A Class on Mughal Women's Dress.

I finally got to go to Pennsic for the first time this year, and was able to teach a class twice on what I'd learned in my Mughal women's clothing research. I'm continuing to develop the class and plan to evolve it over time, as research will hopefully reveal more.

But this is the culmination of about six years worth of research. I've scoured museums and the internet for any images of women during the time of the first three Mughal emperors - and have come up with about 50 examples. The ones I utilized in my class were all obtained with permissions or were in the public domain - others aren't as accessible, sadly. 

I'm sharing this link with you here, so you can check out the book. And when I say book, I mean 70+ pages that include these images and my look into each of them to determine what it was Mughal women wore.

Please feel free to download.

24 Women in a Page of the Timur Nama.

 

The piece is "Maka Agha Khanam wife of Prince Rukh granting an interview to Tuku Khanam complete" - folio 72a, c of the Timur Nama - Akbar's commissioned work done by his studio of illuminators, chronicalling the life of his great-great-grandfather, Timur. It appears in the book "Imaging sound : an ethnomusicological study of music, art, and culture in Mughal India" by Bonnie C. Wade in 1998, and is apparently in the provenance of the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library in India. There's a copy at the Internet Archive, where you can borrow the book electronically. This image is on page 304 of the webdoc. 

I have isolated 24 women in the miniature, to peer closer at their hats. There are several different types of hats here, along with other head coverings and a variety of clothes. While this does represent Babur's court, these images were painted a half century later, and I suspect the fashion of 1580 is of influence in the clothing worn.

Here are the images.

I may comment more on this later (I'm on deadline) but I was just so blown away by the variations in this single miniature, I had to post.

On the Holding Together of the SCA in Troublesome Times.

 I haven't posted here in some time, and I do apologize. After the announcement of my elevation, the duties I took on in various SCA roles ate much of my time, as did the mundane responsibilities I have to uphold.

And then there was the pandemic, and the bigger concerns were surviving when assignments, appearances and everything about my mundane job disappeared. Surviving has been the utmost priority for myself and my family.

What's kept me gong is the friendships that have been forged through nearly three decades in the SCA - just simple check-ins, mailings, recipe shares, questions answered back and forth, all bits of life to show proof of living, even if it's not SCA related. The boxes and bins packed for Gulf Wars have been relocated out of the way, projects put up for the time being. The hobby we enjoy took a backseat to the day-to-day work of adjusting to this new and (hopefully) temporary normal. 

The sudden shock of our involuntary lifestyle changes has worn off. Six months have passed, and outside of some martial practices just approved by our Crown today, there will be no official events until February or later, as deemed by the Board of Directors after much careful consideration and input from the populace. There's still too much at stake without a vaccine, particularly for an organization with a heady number of older participants who may be more endangered by the COVID-19 virus.

Our membership has not all remained dormant, From the numerous in-garb dance performances each kingdom rallied around, to video how-tos, online lessons and even a virtual Pennsic, the SCA manages to keep in motion as a whole.

This isn't an easy time by any means. Politics in the mundane world have stirred up tensions by people who now imagine themselves on sides, even though we are all citizens of our countries (for those who come to this without SCA knowledge, we are members of a worldwide club with nearly 30,000 paid members and perhaps at least that many who participate without those member credentials) and fellow human beings. The pandemic's wrath has infected tens of millions and killed hundreds of thousands around the globe, damaging economies, causing job losses and financial difficulties, and leaving many scrambling to cover the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter. Natural disasters such as fires across western America and successive hurricanes striking the states along the Gulf Coast. The death of George Floyd while in police custody ignited protests around the globe calling for an end to police brutality, and those protests were countered by others for a variety of reasons. It's a time of great stress, to say the least.

The SCA itself has gone through some navel-gazing and recognition of faults these past few years as well. A succession of moments, errors or intended, have been amplified across our Society in ways heretofore unimagined, thanks to the prevalence and saturation of social media in our recreated medieval world. Many of these actions, which I will not enumerate here, would have at one point in time been mere rumors, shared months or even years after the fact. The effect of mass communication spread is an almost instant availability of knowledge, regardless of distance. 

