Indigo A World Of Blue Documentary

TITLE: Indigo: A World of Blue - Documentary CHANNEL: Maiwa DATE: 2025-02-10 ---TRANSCRIPT--- This plant is a common weed in most of the  tropical world, but when properly processed,   it will yield indigo blue - one of the  world’s oldest and most enduring colours. This particular species bears the  scientific name indigofera tinctoria,   and it is a vital component in achieving all  ranges of blues, greens, purples and blacks. To this day, indigo inspires  passion and curiosity. Not   just in those who would use it to colour cloth,   but also in artists, historians, anthropologists,  and chemists, those who would know its part in the   rise and fall of Empire, and those who are drawn  to the magic of its transformative properties. Jenny Balfour Paul has spent over  20 years researching and documenting   indigo use throughout the world. She  has produced what is considered by   many to be the definitive book  on this wide-ranging subject,   published in 1998 by the British Museum  Press - it is simply titled “Indigo.” People sometimes ask me why I’m  studying indigo and not the other dyes,   which is a valid question. All the natural dyes  are fascinating - there’s all the yellows which   almost any plant gives a yellow. And the reds you  can get from plants and from insects and so on,   lots of different sources for red. But  blue, the are great primary colour,   there’s only one natural blue dye  in the world, and that is indigo. The other thing is the colour is incredible.   It’s a most beautiful colour,  indigo blue, in all its shades. And the other thing is the whole processing  of it is very magical and unique because of   its extraordinary chemistry. There’s  nothing like, it it’s really bizarre.   And all these stories are grown up because of  that. And it’s got the most incredible history,   and it’s the world’s oldest dye, probably of all,  and it’s the only dye that will dye all fibres.  It’s truly Universal. Even though I’m biased,   I think everybody would agree that  indigo is absolutely unique and magical. Dawn breaks on the indigo farm of Palu  Pitchi Reddy. Before the intense heat   of the day can steal moisture from the  leaves, the indigo plants are harvested.  To make dye, the mature plants  must be harvested within 10 days.   With indigo timing is everything. If the plants are not collected at   the correct time, the yield will be  poor and the colour will not be true. The plants are cut above the lowest joint.  The same plants will produce two crops per   year - some plants are allowed to go to seed  in order to supply the next year’s crop. The Harvest time is a sensitive  one. As Pitchi Reddy puts it,   “this is a time-consuming process and we have  to supervise everything when we make the dye.   These 10 days are like overseeing a  marriage, we can’t leave the house.” Before the processing of the crops  begin, Pitchi Reddy prepares a Puja,   an offering and a prayer to  ensure that all goes well. As recently as 1908 there were  over 30,000 acres of land in   active indigo production in this part of India. Today, the Pitchi Reddy Farm is one  of few that remain. Even though he is   one of the largest cultivators  of indigo on the subcontinent,   his farm Farm is a mere 50 acres. And the  principal crop is not indigo, but rice. When Europeans arrived on the shores of  India, indigo became a valuable cargo. For   centuries the trade was competitive between  the Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French,   and indigo plants were exported to  plantations in colonial centers. When the British lost control of  the American colonies, it sought   to secure a supply of indigo by establishing  large production farms at Bengal and Bihar. Extensive plots of land were taken over by the  British who leased them back to Peasant workers. The demand for indigo production  to the exclusion of food crops   led directly to the Bengal famine in  which one-sixth of the population died. So throughout the 19th century it was a  huge trade from Northern India. Really,   there were 4,000 tonnes a year  coming in from Kolkata in its heyday. I mean, if you think how much indigo is needed to  dye everything, it’s quite extraordinary. Masses,   tons and tons of indigo was needed in Europe 

