The Pastoralist: Where Flock Becomes Textile
Series 01 | GI No. 174 | Handspun Wool Throws | Kachchh, Gujarat
Cover Image: Center for Pastoralism
In the Company of Shepherds
Long before dawn breaks over the Banni grasslands of Kachchh, the Rabari pastoralists are already moving. Wool-wrapped against the cold, they guide their flocks—thousands of sheep and goats—across landscape that shifts between green abundance and parched survival depending on the mercy of monsoons.
This is the oldest conversation in the region: between human, animal, and earth. The Rabari have been pastoral nomads here for centuries, following water and grazing land, carrying their entire material culture on the backs of camels. Their wool—sheared, handspun, and woven into textiles of remarkable resilience—is not a byproduct of herding. It is the reason for it.
The Pastoralist series traces this lineage. Each throw begins not in a workshop but in open country, where sheep graze on wild grasses and medicinal herbs that will eventually influence the quality of their fleece.
Wool That Remembers Weather
Kachchh sheep are not bred for softness. They're bred for survival—producing wool that can withstand temperature swings of 60 degrees between day and night, that sheds dust naturally, that keeps warmth close in winter and somehow remains bearable even in heat.
When you handle a Pastoralist throw, this is what you're feeling: fiber shaped by climate extremes, evolved through generations to serve pastoral communities who sleep under stars and wake to frost, who need textiles that function as shelter, warmth, and home.
The wool comes primarily from the Marwari and Patanwadi breeds—local sheep with coarse, resilient fleece that resists felting. After shearing in late winter, the wool is washed in natural water sources, then laid in sun until it achieves the particular dryness that makes it spin true.
The Physics of Hand-spinning
In villages like Khavda and Dhordo, women gather in courtyards to spin. Not on wheels—those came later and are still viewed with some suspicion—but with the takli, a simple wooden spindle that hangs suspended from a thread, spinning under its own momentum while the spinner feeds wool fiber from a bundle tucked under her arm.
Watch Premiben, a Rabari woman who has been spinning since childhood, and you'll see something close to meditation. Her hands move in continuous rhythm—draft the fiber, give the spindle a twist, let it spin, wind the yarn, repeat. She can produce roughly two hundred grams of handspun yarn in a day. A single throw requires approximately two kilograms of yarn.
Do the maths: a week of spinning for one woman to produce enough yarn for one textile. Then another week for the weaving itself.
This is why handspun wool carries a different character than mill-spun. The slight irregularities in thickness create textiles with more air, more loft, more capacity to trap warmth without weight. The twist is gentler, leaving the fiber less compacted. The result is wool that breathes, that doesn't make you overheat, that somehow manages to feel right in temperature ranges where other textiles fail.
Colors That Need No Apology
The Pastoralist palette is deliberately restrained: undyed natural wool in shades from cream to charcoal, occasionally punctuated by stripes dyed with traditional natural colorants—madder root for terracotta, indigo for deep blue, pomegranate rind for subtle gold.
This isn't minimalism as aesthetic choice. It's minimalism as respect for material. Wool this carefully produced, handspun this slowly, doesn't require elaborate pattern or vivid color to announce its value. The texture itself—the visible character of handspun yarn, the way light catches the slight irregularities—provides all the visual interest needed.
The Rabari have always understood this. Their traditional textiles prioritize durability and function over decoration. A throw might last twenty years, passed between family members, gathering the patina of use. Loud colors and complex patterns would compete with this accumulation of life. Better to let the wool speak its own language.
From Pit Loom to Philosophy
The weaving happens on traditional pit looms in villages connected by dusty roads that disappear during monsoon. The weaver—often the husband of the woman who spun the yarn—sits above the pit with his feet working the pedals below, creating the shed through which the shuttle passes.
The width is determined by arm span. The pattern, if any, is carried in the weaver's memory—geometric arrangements that have been woven here since before anyone thought to write them down. There's no computer program, no written instructions. Just the knowledge passed from father to son, adjusted slightly by each generation while preserving the fundamental logic.
Each throw takes seven to ten days to complete. The weaver works perhaps six hours daily, not from laziness but from the physical demands of the loom. Your shoulders, your back, your legs—all are engaged in the act of creating cloth. By afternoon, the body needs rest.
Hasmukhbhai, who weaves in Bhujodi, puts it simply: "You cannot rush wool. It will tell you when the tension is wrong, when the beat is too hard. You must listen."