A short time ago, the Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. addressed many of these issues brought to its Board of Directors with the creation of the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I will not parse its mission; rather, I'll share it here thusly, as included on this page of the SCA.org site:

 The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Office is committed to promoting the values of inclusion throughout the SCA. The focus is equity, which is just and fair inclusion into an organization in which all can participate, prosper, benefit, and reach their full potential., 

The DEI office develops activities and training to cultivate a climate in which all members are treated fairly and able to thrive in a welcoming atmosphere. This work is compliant with nondiscrimination laws, ADA laws, the SCA mission statement, and our governing documents, especially our policies on harassment, bullying, and hate speech.

There are now DEI officers in every kingdom. My opinion on the office is one of support; it is one born of our times, where bullying, racism, sexism and ableism has come to the forefront of our mundane worlds as being in need of addressing. We are, as a Society, a microcosm of the world we live in. 

On June 2nd, 2020, the SCA Officer of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Baroness Zahra Tesfaye, posted a letter to the corporate website, concerning Our Core Values. You may read it here.

I share all of that information to set the scene for the current kerfluffle. A person by the Facebook name of Ogier L'Armurier took it upon himself to join kingdom Facebook lists across the Known World. On the morning of Wednesday, September 16, 2020, this individual posted a letter attributed to Countess Brithwynn Artur of Trimaris on his personal Facebook page, then shared it to, as far as I can tell, every kingdom. Within two hours, he had locked comments on the shared posts. Here in Gleann Abhann, the post and a counterpost were both deleted from the kingdom list.

The response, SCA-wide, has been considerable.

It has also been heartbreaking. 

I have watched responses pop onto my Facebook wall, comments added to posts, and blog posts shared with all sorts of outpouring opinion on the matter. It has been wrenching to see friends state they're done with the SCA, the very organization where our friendships blossomed, because of emotions that are being churned by these times. I have lost the connections of friends on my social media platforms as they suddenly and with deliberation cull those associated from the SCA from their friends lists. 

Yesterday, I had decided to turn my back on the drama of the moment because my current situation demands rest and recuperation. But one of my newer friends posted today his anguish at the drama. And I found myself typing a response. This is that response.

I think it bears pointing out - one individual who is not a member of our kingdom, took it upon himself to join the Facebook group of every Kingdom in the Known World, then posted a letter from another individual on his wall and shared it to all of those lists. Within two hours, he cut off responses on said posts. While the letter came from a countess who lives in Trimaris, it was one individual out of Calontir -Cape Girardeau, Missouri - who completed this action, presumably to rile up members of the SCA. One. Person.

Is our union, our Society, our family so fragile that it might be rendered asunder by a single troll? Friendships of months or friendships of decades, dissolved by such an obvious ploy to damage us?

We are at a point of unique stress and hardship across our lands. A pandemic, lost jobs, financial hardships, natural disasters and the very fact of not being able to visit with each other, face to face at a scheduled event - all have upped the level of our stress and may have reduced our abilities to give each other the grace our patience normally allows us.

We are better than this. Things are qoing to eventually improve. I advise us each to step back, recall what it is that has brought us together and kept us returning, and hold on to it. If you need to step back from the churned rumblings right now, it is ok. Better to take that breath than demolish the good found in an organization that has held on these 54 years.

Maybe I was hasty to post that. But frankly, I;m tired. Tired of putting off checking the kingdom list to see how folks are holding on because I don't want to feel that uncomfortable ache in my gut of online fighting over such things. Tired of feeling like I can't really post anything at all without judgement. Tired of seeing mundane political conflicts yanked into the one hobby that provides an escape from the same political conflicts in the real world. Tired of... well... 

You see, I've been at a point of SCA burnout for some time now. My desire to see deeds taken up and done well has overridden my own need for rest. This Gulf Wars in particular was going to be a challenge of scheduling, responsibilities, childcare and transportation. When it was abruptly cancelled, and all the mundane responsibilities I had quickly discharged, I collapsed. I already knew I was about to take a break from event attendance and office holding so I could concentrate on keeping us financially afloat. 

It would, if times were as they were in the past, be a good point to reconsider SCA life as a whole and perhaps take a hiatus. I would have likely spent a couple of months with the occasional check-in on what was happening to see what was going on, and perhaps even finished up my A&S project to show at Kingdom A&S. A breath, and then a return, because the SCA is my social club.

Instead... 2020 happened. 

