Urban textile traditions of Tunisia.

This article draws together several years of fieldwork-based research into the urban textile traditions of Tunisia. In contrast to rural traditions of women using woolen yarn on upright, single-heddle looms (Reswick 1985), urban traditions are predominantly the preserve of male weavers using treadle looms and a range of luxury yarns such as silk and metallic thread (Fig. 1). Complex embroidery, by both men and women, often in styles unique to a single small area or town, is another defining feature of urban ceremonial dress.

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Bearing witness to many centuries of cross-cultural and ideological exchange, these urban textiles nonetheless represent an internal dynamic through which the living history and the distinctive nature of Tunisia's material culture may be read and understood.

Historical Perspectives

As in other countries of the Maghrib, the historical events that have contributed to the dynamism of Tulzisian culture are still clearly recognizable in the wide variety of textiles used and dress worn throughout the country, as well as in the particular significance of certain textiles and their methods of production in different communities (Spring and Hudson 1995). On a technical level one can say that the upright, single-heddle looms used by women in predominantly rural regions of the country date back to antiquity, whereas the horizontal ground looms used in the same regions were introduced following the Arab invasions of the seventh century AD. Treadle-loom weaving was introduced during the eighth century, although the varieties of treadle loom used in Tunisian towns such as Mahdia probably did not become widespread until the period of Ottoman influence from the sixteenth century onwards. Draw-looms are still used in Mahdia to weave narrow strips of silk in complex patterns (Fig. 2). Looms of this type are so named because they are fitted with a number of supplementary heddles that would be "drawn up" by one or more assistants to the weaver. Patterned cloth was woven in this way in southern Spain and Portugal during the period of the Hispano-Mauresque civilization (tenth-fifteenth centuries AD), and it is likely that weavers fleeing from Christian persecution during the late fifteenth century brought this art to North African cities. Today, weavers of Guinea-Bissau in West Africa weave narrow strips of cloth using this technique (Fig. 3), which their ancestors learned from the Portuguese when brought as slaves to the Cape Verde islands in the sixteenth century.

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There are many other examples of historical cross-cultural exchange between Tunisia and sub-Saharan Africa that doubtless owe more to the ancient trans-Saharan caravan trade than to more recent seafaring links. The wonderful embroidery found on the woolen shawls of southern rural regions such as Matmata and Chenini and as far north as El Diem appear to reflect sub-Saharan inspiration and make a fascinating contrast with the complex and sophisticated embroidery found on garments from towns such as Mahdia and Raf Raf (Fig. 4; Stone 1985, Vivier 1995).

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The historical links between Tunisia and Andalusia are well documented and may be observed every day in the form of the felted cap or chechia still worn by a good proportion of the male population (Fig. 5); the fascinating history of this one garment alone would provide sufficient material for a research project. Stories abound relating to the origins of chechia-making in Tunisia, one particularly lyrical tale describing how, in the sixteenth century, an Andalusian girl came as a refugee, carrying in her hair the seeds of the teasel-like plant chardon, whose spiny head is used in the vital final stages of production to card the surface of the chechia and give it its distinctive texture. The girl combed her hair and the seeds fell to the ground in the region of Bizerte to the north of Tunis. The teasels sprang up and with them the chechia industry was born.

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By the eighteenth century, 5,000 people worked in the Souk de Chechias in Tunis, producing 450,000 chechias a year not only for Tunisia but also for Algeria, Libya (from whence they were sold to sub-Saharan Africa), the Near East, Turkey, and the Balkans. Today chechias are not so much worn by the younger generation in Tunisia, but new markets have recently opened up in Nigeria, in Alexandria (Egypt), and in catering to foreign tourists.

