Spinning Understanding -- More about Silk

Hand-reeling silk in NE Thailand

Occasionally people ask us whether silkworms are killed to produce silk. Our answer is “no, but…”

Killing the worm, which is actually a caterpillar, would defeat the purpose. Caterpillars spin the cocoons that provide the filaments which comprise silk thread. But cocoons contain pupae and, when cocoons are boiled to loosen the gum that holds the filaments together, the pupae are cooked much the same as an egg is boiled. And, just as a boiled egg will never become a chicken, a boiled pupa will never become a moth.

Also like a boiled egg, a boiled pupa is an excellent source of nutrition. So much so that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) promotes the nutrition available from silk pupae, especially in the rice-growing regions in Southeast Asia where the rural poor are frequently deficient in proteins and other nutrients whether or not they have enough carbohydrates.

Silkworm pupae are full of protein. They also contain essential amino acids, potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, phosphorus, selenium and other trace elements as well as vitamins A, E, B1, B2 and carotene -- all of which are vital to the human body.

The 1st Eri silk group we worked with

TAMMACHAT buys its silk from rural weaving groups in Thailand and Laos where women often raise silk caterpillars in their homes. These are Bombyx mori, sometimes called mulberry silkworms. During village visits, we’ve seen the boiled pupae relished as a traditional food.

At TAMMACHAT, we put great importance on respecting the cultures in which we work. This often means leaving our judgments at home and, instead, trying to better understand the people who create the beautiful weavings we sell. So, when we were offered fried pupae, Ellen diplomatically tasted one. Later, I was delighted to see an FAO information booth at a fair in Vientiane, Laos, promoting the nutritional value of silk pupae and other insects.

Fried pupae with sticky rice & fish

In India, there is another tradition of making silk from the remnants of cocoons made by Samia ricini, the Eri silkworm. Unlike Bombyx mori, the cocoons made by Eri caterpillars are not comprised of a continuous filament, so they are spun into a yarn rather than reeled as thread. Because of this difference, spinners can allow pupae to develop into moths that leave their cocoons. When the Eri silkworm was introduced into Thailand, however, women boiled the pupae anyway and added it to their families’ diets, maintaining tradition while providing nutrition.

With this knowledge, I continue to wear silk just as I continue to eat eggs. In either case I ask: Were the beings that provided these things for me treated cruelly? Was the environment destroyed or depleted in the process? And most importantly, did the people who laboured to provide me these natural goods endure unhealthy or unjust conditions, or were they treated with respect and appropriately paid?

Handwoven vegan silk scarf coloured with ebony fruit

We ask these same questions at TAMMACHAT Natural Textiles where our goal is to sustain cultures, communities and the environment rather than market what is sometimes called “peace silk,” “vegetarian silk,” “no-kill silk” or “cruelty-free silk.” We buy handwoven, heritage-quality silks coloured with traditional natural dyes. Our ethical fashion accessories and fabrics do not come from sweatshops or any other factory. Most of it is organic mulberry silk. We have found only one producer in Thailand who allows the Eri moth to develop and leave the cocoons naturally, so his work is available in very limited editions. If you’d like to see these or our mulberry silks and learn more about how they’re made, we invite you to visit www.tammachat.com.


More blog posts about Eri silk:

• Eri Silk: New in Thailand
• Eri Silk: Peace Silk From Thailand

Alleson

TAMMACHAT featured in A Distinctive Style Magazine

TAMMACHAT's fair trade eco-textiles featured in the Winter 2011 edition of A Distinctive Style Magazine: Weaving Beautiful Cloth: Fair trade organic silk in Northeast Thailand. Text and photos by Ellen Agger. Check out all the inspiring stories.

How to get around Thailand

We've received several requests for contact information for the driver and interpreter we employ to visit rural weaving groups in Thailand. Our answer is always “Sorry, no can do.” Here are 6 reasons why.

1. Buses and songthaews

Bus service in Thailand is extremely good. Buses are fast, cheap and go almost everywhere. But navigating one’s way through the thousands of available buses can be challenging. Reading place names in Thai script is the first hurdle. Alleson can read a bit of Thai and speaks more than that. She also understands how place names are organized and how to interpret addresses.

Even more confusing are the various types of buses and the number of bus stations in a given place. In a big city, there are often 3 bus stations – air-con, 2nd class and intra-provincial. But there are always exceptions: for example, our recent trip from Chiang Mai to Udon Thani -- It’s a 12-hour overnight journey so we chose to spend a bit more for tickets on a VIP bus with 24 seats rather than the usual 40+. However, while our friend was waiting to pick us up at the air-con bus station, we arrived at the 2nd class station. Alleson’s Thai got us a clarification of where we were and my essential cell phone allowed me to tell our friend where to find us.

BTW, a songthaew is a type of pickup truck with a full canopy and 2 bench seats that often has a designated route for intra-provincial travel.

2. Trains

We like train travel in Thailand. It's slower and more expensive than bus travel but it’s relaxing and less claustrophobic, especially for long trips. But it’s not as enjoyable or safe as it used to be. The older cars haven’t been kept up and most of the reserved seating fan cars are being replaced by hermetically sealed air-con ones that are more expensive and less romantic. More the issue, though, is they don’t reach most of the places we need to go.

3. Cars and Trucks

Sometimes we join our friend Pii Yai, rural development worker extraordinaire, in her bucket of a truck. Piled in the back are her sleeping bag, pop-up mosquito net and other basic tools for daily living as she spends most of her time visiting projects throughout NE Thailand. There’s also stuff she's gotten from one project to share with others; such as water-filters, fuel efficient stoves, plant cuttings, etc. We're grateful to her and her 15 year-old Mazda that keeps on trucking and we’re always happy to pay to fill her tank with bio-diesel.

4. Motorcycles

When bicycle travel waned here, scooters and small motorbikes (100-125 cc) became the standard for personal local transportation. We rent them when available, i.e., when we're in places where lots of other foreigners go. However, monster trucks and SUVs now crowd the road (and put their owners deep in debt) so riding on 2 wheels seems increasingly dangerous. Like most places, drinking and driving is a huge problem.

Nonetheless, put Alleson on a motorbike and she’s all smiles. When she lived here, she toured to every changwat (province) over the course of 8 years, putting 50,000 km. on her 250cc imported Honda. We use motorbikes just for daytrips, though.

I’ve learned to drive a scooter. I'm too much of a bicycle rider to get the hang of the different set-up for the brakes on the geared motorbikes! I can drive myself, but not the 2 of us, so I'm usually sitting behind Alleson, often carrying bags, baskets and other large objects in the typical Asian way!

5. Air travel

This year we flew directly to Chiang Mai after arriving in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport, to avoid travelling into the city only to leave again the next day. It was a good decision but in general we prefer to keep our carbon footprint low by taking ground transportation. It also saves us a lot of money.

6. Walking

Of course, our most common form of transportation is walking. Like our other means of travel, it allows us to meet Thais face to face without the isolation of a private car or the insulation of an interpreter. Walking across town or riding a songthaew to an outlying village provides opportunities for chance meetings and serendipitous discoveries that enrich our experience and broaden our understanding.

In short, we’re not keeping our driver and translator to ourselves; rather, we ourselves are our drivers and interpreters.