Textile as Shelter
The Rabari traditionally used these wool throws as guddi—multipurpose textiles that function as blanket, mattress, room divider, impromptu tent, and occasionally shroud. One textile, many lives, designed for people whose homes are temporary and whose possessions must justify the space they occupy.
This utilitarian origin explains the generous dimensions—large enough to wrap around two people, thick enough to cushion sleep on hard ground, substantial enough to block wind. But it also explains the surprising sophistication. When your entire material culture must be portable, every object becomes an opportunity for beauty within function.
The border patterns, the occasional stripes, the careful finishing at edges—these aren't ornamental. They're the weaver's assertion that even necessary objects deserve attention, that utility and dignity can share the same cloth.
What Survives in Modern Hands
Our Pastoralist series preserves this lineage while acknowledging contemporary use. You're probably not sleeping on the ground or using this throw as a tent. But the original qualities—the breathability, the warmth-without-weight, the durability that improves with age—translate beautifully to modern life.
Thrown across a bed, layered on a sofa, wrapped around shoulders during cool evenings, these throws carry their pastoral origins lightly. The handspun texture provides visual and tactile interest that mill-produced textiles cannot replicate. The natural colors work with rather than against contemporary interiors. The substantial weight suggests permanence in a world of disposable goods.
And there's something else—harder to quantify but impossible to ignore. These throws carry a particular quality of grounded-ness, of being connected to fundamental human activities: tending animals, processing fiber, making shelter. In an increasingly digital, dematerialized world, that connection to ancient practices feels less like nostalgia and more like necessity.
The Economics of Survival
Full disclosure: these throws are expensive because they must be. When Premiben spins for a week to produce yarn, she's not working for symbolic wages. When Jentilal Vankar spends ten days at the loom, his time has value. When the Rabari maintain their flocks in increasingly challenging conditions, facing pressure to settle permanently and abandon pastoral traditions, the economic viability of their craft becomes existential.
The geographical indication GI No. 174 protects the Kachchh name and techniques, but it can't guarantee livelihoods. Only sustained interest from people who value what mechanization cannot replicate—the character of handspun, the integrity of slow making, the story carried in every thread—can do that. Preserving craft traditions requires more than museums and documentation. It requires economic ecosystems where artisans can earn dignified livings practicing their skills.
When you bring a Pastoralist throw into your home, you're participating in that ecosystem. You're making a small vote for a different kind of economy—one that values mastery over efficiency, that honors time rather than minimizing it, that understands some things worth having are worth waiting for.
Living with Wool
A note on care, because these throws are meant for use, not preservation:
Wool wants air and occasional sun. It doesn't want frequent washing. Shake it out, let it breathe, spot-clean when necessary. Over time, it will develop a patina—a particular softness and drape that only comes from years of being lived with. This isn't deterioration. It's the textile becoming itself.
The handspun character means occasional loose fibers are normal, not defects. The slight irregularities in weave density are signatures of human hands, not quality control failures. If you're seeking machine perfection, this isn't your textile. But if you're seeking material with character, with story, with the accumulated knowledge of pastoral communities woven visible—this is precisely your textile.
Where the Story Leads
The Rabari are aging. Fewer young people want to maintain flocks in increasingly uncertain climate conditions. Handspinning, once ubiquitous, is becoming rare. The traditions that produced these throws face genuine risk of extinction within a generation.
Yet in Premiben's courtyard, her granddaughter has begun learning to spin. Slowly, with many breaks and much laughter. The girl is also studying computer science in Bhuj. She sees no contradiction between these two skills, these two futures.
"Maybe I won't be a full-time spinner," she says, the takli dancing below her still-uncertain hands. "But I should know how it's done. This knowledge belongs to us. We shouldn't lose it just because the world is changing."
This is the hope the Pastoralist series carries forward: that tradition and progress need not be enemies, that ancient skills can coexist with contemporary life, that wool handspun in Kachchh can find its way into homes continents away and still carry meaning.
One throw, one choice, one small assertion that some things are worth preserving—not in museums, but in daily use, where they belong.
The Pastoralist | Series 01
Handspun Wool Throws | Rabari Pastoral Tradition | Kachchh, Gujarat
GI No. 174 Protected Craft | Natural Wool | Traditional Pit Loom Weaving
Discover the collection—where pastoral tradition meets contemporary sanctuary, where flock becomes textile, where every thread remembers the grasslands.