The names and patterns of Tunisian textiles often betray their historical origins. Among the numerous named designs, many of Islamic inspiration, that appear on the densely patterned bands adorning each end of the rida' ahmar ("red shawl/outer garment") of Mahdia is the Star of David, a reminder that many weaving families in Mahdia were Jewish and, more generally, that for perhaps two millennia Jewish artists have played an important part in the development of Tunisian culture. More recent cultural interchange is revealed in the name kilim tarabulsiy ("Tripolitanian kilim") given to woolen cloths with distinctive geometric motifs woven in the region of Redeyef in southwestern Tunisia. These began to be made in the mining towns around Redeyef by Libyans who had emigrated from Tripolitania following the Italian occupation of 1912.

A similar story may explain the use of the name biskri, given to the most prestigious cloth woven on Djerba Island. The name derives from the town of Biskra in Algeria, though whether the first weavers of biskri had emigrated from Algeria to Djerba or whether Djerban weavers simply imitated the design of a (possibly defunct) type of cloth woven in Biskra, and perhaps traded to Djerba via Libya, remains a subject of future research.

It is a fairly reliable rule of thumb that whatever is made in a town or village and its hinterland will find its way into the local market. There are undoubtedly textiles and items of dress, particularly in rural Tunisia, that are not commercially produced, but that are made specifically for domestic, ceremonial, or ritual use and are worn only on particular occasions. Nonetheless, the covered suqs of larger towns and the weekly open-air markets of smaller towns and villages are good places to assess the existence of lively textile traditions by observing not only what is for sale, but also what people are wearing. Textiles worn or sold in such situations may be considered too mundane, uninteresting, or modern for inclusion in the local museum, but to the ethnographer they are of immense interest. However, it is one thing to observe textiles being displayed in a museum or being worn and sold by local people, and quite another to find out where and how they are produced, the meaning and significance of their pattern and design, and the history and development of the tradition.

Tunis and the North

A number of the small towns and villages close to Tunis on the north and northeast coast of Tunisia have developed their own unique traditions of fine embroidery. The ceremonial and everyday tunics of Raf Raf take the same basic form, with a striped or checked cotton base, open front, and short sleeves. They are characterized by vivid colors, often edged in black by densely worked plastrons and in particular by net sleeves with wool embroidery. The tunic worn on the third day of marriage by the Raf Raf bride is known as mwashma ("tattooed"; Fig. 4) due to the resemblance between the embroidered motifs and the designs painted in henna onto women's hands. Popular good luck symbols such as the fish, crescent, star, and birds are frequently included in the embroidery.

One of the most splendid examples of urban dress in Tunisia is the kadrun (Fig. 6), a black wool-gauze robe worn by the women of Hammamet. The austerity of this tailored garment is balanced by the magnificence of the goldwork paneling around the front opening. The sleeves are turned back to reveal the colored silk lining, which is elaborately decorated with flat gold thread (tal) and bands of gold openwork (barmaqli). The initial designs for the patterning of the goldwork decoration on the kadrun are drawn by the rassama, a woman who might take up to a fortnight to complete her intricate work. White cotton trousers (sirwal) and blouses (suriya), always with fine embroidery and crochet work, are other distinctive garments worn by the women of Hammamet.

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In Tunis there is no longer a silk-weaving tradition, which once produced cloths such as the veil ('ajar; Figs. 7 and 8) and the various curtains and wall hangings of a similar pattern which may be seen, for example, in the Dar Ben Abdullah Museum in the medina (Garghouri Sethom 1994). Similarly, there no longer appears to be a distinctive wedding costume worn by brides in Tunis to compare with the elaborate, multifaceted outfits worn, for example, in Mahdia or Raf Raf. However, a tradition that is still very much alive is the manufacture of the chechia, which is arguably the single most distinctive item of Tunisian national dress.

