Hmong Story Cloths

By far, one of the coolest things to come out of my internship this summer with Mennonite Central Committee is this: Hmong story cloths (pronounced “mong” – the “h” is silent). First, a little bit of background. This summer, I have had the great honour of serving with MCC by spearheading a pilot project to collect oral histories of former refugees who came to Canada through the MCC private sponsorship of refugees program (find out more here). Because MCC Ontario has sponsored 15 000 refugees since the program began in 1979, I clearly had to narrow it down. I decided to focus on the first group, the people from Southeast Asia, more commonly (and inaccurately – not to mention less-than-sensitively) known as the “Boat People.” When images of the humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia in the late ’70s started flooding televisions in the west, people began jumping up and down insisting something be done. That something took the form of sponsorship. In Canada, MCC became the first signatory with the Canadian government, creating the private sponsorship of refugees program. Important side note: to this day Canada is the only country in the world that has private sponsorship of refugees – O Canada!

Vietnamese Canadian Federation members

Anyway, because this wave of immigrants from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos were the first to come, they were the ideal group for several reasons. First of all, practicality. In trying to find participants for oral history projects, you have to be able to actually find them. I had a stack of Notice of Arrival forms, housed in the MCC archives, that listed the person(s) sponsored, the church/business/group that sponsored them, and the person who was point of contact. I then contacted the sponsors in order to track down the contact in order to find the people sponsored. Phew. Thankfully, helping this along, were many commemorative celebrations in the last year or so. See, many of these people came to Canada 30 years ago, and had celebrations with their sponsors to commemorate that.

Well, interviewing these people over the past summer has been one of the most rewarding and challenging projects I’ve undertaken. Even more than that, though, having the opportunity to speak with these people has been a truly great honour. The stories are incredible (you, too, can appreciate their stories, just as soon as I get the project web site up and running! I’ll post about it here when I do).

I’ll speak more about the project when I finally complete the project’s site and post about it here, but today I want to focus on what, as I already said, was one of the coolest discoveries for me, the Hmong story cloths, of course.

The Hmong are an ethnic group from Southeast Asia who have no homeland.

Hmong New Year celebration

To get a quick idea of what their history has been like, think of the Kurds in Iraq, or the Jews in Russia. Not a happy history. After the Vietnam War and the Secret War in Laos, the communist regime and the Viet Cong targeted the Hmong for retribution. The Hmong had worked with the American forces and so were ruthlessly hunted down as a people. (Side note: while the situation is not as dire as it was in the mid-70s, life is far from safe for Hmong people in Laos and Vietnam today). It is estimated that upwards of two-thirds of the Hmong population in Laos was killed.

Ban Vinai Refugee Camp

Not surprisingly, many Hmong fled to neighbouring Thailand, where they landed in refugee camps such as Nong Khai and Ban Vinai. To read an excellent Hmong family memoir, I highly recommend Kao Kalia Yang‘s The Latehomecomer. For those who don’t already know, refugee camps are not happy places. They are filthy, overcrowded, unsanitary, undersupplied prisons. Many Hmong spent several years in these camps. In order to whittle away the time, but even more importantly, in order to make sure future generations would not forget what had happened, Hmong women turned their tradition of needlework to recreating their own stories. Hmong women would embroider intricate pictures on wholecloth quilts, illustrating their escape from Laos into Thailand. Some quilts are small, and some are quite large. This had a practical element, too. Once completed, the Hmong would sell these quilts to foreigners working in the camps, and to friends or family who were already overseas, in order to create an income for themselves and their families. The quilts display images of village life, warfare, escape across the Mekong River, and life in the refugee camps.

Hmong story cloth

When I told my husband about these quilts, he replied, “Well, there’s your dissertation right there!” We’ll see – the idea certainly has merit! But for now I’m just so thankful they were brought to my attention by one of the women I interviewed.

Bridges of Understanding

This is such a great shot:

 This past May, there was a meeting at Floradale Mennonite Church, in Floradale, Ontario, Canada, where several recently arrived refugees and their sponsors met in celebration. This is the write-up from Mennontie Central Committee:

“In my job, I see miracles everyday.” Moses Moini was speaking at Floradale Mennonite Church at a gathering organized by refugee sponsoring churches and Mennonite Central Committee Ontario. Moses, the MCC Refugee Co-ordinator, was sharing his experience with a group of recent refugees and their sponsor families. One of these miracles was connecting with Idirsa Pandit of the Muslim Social Services of Kitchener-Waterloo to explore the possibilities of working together in settling Palestinian refugee families who have been stranded along the Syrian boarder since the Iraq war broke out in 2003. 

