, Graz 1978 99

Image Citations - Hunting party, photographs by David T Hanbury, probably Pamir mountains. DOE Asia: China: Xinjiang (Sinkiang):
National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution Local Notes: Photo Prior to 1898, NM 32640 04535000, NM 32640 04529500, NM 32640 04532900, NM 32640 04532800, NM 32640 04532700, NM 32640 04535500, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution NM 32640 04535600,