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As already noted, the chechia industry has a long and interesting history, and although the local market appears to be dwindling, new outlets are opening up. Production has always taken place in and around Tunis, and despite the simple appearance of the chechia, its manufacture is a very complex process involving several distinct phases. First, it is knitted into a voluminous hat (kabbus) by women in Ariana just to the north of Tunis using imported wool from Australian merino sheep for the deluxe version, local wool for less expensive models. It is then fulled at Tebourba to the west of the capital and carried for the first time back in Tunis. Historically the chechia was then dyed at Zaghouan to the south, though today this process is also carried out in Tunis, after which it returns to the Souk des Chechias in the medina for the last stages of preparation. Here it is wetted and shrunk onto pottery lasts (qalab; Fig. 9) of different sizes made in the coastal town of Nabeul. Finally, a nap is raised on the surface of the chechia by means of an implement made from the elongated, dried flower-head of a type of teasel (genus Dipsacus) grown and harvested near the village of el-'Aliya near Bizerte on the north coast. Single- and double-headed implements are used, and today metal versions are taking the place of the teasel head, particularly on the less expensive models of chechia (Fig. 10). Within the Souk des Chechias, numerous tiny workshops stand side by side, normally with a high bench along one wall that seats four or five workers and a lower, smaller bench along the other. Each workshop has a master craftsman (mu'allim) who normally sits on the lower bench and a number of apprentices (san'a) who work together on the high bench. Their main task is the napping of the chechia, each craftsman wearing a sturdy leather knee-guard (kukan) upon which he places an old, wax-covered chechia (batrun) used to support and give form to the chechia during this process. The rim is trimmed with a pair of scissors before being folded in a particular way, then placed between the leaves of a hinged wooden press and sat upon while the next chechia is napped. The finished product is removed from the press for packaging. Each shop has its own hand-carved stamps bearing the name of the shop owner set within an intricate design that has been handed down by many generations of chechia makers. The chechias are placed in boxes or wrapped in glossy paper (for the finest chechias) that bear the maker's stamp and are ready for sale.

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There are at least ten quite different types of chechia worn not just in Tunisia but in other African countries; local preferences are recognized and often provide a cue for formalized greetings between men. Within Tunisia a dark burgundy color is worn in the south, a lighter carmine red in the north. There is also a ceremonial version with a large, detachable black tassel (Fig. 11). Pale grey and pale beige chechias are also widely worn in Tunisia, but they are hardly referred to by the chechia makers, presumably because they do not fit into the accepted conventions of style and color. Still less is mentioned of the versions in bright colors, some decorated with metal studs, which are sometimes worn by women and by children at circumcision and other ceremonies, but are aimed chiefly at the tourist trade. Two types of chechia are exported to Algeria, both made of thinner material than the Tunisian version and with a long "stalk" in the centre. A burgundy color is worn in Oran, a bright red in Algiers. The chechias destined for Libya are a slightly different, more conical shape. Black is the favored color in Tripoli, dark magenta in Benghazi, with a small button in the centre. Finally, a version in deep burgundy is produced for northern Nigeria, with a short stalk, leather headband, and lining of synthetic material.

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The Souk des Chechias is presided over by an amine, a government-approved official who is responsible for regulating production and maintaining a particular standard of product coming from the workshops under his control. The family of Mohammed el-Abassi, the amine of the chechia makers, has been in the business for many generations. The Office Nationale des Artisanats (ONAT) has established similar systems throughout Tunisia, particularly among weavers. This is sometimes seen as being detrimental to true creativity and is likened to the artisanat movement of the French colonial period in which the authorities sought to preserve arts such as weaving by institutionalizing them and by imposing standards of production. While it is tempting to see this manipulation of an art such as weaving as simply a modern phenomenon, it does in fact have some interesting parallels with the system of public textile factories, tiraz al "atom, which flourished throughout the Arab empire over a thousand years ago and imposed a similar system of quality control.

Djerba Island

Djerba has been an important commercial center for at least two millennia. It once exported imperial purple cloth throughout the Roman Empire and became a center for silk and wool production under the Ottomans. Like Gabes, it was an important terminal for trans-Saharan caravans and as an island managed to maintain a political and military stability which gave added impetus to its commercial pre-eminence. It also created a climate of tolerance in which different ethnic and religious groups have been able to coexist. Djerban society today reflects much of the island's past history and is composed of Arabs, Jews, Berbers (many of them Ibadite Muslims), sub-Saharan Africans, and peoples of Sicilian, Maltese, and Spanish ancestry. These disparate groups have their own customs, traditions, and styles of dress, the latter providing a healthy demand for Djerban weavers, embroiderers, and all those involved in creating cloth and costume. A whole new branch of Tunisian material culture has been created for tourists, who have their own very particular tastes.