• to dye everything from policeman’s uniforms,   all the army uniforms that were blue, some had  the red jackets, but anything blue was indigo. The colour navy blue is  indigo blue. It’s synonymous,   anything that was blue before 1900 was indigo. Conditions on the British plantations were harsh,   and to this day the mention of natural indigo  production horrifies some with long memories. Here on the Pitchi Reddy Farm the indigo  vat works by natural fermentation. The plants are covered with  water - nothing else is added. Gosper is the supervisor  for the extraction process.   Gosper will follow all aspects of  production. He can tell by scent,   feel, and experience when the vat  is ready to give the very best blue. For centuries those who supervised  indigo production kept their secrets   closely guarded. This secrecy, combined with  the fact that skills were passed down orally,   has meant that there are few individuals  who still possess traditional knowledge. After a number of hours the vat begins to whisper. The process of extracting  and then dying with indigo   depends upon the presence or absence of oxygen. On the surface where the mixture is in contact  with the air, a characteristic blue froth appears.   Inside the vat, where there is an absence of  oxygen, the mixture will be a yellow green. Jenny Balfour Paul explains the process. Unlike all the other dyes  where you can see the colour   straight away - cochineal insect  is red or whatever - with indigo,   the colour itself is totally invisible,  you simply don’t know it’s in the plant. That’s one of the things that makes indigo  so extraordinary, and the process so magical,   and also complicated. This is  why it was a specialized dye. So you have your indigo leaf - whether it’s woad,   or one of the tropical indigo plants - in  this leaf is the indigo in its invisible form,   attached to a glucose. So you soak the leaf and by  soaking it, that so that the glucose splits off. You can take the leaves out once they’ve  been soaked because the liquid contains,   by then, the indigo white, which is  what you want - the invisible indigo. The supervisor removes the plug. The water,   containing the indigo white or dissolved  indigo, flows into a second tank. The supervisor checks the results and tells how  many kilograms can be expected from this batch. In order to change the dissolved  indigo white into indigo powder,   it is necessary to add oxygen. This is done  by whisking the vat with special paddles.   The water will change from a yellow-green to  a deep blue as the indigo precipitate forms. Once again the supervisor must decide when  the process is complete. Stopping too soon,   or whisking too long, will both have adverse  effects on either the colour or the volume. The indigo settles to the bottom  of the tank as a blue sludge. The   supervisor unplugs the second tank to  allow the excess water to drain off. The spent indigo plants will be used to fertilize  the rice crop. The plants are rich in nitrogen and   after being soaked in water for so long, will  make an excellent compost. The excess water is   drained into a third tank, it is also rich in  nitrogen and will be used to water the crops. Here we see Pitchi Reddy with his father  Nariyana Reddy as they inspect the drained vat. Pitchi Reddy shares his father’s  enthusiasm and is proud that he   oversees the production of some of the finest  natural indigo in the world. He says proudly,   “We have Japanese buyers who come every  year for the indigo cakes that we produce.” The precipitate that remains in the vats  is a watery clay. It is a precious liquid,   and every attempt is made to  collect as much of it as possible. The indigo is transferred to a large  pot and boiled - the water evaporates   as steam. The cooking process also sterilizes  the indigo and prevents further fermentation. Producing indigo is much like making  wine - both products are achieved   through a fermentation process, and as with wine,  judging the rightness of each step is crucial. An expert can judge how the finished product  will be affected by such variables as local   weather and soil. The indigo supervisor can tell  which part of the field will give the best dye. The hot liquid is strained  through a coarse cloth to   remove impurities. Finally it is squeezed  in a screw press and formed into cakes. Even though there’s evidence that people knew  how to dye with indigo roughly 5,000 years ago,   European nations did not come to a  full understanding for quite some time. As recently as 1705, a patent was filed  in Germany seeking to mine indigo,   mistakenly thinking that it was a type of mineral. The Pitchi Reddy Farm is a  successful indigo plantation. Even s,o it is not without challenges. Many  of Pitchi Reddy’s relatives have moved to   large Urban centres to work in the  more attractive fields of Information   Technology. One of his brother-in-laws  works for Microsoft in Atlanta Georgia. All over India the large Urban centres  exert a strong influence on the young. The final drying will still  take a number of days - it   must dry slowly otherwise the cakes will crack. The world is in flux. Traditional  knowledge, even traditional knowledge   which has existed for thousands of  years can be lost within a generation. Recently this appeared to be the case with  traditional Ajrakh cloth dyed with natural indigo. An Ajrakh is a cloth which has  been specially prepared and then   block printed through an elaborate  process. Production involves