Soumak (also spelled soumakh, sumak, sumac, or soumac) is a tapestry technique of weaving sturdy, decorative fabrics used for carpets, oriental rug, domestic bags and bedding, with soumak fabrics used for bedding known as soumak mafrash.
Soumak is a type of flat weave, somewhat resembling kilim, but with a stronger and thicker weave, a smooth front face and a ragged back, where kilim is smooth on both sides. Soumak lacks the slits characteristic of kilim, as it is usually woven with supplementary weft threads as continuous supports.
The technique involves wrapping coloured weft threads over and under the warp threads, adding strength and embroidery-like pattern.
Etymology
The name 'soumak' may plausibly derive from the old town of italic=no in
Azerbaijan, once a major trading centre in the Eastern Caucasus.
Other theories include an etymology from Turkish 'sekmek', 'to skip up and down', meaning the process of weaving; or from any of about 35 species of flowering plant in the
Anacardiaceae or
sumac family, such as dyer's sumach (
Cotinus coggygria), used to make dyestuffs.
If this last is the source of the name, then it is derived from the Arabic and
Syriac language word 'summāq', meaning 'red'.
[Etymology of Sumac at Etymonline.com and also at and [2]. Etymology of Rhus at ]
Technique
The technique of making a soumak involves wrapping
over a certain number of warps (usually 4) before drawing them back under the last two warps. The process is repeated from
selvedge to selvedge. The wefts are discontinuous; the weaver selects coloured threads in turn, and wraps each within the area which is to have that particular colour. Unlike kilim, the back is left ragged, with all the loose ends of the differently-coloured weft threads visible, sometimes several inches long, providing extra thickness and warmth. Also unlike kilim, there are no slits where colours meet, as there is a supplementary or structural weft which supports the coloured pattern weft. Some late Soumaks made by the Kurds are however "weftless", lacking the structural weft support, and the stitches naturally overlap.
Soumaks tend to be finely woven, and although not as durable as carpet, they are stronger than . The soumak wrapping often covers the whole surface of a bag or rug, but it can equally be applied in decorative strips, contrasting with the plainer and thinner flatweave areas.
Bags were sometimes woven with a face of soumak, with a tapestry-woven kilim-like top creating slits between blocks of colour: a rope was threaded in and out of the series of slits to fasten and close the bag.
saddle bag, Luristan, late 20th century">
File:Luristan Soumak saddle bag front.JPG|Front
File:Luristan Soumak saddle bag rear detail of handle.JPG|Detail of woollen handle
File:Luristan Soumak saddle bag rear.jpg|Simple red and blue striped rear, without weft wrapping
File:Luristan Soumak detail of weft wrapping.JPG|Detail of weft wrapping: "weft yarns .. can be pushed about as the weaver wishes"
Regions
Soumak products are made in the
Caucasus (especially the
Shirvan region), Southern and Western
Persia including
Luristan, Turkish
Anatolia, by the
Shahsavan tribe and the
Kurdish people in north-western Persia, and by the
Baloch people on the
Persia–
Afghanistan border.