And believe me, I understand and support the need to address these issues. I do, and of wrongs done in the past. I have watched fellow members of the LGBTQ community find themselves uncomfortable with fighting in the SCA and with cutting remarks made that seemed innocuous to the person saying such remarks. I have in the past brought Black friends to events who, when approached to come to the next event, graciously shared "it's not my thing" and only years later, when these conversations came up, admitted they didn't feel like they had a place here. I've had my own #metoo moments, faced up to the individuals who instigated them, received counseling to address the way I countered my self-blame with reframing the past situation as something acceptable to others. And I've continued to push back against moments of sexism that one who's an outspoken, audacious woman encounters when dealing with an evolving group.

My response has always been to stick with things, because I believe change in the organization can only come from within. I still believe that, though I've had my own heartaches over the years, some of no one's fault, some at the hands and mouths of others. I've persisted, because the cost of leaving has meant deserting the one community that has welcomed me for 29 years with all my flaws and oddness.

I still believe in The Dream. And watching the comments fly between different individuals close to me, individuals who greet each other with hugs, who shake hands after each good fight, who stand side by side washing dishes after feast and who teach and are taught the many skills and arts fostered in the Society, shakes me. I doubt that many of these words would be hurled back and forth were we all able to sit down and break bread together again.

It makes me angry that there are people in our Society more interested in foaming derision into divisions, loudly, at a distance, than in attempting to fix things from the inside. It would be so easy for our corporation to be dissolved, should care be forsaken in its maintenance. And regardless the problems that are being addressed today, without our membership, the SCA would not exist.

These are my opinions. They matter not a wee bit in the order of things outside of my house and household, no matter my rank. My actions, however, will; be to continue to do the things I can to help hold the Society together as best I can, and to perform good works, speak and act on kindness as I can.

Six Women in an Illumination of Humayun.

This piece in the Indian Museum of Kolkata is part of the digital collection of the Museums of India online... which is a decent resource. Somehow there aren't as many images as I would like to see... I suspect British Imperialism has much to do with the fact that there are far more Mughal illuminations held in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

But this small painting is of interest. It's presented as a Nama-style page, but the artwork -- it seems like the figures are larger than that of other pages, particularly because there's just the one level of figures rather than the stacks of people on different levels. The page is blue with gold overlay, while the border of the illumination is the traditional cream.

Here, there are several figures, particularly female figures, to study.  The description:

Humayun seated on throne enjoying music and dance with young Akbar along with attendants. This painting is registered as a Persian painting, but it is Mughal painting and might be a folio from Akbar-nama.

Each of the female figures within draws particular interest.

Right off the bat, I do need to apologize for resolution - unfortunately, I haven't been able to find an adequate way to request a full size download. These are all screen captures.

The first of the six ladies across the bottom is eating the world's longest, straightest stick of licorice. I kid. I have no idea if she's trying to play an instrument, eating something or if the artist simply did not finish whatever this woman was supposed to be doing. There are several elements of interest to me here. She is wearing a long scarf that is white with red - but of course at this size it's hard to determine if this is embroidered or printed. There are bracelets that may include bells at the wrists, and those bottle-like string-borne containers at the neck (as I previously noted here). She appears to be wearing a veil UNDER and behind her hat - or, perhaps, has wrapped her hair. Her slant-topped hat is dark green, and there appears to be a gem or piece of jewelry at its top center.

Her dark hair peeks out from below the cloth secured under her hat, and what might be a jewelled loop dangles from the hat's center front. There is no sign of a band or veil holding the hat into place.

She wears something green over something orange - whether the outer layer is one of the open-front dresses, a del or a jama-type del is left undetermined. She is apparently a musician, but she wears the hat of the Mughals.

The second of the women - the dancer in red - is in what appears to be a very impossible position, though it may just be a sign that she's a very skilled dancer. She is clearly wearing pants - which indicates she may be an entertainer of some sort - along with an open-front dress over an undershift.

I have to start at the top on this one. LOOK AT HER PLUME.