The weaving hut or harout is one of several examples of domestic and religious architecture peculiar to Djerba (Fig. 12). With its two triangular pediments, front and back, and its sunken external buttresses down each side, the whitewashed harout is easily recognizable. However, the finest Djerban textiles, in particular the intricately patterned biskri, are not always woven in the harout. In the village of Bou Mellal master weaver Muhammed Tobji and his sons weave biskri and a number of other types of cloth in a back room of their home. The finest biskri take several weeks to weave; there are two distinct varieties, one with red cotton base cloth used by women throughout Djerba and another with black base cloth worn only by the women of the town of Midoun.

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A biskri is a cotton cloth 4m (13') long embellished at one end with numerous named pattern bands of complex design in silk and metallic thread (Fig. 14). The cloth is worn initially as part of a woman's wedding dress, and the names of the pattern bands--"beans," "rice," "heart," "eyes," "chair," "figure-eight"--reflect a concern for fertility and domestic harmony, as well as protection from the Evil Eye. Each of the materials used in the weft bands--silver and gold thread and silks of various colors--is kept in its own shuttle boat and tapestry-woven within its own area when that point of the design is reached. Preceding the pattern bands are two groups of motifs woven in metal thread alone and depicting, according to Muhammed Tobji, perfume bottles and combs (mishat). Interestingly enough, a similar pattern to the perfume bottle motif is used on the rida' ahmar of Mahdia (see below and Fig. 1), though there it is named "the cypress tree." Older biskri incorporate the Star of David in their pattern bands because, it is said, most of the Djerban weavers who originally produced such cloth were of Jewish ancestry. As already mentioned, the motif still appears on the rida' ahmar of Mahdia.

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Pure silk cloths of purple with yellow weft bands are woven in Houmt Souk in a tiny workshop belonging to Dirhame Abdelaziz (Figs. 15 and 16). These cloths (huli) form part of the ceremonial dress worn by married Jewish women of Djerba, though they are probably not exclusive to the Jewish community. Abdelaziz's father was also a weaver and built up the business working for many years at a harout in Bou Mellal. Today Abdelaziz runs at least ten harout in the same area, his weavers producing an amazing variety of textiles from an equally wide range of materials including wool, synthetic-wool mix, cotton, cotton rag, cotton-wool mix, cotton-silk mix, and pure silk. Many of these cloths are worn as an outer garment by women (Fig. 17), but others are used as blankets, covers, or decorative wall-hangings.

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In addition to looms, most weaving shops house spinning wheels for winding the weft elements onto bobbins (Fig. 18) and devices known as moulin for laying the warp threads prior to weaving. This is a four-sided construction of wood with a rotating central pole. As it turns, the moulin draws the warp threads from another device that holds a row of spools, the separate threads coming together into a single skein as they are wound onto the frame. When the skein is long enough, it is cut and wound into a ball ready for mounting on the loom. Similar devices for laying the warp were observed at Qalyub in the Nile Delta in the 1990s (Spring 1993) and in Gaza (Palestine) in the 1960s (Weir 1970), where the technique was said to have been imported from Egypt.

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Houmt Souk has many shops selling cloth and it was interesting to compare the varieties made by hand-loom weavers with those made in a local factory. It was not immediately obvious whether what the shopkeepers referred to as "machine-made" cloths were the product of a fully mechanized factory or simply lacked the hand embroidery with which some of the women's wraps are embellished--any loom may, after all, be described as a "machine." Nor was it obvious from cloths at the cheaper end of the range which were "hand-made" and which "machine." From an ethnographic point of view the distinction is, in any case, somewhat irrelevant. What is important is their significance to the wearer and within (in this case) Djerban society, not necessarily how they were made. However, in many cases the process of hand manufacture and all its attendant customs and traditions does provide the cloth or costume with that very significance.