washing   and scouring the cloth several times -  it is then prepared to receive the dye   through immersion in a watery mixture of  dried lemon, tamarind, molasses and oil. The colours of most importance to  Ajrakh are indigo blue and madder red. Noorjehan Bilgrami describes this  traditional cloth in her book Ajrakh. The People remembered as something because blue  was so important, it’s part of the culture. And   again, it’s all about blue which  is indigo and madder, the red,   and the stars - the white are the  stars. They say the blue is the   heaven or the sky and the white are the  stars, and therefore the more twinkling,   the more clear the white stars ought to be - this  is something that the Ajrakh printers talk about. The Ajrakh name derives from “azraq” which  means blue in Arabic and Persian. A couplet from A couplet from Diwan-e-Hafiz reads: A person often  feels ill at ease without an Ajrakh. For a man,   it is an all-purpose cloth - it is used as a  turban, a cumberbund, and a shoulder cloth.   Women use it as a dupatta or chaddar, as a shawl.  And sometimes it is converted into a hammock for a   child slung from the trees. It is very commonly  spread on the beds as a bed sheet and coverlet. Ajrakh’s are produced in family-sized craft  houses run by a master craftsman or “Usto.” At its height, the culture of Ajrakh production  was a network of trades concerned with the   manufacturer of wooden blocks, raw cloth, natural  dyes, and of course the Ajrakhs themselves. Noorjahan, who saw Ajrakh cloth  slowly disappearing from the markets,   took up the challenge of documenting traditional   Ajrakh production and compiling  portraits of master craftspeople. She comments on the loss of  natural indigo dye knowledge. So it was really this amazing thing  that within a period of 90 years,   the knowledge had completely disappeared.  And actually in about just about 50 years,   the production of indigo had also been reduced  one or two people. As as I started finding out   more and more about the historical aspect  of indigo, it sort of led back to the period   3,500 to 4,000 to 5,000 years back. In fact, now the archaeologists are   trying and working … and it could be dated  back as far back as 5,000 to 6,000 years ago   in this region. So it is just so tragic to  know that, you know, this knowledge is gone. The decline of Ajrakh is due in part to the  availability of inexpensive screen-printed   imitations. But a key factor is also  the disappearance of natural indigo,   forcing block printers to import the  more expensive synthetic variety. Noorjehan decided that her  own block printing studio,   Koel, would convert to the use of natural indigo. In an effort to achieve this,  and to reconnect local textile   artisans with the control and  production of their materials,   the Miani Sindh Research and Development  Project began in Southern Pakistan in 1998. At one time the tropical indigo plant, indigofera,  was common along the banks of the Indus River. A   short growing period allowed it to reach maturity  and be gathered between flooding. Recent climactic   change and persistent drought however, have  meant that the plant is no longer naturalized. The plants are weighed. It takes 200 kilos  of indigo leaves to yield 1 kilo of indigo   powder. A few acres of plantation  yielding roughly 3 kg per acre,   could supply enough indigo to support  an artisan for the entire year. Localizing production of indigo in this way would   have a stabilizing effect on both  the economy and cultural heritage. Here the plants are weighted down to keep them  submerged as they ferment. As with the pitchy   ready farm, this vat is a natural fermentation  achieved simply by covering the plants with water. The vats are left for about 14 hours 
• they are checked periodically in   order to catch the indigo as it begins to sing. Just after 2:30 a.m., the indigo has  started to whisper. Small bubbles   appear and the characteristic foam,  or indigo flower, begins to form. The Miani project seeks to provide a system  whereby an individual can grow and process   his crop without a prohibitive investment in  agricultural machinery or irrigation systems. At 6:00am the men start to take the leaves out  of the well. They use an ingenious paddle and   pulley system to introduce oxygen into  the vat. The experience is timeless and   could perhaps have occurred in this  very forest thousands of years ago.  They will whisk the liquid  until it changes colour. When the whisking is complete,  the liquid is drained into the   second well and left to settle for about 2 hours. The excess water from the vat is drained  off and a sand trough is created. A fine weave white cotton cloth  is laid over the trough and the   water from the second well is poured through it. The water seeps through and evaporates  leaving the indigo precipitate The indigo is scraped off and mixed with a small  amount of oil to be dried and formed into balls. With the exception of the European woad,   most plants that yield indigo dye, are  referred to simply as indigo plants.   