Unlike many other plumes illuminated in period, this one is fat, wide and austentatious. At first, before I zoomed in on it, I wasn't certain what I was looking at - because the black was along the line of the background. But on closer inspection, WOW.  I still can't tell if this is a feather plume for certain or if it's of some other material, but the base is a piece of jewelry, some sort of brooch that's on the front of the hat. The hat itself is decorated, either an embroidered pattern on the fabric that covers it or additional pieces of jewelry. I am leaning towards the former - the blue streak doesn't seem very jewelry-like, and the red flowers disappear behind the edge of the overveil. There appear to be two separate pieces of cloth here - one under the hat, and one from the back. One is striped while the other appears to be printed with a floral or round motif. Once again, there appears to be a loop of jewelry at the front.

This hat excites me. Could the piece of fabric on the bottom of the hat actually be part of the hat?

The method of the medium leaves me with more questions, though, particularly about the scarves. Most of the images I've seen of the women dancing has just the one scarf that's wrapped loosely around the body and left to fly as the dancers swirl. This woman has two such scarves - or are they separate scarves. The one that passes between her breasts is striped like the overveil that hangs from her hat. The depiction includes a slight change of color both on and over the back of the dancer on the painting. We've seen in other illuminations a very thin muslin or silk "disposable." single-wear outer garment - could this be a voluminous, transparent but edged overveil over her? It's different from the second scarf, with a scalloped edge. But what is this?

The golden line that falls at the edge of the posterior then crosses over and behind her raised foot - could very well be a full transparent veil with an edge.

Let's start with the third woman in the golden overdress. What's she holding in her hands? They appear to be pairs of sticks, but I haven't been able to find any sort of musical instruments that they replicate. And I'm uncertain what else their purpose might be.

She has the ties or bells at her wrists, and she wears the slant-topped boqta hat. Her overveil, which I am guessing goes down the back of her outfit, is a bright orange. Her hat is brightly striped with what may be a smaller jewel at the front bottom, with no plume. Her plaid-like scarf floats around her. There's no scarf or veil under the hat, and her curly hair floats around her face.

Unlike most of the other outfits I have seen like this, the overdress here does not reach the bottom. Add in a couple of other elements, and I believe we may be looking at a deel. The bottom is pointed, which could be a very late period men's jama style. But there's also the dress itself. It's gold, but there are splotches of orange that don't make any sort of pattern or sense. I'm wondering if the top layer of the original illumination is missing - if that's the case, any marks on top of a gold or applied color that might have flaked off would have been lost - which would have included the top to bottom crease that would have gone off at a diagonal to the corner.

Her full underdress barely shows some bright orange pants.

The fourth woman, the drummer in pink, has a completely different hat, a rounded hat that may or may not have a small peak at the top. The bottom of her hat has either a brass circlet or coronet of some sort or a golden scarf... it's impossible to tell. Her open front dress has nothing underneath, and has either tight tiny stripes or a woven stripe pattern. The angle of her arms prevents an evaluation of what sort of overgarment she's wearing, whether it's a gathered overdress or a jama-style deel, and of course the bottom of the image doesn't reveal its lower hem.

The fifth woman is wearing an identical hat to the third woman with its bold stripes. The overveil again is orange - but this time, there are orange scarf ends floating around her. She is clearly wearing a Mughal coat over her underdress, a gold coat with either black lining or an edging in black. The purple underdress goes all the way to the wrist.

The sixth woman, with the shenhai, is also wearing a Mughal coat - I think it's the first black example I've seen. Her hat is pink, but I can't tell if her veil is pink and over the whole thing or white... there's not much of her to consider here.

Other thoughts on this illumination:

Could the things I'm seeing at the wrist be straps at the end of the sleeves instead of bracelets? Could they be bells? Without extant examples of the clothing, there may never be an answer to this question.

These shoes:

We don't see shoes on the women, but we do see this boy and these men.  The boy on the left appears to be wearing purple slippers. The man on the right has what could be covered-toe sandals - because of deterioration of the scroll it's hard to determine if they're just jewelled slip-ins or curled toe shoes.

The man in the center, though, is clearly wearing heeled boots that have been decorated. It's stunning and incredibly clear.

Once again, this is an illumination most likely conscripted to an artist by Akbar, Humayun's son. The attire may be period to Humayun or it may be contemporary to the artist whom Akbar gave the assignment. My hope is that there will be at some point in the future some recovered items of clothing that could be dated to the early Mughal period that could confirm or dismiss my assumptions about Mughal clothing of the error.