Mahdia

This coastal town gets its name from 'Ubayd Allah, the self-styled Mahdi (literally "the rightly guided one") who in 909 AD overthrew the Aghlabids and founded the Fatimid dynasty with its capital at Mahdia. 'Ubayd Allah is one of several figures in Islamic African history who have claimed to be the Mahdi, the most celebrated being Muhammad Ahmad, who founded the Mahdist state in northern Sudan in the late nineteenth century. For six hundred years Mahdia was one of the most formidable fortified naval bases in the Mediterranean, though little of the original ramparts remain. Today Mahdia is a thriving fishing port with a modern town and harbor built outside the old walls and gate. However, with the exception of draw-loom work, most weaving and embroidery is still carried out in houses and small workshops within the medina, producing garments not only for the people of Mahdia but also, in different designs and colors, for other Sahel towns such as Ksour Essaf, Chebba, Moknine, Bekalta, El Djem, and even beyond this region as far to the south as Gabes. In recent years a massive tourist development has sprung up a few kilometers along the coast from the old town, and it will be important to monitor the effect this has on the people of Mahdia and in particular on the weaving industry.

The technique of weaving on the treadle loom was brought to North Africa during the eighth century AD, though the local museum in Mahdia records that the craft of silk weaving was introduced from the Levant during the fourteenth century. Today silk weaving is still a thriving industry, though it is almost entirely controlled by the Arousse family and is dependent on their dynamism and business acumen for its continuing survival. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that had Karim el-Arousse (Fig. 19) not followed his father into the business, silk weaving in Mahdia might have completely disappeared, or at least have been seriously curtailed. Karim employs a dozen or more weavers who work in several small ateliers using variants of the treadle loom, each designed to produce a particular type of cloth. The frameworks of the looms are made in Mahdia and assembled using only wooden doweling, because metal nails would snag the threads. Accessories such as heddles, pulleys, and shuttle boats are made in specialist workshops in the nearby town of Ksar Hellal. The wood used is invariably olive, since it is particularly smooth and durable. The only pieces of weaving equipment that are not locally made are the long, metal-pointed shuttle boats used on the looms that are fitted with a flying shuttle. These are imported from France. Karim's weavers do produce inexpensive cloth in materials other than silk, but they specialize in making luxury textiles for clothing worn at marriage and on other special occasions. A few workshops produce domestic cloth such as woolen blankets and covers, but this type of weaving is on the decline in the face of cheap, factory-made goods. Three basic variants of the treadle loom are employed by Karim's weavers, though in addition to these technical variations, there are also variations in size, depending on the type of cloth to be woven. The most common loom is that fitted with a flying shuttle, which the weaver activates by pulling a lanyard before each pick of the weft. Looms with four sets of heddles are used to weave the various belts worn as part of the ceremonial dress of women in Mahdia, Moknine, Ksour Essaf, and other towns of the Sahel. These vary in both pattern and color: the belts (hizam) of Ksour Essaf, for example, are predominantly pink and pale blue check, whereas the belt most closely associated with Mahdia is the hizam misty ("Egyptian belt"), which is made from three separate sections sewn together and has checks in combinations of green, yellow, red, black, and white, with elaborate tassels at each end. The belts of Moknine are made in two styles: one with gold thread on both sides is named rafi' ("refined" or "exquisite"; Fig. 20), the other, adiy" ("ordinary"), has orange silk thread replacing the gold on one side. Thus the essential form of the belt remains the same but the cost varies, so that the item is widely affordable. A smaller variation of the belt-weaving loom, equipped with eight sets of heddles (Fig. 21), is used to weave the silk headband (kishf) worn at marriage by the women of Mahdia.