Yet different regions will often utilize  completely different species of plant. The word indigo is derived from  the Greek “indikon” and the Latin   “indicum,” both of which mean: “a  substance obtained from India.” Indigofera tinctoria is the  shrub which is processed at   both the Pitchi Reddy Farm and  at the Miani Research Project. Other species of plants however, also contain  precursors of indigo in their leaves. Some can   be used to dye cloth directly without the  necessity of extracting the dyestuff first. One such plant is Strobilanthes flaccidifolus,  found in northeastern India. It grows abundantly   in the teak jungle surrounding the village  of Ntuma in the annexed state of Nagaland. Rani, a most enthusiastic guide, gives  a demonstration by naturally dyeing some   cotton that she has spun. The leaves are  broken by hand and mixed with warm water. Here, much effort is being expended to relearn the   process of direct dying which  was once practiced fluently. The abundance of the local indigo  plants is a reminder that it isn’t   the indigo which is disappearing, but  the knowledge and the memory of its use. With the influx of mass-produced items,  synthetic dyes and synthetic pre-dyed yarn,   the individual Artisan is hard pressed to compete. In the local Marketplace western  clothing has replaced traditional dress. The few finished pieces of indigo dyed  cotton present in the village are heirlooms,   probably three or four generations  pas, carefully stored as a reminder. Yet for some members of this community,   a sense of identity is still associated with  the skilled use of the indigenous plants. A revival is underway. Rani’s hands are blue. Once the leaves  and the yarn have been mixed thoroughly,   she adds ash water. This creates the alkaline  environment necessary for the indigo to dissolve. The yarn is removed and transferred to a pot with  more leaves and water. This is brought to a boil,   achieving a rich saturated colour  through a very simple process. Another species of indigo plant that can be  used for direct dyeing is Marsdenia tinctoria. Here in the small village of Ban Nongthatai  in the Vientiane District of Laos,   Bouavanh Pouminh is preparing  solutions of natural indigo. When judging the condition of the  solution, she employs all her senses. She will touch, smell, taste and  listen to the vat judging exactly   how the vat needs to be altered  to produce the colour she’s after. Her Workshop is impeccable. All  tools and objects seem to magically   coordinate themselves in the production of indigo. She appears to be part of the process  herself, dressed from head to toe in blue. Her skill is considerable, for as with any  complex recipe involving natural processes,   there are many ways the vat could go wrong. A lot of the stories to do with  indigo usually are to do with   fertility. Because it’s a a a dye that  needs to be fed and kept going, therefore   it is like making bread or something, it’s  alive, or making beer. And you’re feeding in   fact what’s usually called the indigo  gods, there’s spirits in the dye vat. And because of that it could easily go wrong,   if you don’t put enough sweetness  in, the vat isn’t alkaline enough. Of course it’s to do with the chemistry,  but I mean in the old days, when you’ve got   a fermentation vat in your village and it’s  going wrong, you’ve got to blame somebody.  So who do you blame? It’s a time-honoured thing: the women. Always. And because it seems to be like a fertile vat,  then it’s associated with fertility, obviously,   and therefore the blame is  usually put on fertile women. So in many countries of the world, well, sometimes  you’ll get women past child-bearing age are the   only ones who can make the indigo vat. Now  a woman who says, if a woman who’s pregnant   comes near the vat, that’s very dangerous, because  either that pregnant woman is very, super-fertile,   will steal fertility from the dye vat and  the dye vat will die out, won’t work anymore. Or, conversely, the dye vat will pinch  fertility from the woman to have more fertility. So it’s dangerous from both points of view. So I mean very often, it’s usually women  who’ve been blamed in one way or another,   when things go wrong. Which is  absolutely typical, isn’t it? There are an awul lot of stories  to do with indigo and death. Sometimes if there has been a nasty person who  had died, and the spirit is troubling the village,   they will pour the contents of the indigo vat  over the grave to suppress that malevolent spirit. Or conversely, in Morocco if  an indigo vat isn’t working,   the women will go around the village telling  lies. To tell a lie, and it’s a black lie,   an indigo lie–by telling the lie,  the indigo vat gets going again. So people will go around and  say, “Oh the woman are all lying,   that means there is a failed indigo vat.” So instead of a white lie  you’re telling a blue lie. There are somany extraordinary stories like that.  