A Bevy of Boqta Hats and Ways To Wear Them, or A Study of Young Akbar Recognizes His Mother.

Today's dive is into a folio from the Akbarnama, specifically the one titled Young Akbar Recognizes His Mother, held at the Freer-Sacker Museum and provided online by the Smithsonian.

First off, I have to commend the Smithsonian for proviing such a complete image on its website. The extraordinary amount of magnification possible really brings out a lot of details I haven't been able to see clearly in other illuminations. This one is key. Do click through the link to peruse the entire page.

This is a rare Akbarnama page with images of many, many women. It also provides something else - a study in how the women in this image wore and accessorized their slant-topped boqtas (as compared to the taqi, or flat-topped boqtas) presented in the works of other artists. There is scant variation in color here - all hats being white, gold or a combination of the two - but there are so many ways the hats, veils, jewelry and costumes of each woman, that this illuination becomes a precious resource for those attempting an early Mughal aesthetic in their clothing.

It should be noted that Akbar commissioned this work, which means the rendition is not contemporary to the actual date of what it represents; namely, Akbar's birth. The potential for fashion assumption from another time (think how Mother and Child renditions of the Virgin Mary and Christ are portrayed in the Renaissance) is quite possible. The piece is dated to 1590, which still leaves us in-period.

So, the women.

The image centers around Emperor Humayun and one of his wives, Hamida Banu Begun, with Akbar as a boy. Humayun's hat is rather impressive in itself - in fact, I'm not certain how it could have been constructed, but that's not my concern here. Hamida's boqta is delicately illuminated, showing what appears to be either a decorative element incorporated into the brocade itself of the hat or if it's something applied after the material was sewn onto its understructure.

The marvelously digitalized image allows a very close inspection. The proportions of the hat to Hamida's head don't seem quite right - but then, if illuminations were perfect, we wouldn't have all the questions of how Mughal women dressed, now would we? The pattern on the hat would indicate it comes to some sort of point in the front; however, the shape of Hamida's head bears it out as a smooth, un-tipped edge. The fine detail of the quill used in expressing her features shows her hair escaping from the edge, as well as the leaves and stripes of the fabric. There's what appears to be the fold of fabric in the back, either a depiction of the edge of the veil attatched to the top, falling over the back of the hat or a fold in the fabric of the hat itself. The design on the front is enhanced with red. The translucent veil falls over her shoulders. She is wearing a coat but no del underneath, over a wrist- and floor-length gown, with pearls at the neck. She is wearing earrings and has a ring on her thumb.

The women of the harem surround the couple and their child. Every one of them is wearing a full gown that reaches the wrist, slant-topped boqta hats and jewelry. The different jewelery pieces include pearls at the neck and wrists; bandolier-style chains with gold pendants; necklaces with similar gold pendants; and earrings. Some of the women wear coats, others wear scarves. The few feet we see are bare.

Many of the women also have what appear to be bottles in pairs suspended by a common string, with gold caps.

The variation of the hats draws my notice - I have seen this image before but not at this size before. Not knowing the identities of the other women is a problem - it's hard to determine whether these ladies are of the royal family, are artists or workers or even concubines.

What I do notice is this woman who apparently is using a string of pearls rather than a veil to keep her hat on.

There are also servants with veils on their hats - I assume they're servants because they're rendered below the royal couple and appear to be carrying items to them. One has a solid white veil.

The other's veil is TEAL. It's the only colored veil in the entire piece, and her boqta appears to have been painted white over whatever was there originally.

None of the women are wearing scarves or turbans under their hats. Many have braids down their backs.

The earrings are also of note - most in the traditional spot we're accoustomed to in the mundane world, but at least one on the back or upper lobe of the ear.

The fct that Humayun is wearing a del under his coat and the women of the harem are not, plus the bare feet, should confirm that this is a harem scene. Once into the 17th century, these sorts of scenes become rather debauched (think the Kama Sutra) but here, the harem is a community of women. I'm bookmarking this one to come back for later study on the printing of several of the dresses and on the pillow on which Humayun is perched; I suspect a bit more research into period textiles and tiles might allow us to find a suitable design to render into one of Grav's woodcuts, which I might then be able to use to print the fabric for a dress.

And... I want this peacock fan. I need to figure out how to make that happen.