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Two of the most prestigious silk cloths are also woven on looms fitted with a flying shuttle. The rida" azraq (Fig. 23) is a long (4.5 x 1.5m; 15' x 5') blue silk cloth with red weft bands at each end. The elaborate geometric motifs throughout the cloth are known as khwatim tarabulsiy ("Tripolitanian seals") and are achieved through the use of numerous shed sticks (baguettes magiques) inserted through the warp. A more elaborate version of this type of cloth, rida" harir, has weft bands of red, green, and blue silk and of silver and gold metallic thread at each end and a two-tone blue/red central section in the khwatim tarabulsiy pattern (Fig. 22). Similar cloths are woven in Mahdia for the Sahel town of Chebba, but without silver bands, and for Gabes, but with khwatim tarabulsiy in two-tone red / green.

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The most prestigious of all the textiles of Mahdia is rida" ahmar, literally "red outer garment," which can take several weeks to weave, using a treadle loom but without a flying shuttle. Different colored silks and metal threads have their own separate shuttles and are painstakingly worked backwards and forwards through the warps to create the complex design bands at each end of the textile. Today the base cloth is black, though historically it was once red. Exactly when the change came about is not clear, but the name was retained because of the significance of the cloth. It is also likely that the color red has a particular symbolic significance in the context of marriage and fertility. It may even be that, as with the lamba mena or "red cloth" of Madagascar, the use of the word "red" in the garment's name has a wider symbolic significance referring to social context and function rather than simply to color (Mack 1989). The design bands at each end of the cloth are all named, the example commissioned from Karim's atelier having at least fifteen separate patterns. The central design band, dar al-wust ("the middle/central house"; Fig. 24), includes a stylized representation of a mosque in the form of a star with a gold lozenge indicating the imam at its center. On either side of the star is a group of five diamond-shaped motifs, a multi layered symbol whose immediate significance relates to the five occasions for prayer during the day. It further represents the separation of men (on the right) and women (on the left) within the mosque. However, the number five (khamsa) has a deep significance in Islamic iconography, most particularly in its evocation of the five fingers of the hand. Apart from the dar al-wust, the only other pattern band that is not repeated is that which contains the Star of David. Karim pointed out that this motif is a reminder of a time when most of the weavers of Mahdia were Jewish, as once they were on Djerba Island. The pattern has been dropped from the biskri of Djerba, but is retained on rida' ahmar.

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The third type of treadle loom used in Mahdia is the draw-loom (see Fig. 2). The great draw-looms once used in North Africa required numerous extra heddles operated by a number of young boys to weave the broad cloth of complex pattern produced, for example, at Fes in Morocco. The draw-loom of Mahdia is a much simpler device, with four supplementary heddles operated in sequence by the weaver's assistant. It is used to weave the hashiya, narrow silk strips of complex pattern that are an integral part of a number of garments and textiles in Mahdia, most notably the qmajja tawaliy. This is a white cotton dress with blackwork embroidered bodice, embellished with hashiya strips in blue and red or green and red, and fringed with tassels of green, orange, and red silk around the arms and hem (Fig. 25). The trousseau of a young bride would contain twenty or thirty of these dresses, seven of which are worn, one on top of the other, on the "night of henna" immediately prior to the marriage ceremony. The draw-loom weavers of Mahdia, who also work for Karim, have their workshops in the suburb outside the medina, the main reason being that although the looms themselves are small, the method of working requires far more space. The warp threads are stretched out for as much as 3 to 4.5m (10' to 15') in front of the weaver and his assistant, who move forward as the hashiya strip is woven (Fig. 26). Depending on the space available in the workshop, the woven strip remains stretched out behind the weaver or, in more confined space, is wound onto the cloth beam, each revolution being separated with playing cards that help to prevent creases forming and the dye transferring. The weaver uses a tiny, oval shuttle, which he throws through the shed, catching it on the other side and in the same movement beating in the weft and throwing the shuttle back through the shed. At the same time, the weaver's assistant operates the four supplementary heddles, each of which is attached to a rectangular block of wood. The music produced by all these operations working in unison is extraordinary--and quite different from that of the looms of the medina.