Its all to do with the fact that the chemistry is   difficult. It’s mysterious. It’s blue and then  it’s not blue, you’ve got to look after it. It is a very strange thing to work with,   and also it’s done by specialists,  so people don’t understand it. Any woman can pick a plant  and make a yellow colour. But the indigo dyer is a  specialist. They keep their secrets. The whole thing has become  secretive, a bit mysterious. Also its got this smell …  does it smell like death.   It’s fertile … is it like fertile women. And this is how all these myths have come about. I don’t think that most people  realize that the whole legend of   blue beard actually comes from the  habit of dyeing beards with indigo. And that goes right back to pre-Islamic times. The armies of kind Darius, so its said, stained   their beards blue with indigo–and funnily enough  so did the ancient Brittons, you know, were   supposed to cover themselves with woad for the  same reason, to frighten off the armies of Ceasar. Because if you use indigo you  get a really black beard–and   that was to frighten off the enemy  – and it went into Islamic times. On the whole you don’t see much grey hair  in the Arab world. People either stain it   with henna or still with indigo. You  can see it in the Pakistani shops. You   can see this dye – its called wasma, it’s  the Arabic, one Arabic name for indigo. —— The carpets of Turkey comprise some  of the world’s greatest textiles. For hundreds of years they were skillfully  woven with naturally-dyed wool. Traditional   patterns and dye techniques were passed  on from one generation to the next. Yet by the mid-nineteen-seventies,  the availability of synthetic dyes   and fibres had displaced traditional  techniques and materials to the point   where knowledge of natural dye use  had been lost in many villages. As natural dye techniques were vanishing,   Harold Bohmer, a German scientist with a  keen interest in dye chemistry, completed   research into the chemical composition  of natural dyes used in Anatolian rugs. In 1981, he was able to return to several  villages and share the knowledge which he   had collected. Simple recipes for natural dye use  were photocopied and distributed to the villages. The measurement of ingredients was based on  the ubiquitous tulip-shaped Turkish teacup,   a common item in even the most humble tent. Here, Dr. Bohmer shows the ingredients  needed for the indigo dyepot. The recipe includes carpenter’s glue.  It acts as a buffer to stabilize the   pH of the vat so that the alkaline  solution does not harm the wool. Shortly after Dr. Bohmer’s visits  a number of groups combined efforts   to form an artisan’s cooperatives  and the DOBAG project was started. The DOBAG acronym can be translated as: Natural Dye Research and Development Project. The project has as it’s guiding principles: The use of handspun Turkish   wool for the warp, weft, and pile. The production of authentic Turkish designs.  The use of natural dyes with no  unhealthy mordants or chemical wash.  The work is to be done in the  home, not in ateliers or studios. Carpets bear a distinctive  leather tag identifying them   as being produced by members of the DOBAG project. Members are thus assured a good return on their  investment in natural techniques and patterns. The indigo wool begins to oxidize  when lifted out of the pot,   the colour slowly transforms  into a rich, clear blue. Here, weld is added to another pot being heated  nearby in preparation to overdye the indigo wool. The indigo wool is added directly  into the pot amongst all the plant   matter. Plant matter will later be picked free. The wool quickly begins to  achieve the desired shade of   green and after about ten or  fifteen minutes it is ready. On the Indonesian islands of Sumba and  Flores, artisans still prepare traditional   storytelling cloths by the ancient and  time-consuming method known as Ikat. Ikat is a form of tie-dye where either the warp or   the weft threads are tied  with strips of palm frond. The tape forms a physical resist. Threads which   have been tied will not receive  any colour when immersed in dye. Additional tapes are added  as the process continues,   and the technique may need to be repeated several  times for a detailed or multi-coloured pattern. A variety of hues can be  derived from just two colours,   depending upon how often the fabric is dipped. In East Sumba, the bark of the kombu  tree is used to give a brown shade.   In West Sumba the colour from  the indigo plant is preferred. After the fibres have been  dyed, they are woven on a loom. The clarity of the pattern is entirely dependent  on the registration of the threads. When finished,   two long pieces of ikat will be sewn together  to form a single large, rectangular cloth. Indigofera sumatrana, yet another  variety of the indigo plant,   grows wild in eastern Sumba and  in some regions it is cultivated. For the Sumbanese, indigo dye  is surrounded by perils and the   transformative nature of indigo  makes its use a form of alchemy. Indigo and its liquids often  evoke feminine body fluids   and the moral symbolism associated with them. In eastern Sumba, it is still the case that  indigo dyeing is almost exclusively the province   of women past childbearing age. Fabrics dyed  with natural indigo are more expensive than   those dyed with synthetic indigo as the production  of natural indigo entails the sacrifice of a pig. Highly detailed and elaborate  works are traditionally used   in festivities and to wrap around the dead. Sumbanese Ikat have long been a sought  after by visitors to the island. An inferior type of cloth has evolved to  meet the demand for relatively inexpensive   souvenirs. Locals view this type of cloth  with great distain. Quite literally,   they would not be caught dead in one. The most frequent motifs used on Sumbanese fabrics  are animals: birds, snakes, stags, and crayfish. The Tree-of-Life is also a recurrent pattern. The ‘skull-tree’ motif, seen often,  dates from headhunting days when   skulls of captured heads were hung on the  branches of a tree in the village centre. This tree ensured fertility and was the  main religious object of the village. Traditional storytelling cloths  also document important events,   a battle or the life of a royal family.  Such cloths are important during the   festival of prayer, when sacrifices and  myth narration open the planting season. The popularity of Ikat has also led to a shift in  roles traditionally defined by gender and caste. Women entrepreneurs and artisans,  unwilling to give up control of   their designs and equally unwilling to  settle for low prices from local shops,   have begun to market and  distribute their own work. This has led to gossip and resentment as well as  admiration and emulation. Whatever the reaction,   it demonstrates the ability of locally  produced craft to sustain a viable way of life,   one that need not forsake tradition  or the rural setting of the village. On the Indonesian island of Java in the city  of Yogyakarta, is the Batik Winotosastro. Here traditional batik processes are used to  create elaborate and detailed patterns on cloth. A tjanting tool, a tiny copper bowl  with a wooden handle and spout,   is used to apply hot wax to the fabric. The  wax will act as a resist to block the dye. Resists can also be applied with a tjap,   a form of metal block which is dipped  in hot wax and stamped on the cloth. Cool wax will crack very easily and  traditional Indonesian batik places   a high value on clear lines and  areas of colour with no cracks. For this reason special mechanisms  have developed to dye fabric without   crumpling the cloth. This setup  has the additional advantage of   permitting several yards of cloth to  be dyed with little or no back pain. In early September of 2000, batik artists,  designers, academics, gallery owners,   collectors and enthusiasts gathered in  Yogyakarta for a five-day batik festival.   The festival had as its focus a competition  based on the use of natural dyes For proponents of natural dye  use the competition was a very   important event as it brought the  issue of natural versus synthetic   dye use to the attention of gallery  owners and the purchasing public. In the Kachchh desert area of western  India, there is the village of Dhamadka. The village is widely known for  its masterfully printed Ajrakhs. Built on generations of skill, the  Dhamadka legacy relies on indigo blue.   The core family of three brothers with  the help of children and the village,   are responsible for some of the finest  hand-printed Ajrakhs in existence. The Ajrakh cloth, having already been  printed with resist, is dipped into the vat. In Dhamadka, the natural indigo is purchased  locally in the form of a dried cake. It is   also obtained from the Pitchi Reddy  Farm when it is used to dye cloth   for one of their largest clients: Maiwa  Handprints, based in Vancouver, Canada. The earthquake that hit the area in  January of 2001 devastated the village,   which was situated at its epicenter. The village of Dhamadka was forced to  move to a new location where they had   to rebuild everything. For the dyeworks,  this meant they had to adjust recipes   to account for such variables as the  shifted mineral content of the water.   It was difficult work but unlike many, they  had their artistry as a familiar constant. Today the production of ajrakh cloth  in the village of Dhamadka continues.   It is an active and thriving business.  Dhamadka is part of a natural dye revival.