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Much of the vigor of the textile traditions of Mahdia comes through the embellishment of woven cloth with embroidery and the addition of fringes, tassels, and pompoms. In Mahdia, only women do this work on female dress, although men embroider items of male clothing such as the hooded gown (burnous) and tunic (jibba). Despite its undeniable quality in Mahdia and throughout Tunisia, the art of embroidery is considered vastly inferior to the skill of the weaver.

The women embroiderers of Mahdia are also employed by Karim el-Arousse, but work from their homes in the medina and take a great pride in their creations. They embroider the women's waistcoats (farmala) and headcloths (khayatiya) that are part of the marriage outfit. They also make and attach the tassels and fringes to the women's tunic (qmajja tawaliy) and belt (hizem). Waistcoats (Fig. 27) are cut in sections, which are each mounted on an embroidery frame (gorgaf; Fig. 28), the design drawn, and embroidery executed before they are sewn together to complete the garment. Belts are woven in a mixture of wool and silk as a single piece of cloth with two distinct sections, each with a separate pattern and color. They are then cut up by the women embroiderers, placed together as three separate widths with different pattern and color front and back, then sewn together again using twisted yellow silk thread. The thread is twisted by attaching loose strands to the top of the spindle, then rolling the spindle along the thigh to start it spinning. Once the embroiderer has sufficient thread on the top of the spindle she removes it, attaches another group of strands, and spins it again in the opposite direction. The tassels at the ends of these belts are made by weighting the cloth so that the loose warp threads project (Fig. 29). These are plaited into single strands and a loose wad of silk tied to the end. The wads are cut with a pair of scissors to form tassels, which are flipped back over the weight once completed in order to keep them separate from the unfinished strands beneath.

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The history of Mahdia's textile traditions and their continuing vigor--coupled with a poignant fragility--in many ways encapsulates those living traditions to be found elsewhere in Tunisia. A large museum has been opened at the entrance to Mahdia's medina with extensive displays documenting both the archaeology and the material culture of the town, including local dress and jewelry as well as the looms and other machines still widely used by weavers. This is a laudable innovation in many ways, to the extent that it links the museum to the local community in displaying familiar yet highly significant contemporary practice. Yet it must have seemed a little odd to Karim el-Arousse that here he found himself setting up his looms, the sources of dynamic contemporary artistry and industry, in the same room as funerary stele over a thousand years old. The distinction between past history and that which is still being written is hard to make in such circumstances.

When we first visited Mahdia, in 1997, we briefly met Karim, who had been approached by the museum--which was planning its opening displays--to sell some of his equipment, including an old, French-made machine for winding silk thread onto bobbins. "They don't seem to understand that I use this every day," he lamented. "It's part of my living." When we looked around the newly opened museum the following year, there was an elaborate bobbin-winding device sitting in the immaculate, marble-floored gallery, surrounded by its own little corded fence. It appeared that some agreement had been reached.

A few hundred yards from the museum with its excellent displays, Karim's shop was doing a lively local trade. Although it was not yet high season, most of Karim's weavers were hard at work and his father was busy winding silk thread onto bobbins using a converted electric drill. Down the street, Karim's brand new "boutique" was about to open almost directly opposite the ONAT shop, which sells official Tunisian material culture to the tourists. There was no sign of anything that Karim weaves in there at the time, but that may already have changed. Karim has been researching the old patterns once used by weavers in Mahdia and has woven samples with color combinations quite unlike anything else his workshops produce. ONAT is interested. Karim is modest about his achievement, but clearly excited about its potential. This may be a way to expand his business into a new market and to satisfy his own creativity, while at the same time remaining true to what he undoubtedly sees as his responsibility in maintaining living traditions that are not yet ready to be forced into the historical niche suggested by the displays in the local museum.

[This article was accepted for publication in June 2004.]

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