“To my amazement, Idrisa was not a stranger to MCC. When she also mentioned that she was married to a Palestinian, I almost busted out with a loud ‘praise the Lord!’,” he said to laughter from the audience. “I was so encouraged by Idrisa’s willingness, readiness and commitment… these are the kind of partnerships and community connections needed to translate such a project into reality.”

The kind of partnership Moses speaks of is one that builds bridges of understanding.

Idrisa Padit has partnered with MCC Ontario for several years through the ground-breaking Interfaith Bridgebuilding program in Kitchener-Waterloo that sees Muslims and Mennonites meeting regularly to share with each other and build relationships. That evening at Floradale, she shared a story from the Koran of the Christian King Negus who welcomed with open arms a group of Muslim refugees who were fleeing persecution. Speaking to the mostly Mennonite audience, she noted that “Negus was living the Biblical commandment of ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’, by offering refuge to fellow human beings, just as you, faithful Christians in our community have extended your love and generosity to strangers who are already beginning to look more like family.”

Fred Redekop, pastor at Floradale Mennonite Church, told an astonishing story similar to that of King Negus – but in reverse. Fred’s ancestors were part of a group of Mennonites who fled Southern Ukraine when the Russian empire told Mennonites that they were no longer exempt from military service. After an arduous four month journey, they arrived in present-day Uzbekistan, hungry, tired, and landless. 

“When they arrived, they were welcomed by the Muslim communities… The local imam (religious leader) knew they were religious people and offered them the mosque to worship in until they could find their own church building. They allowed them to bury their people in their own graveyard.”

The Mennonites remained for nearly fifty years in this Muslim community. To cap off this incredible story, Fred says that “each year, at the beginning of planting season, the local imam still goes out to the old Mennonite cemetery in Uzbekistan and thanks God for the Mennonites who brought to them good farming techniques and thanks God for those relationships that were nurtured long ago.”

The final story of the evening came from Omar Awsage who came to Canada in October 2009 with his young family after spending four long years in a refugee camp in Syria having fled his home in Iraq. Through MCC’s refugee sponsorship program, Omar and his family were paired with Tavistock Mennonite Church who sponsored them and helped them get this far. Omar shared some photos of their time in Syria – they portrayed a world of despair and hope, of loss and survival. He thanked God for the miracles that brought his family to Canada. He knows there are many fellow Palestinian refugees in south-western Ontario but there is one man he dearly wishes were with him – his younger brother, 24-year-old Ali who is still awaiting sponsorship at the same refugee camp in north-east Syria. “My parents died in Iraq and my three brothers – we are all that we have… we want to stay together.”  He is currently trying to find a way to raise enough money to bring his brother to Canada.

Through these stories and connections, the spirit of mutual respect, love and cooperation was strengthened and the potluck-style dinner served afterward was equal parts eating and talking, and laughing. 

The spirit of this inter-faith partnering was summarized poignantly by Idrisa’s hope:
“Living with one another in harmony, with respect for each other’s beliefs and values, and embracing each other rather than merely tolerating one another, would make all of us, children of God, worthy in His eyes.”

1 Timothy 2:9-10: Part 1 of 4

I am very excited, because I get to combine an assignment for my Master’s program with my interests represented in this blog. For my course, Reading and Teaching the New Testament, with Dr. Tom Yoder Neufeld, I am examining the passage in 1 Tim. 2:9-10:

“I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” (TNIV)

Or, as the NLT has it:

“And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do.”

To examine this text, I will be writing a series of posts. First, I will set the context by looking at women in the first century Greco-Roman society and the Jewish culture. Then we’ll look at different interpretations of 1 Tim 2:9-10, beginning with the historical Mennonite interpretations that lead to plain clothes and then looking at what  several Biblical commentaries, such as The New Interpreter’s Bible,  The New Century Bible Commentary: the Pastoral Epistles, and the Women’s Bible Commentary have to say. Finally, we’ll finish with some concluding remarks that brings this all together and looks at the passage’s relevance for today.

1 Tim. 2:9-10: Jewish Women, Part 3 of 4

This is part three of my series on 1 Timothy 2:9-10. In order to understand this post, please see the previous one on Greco-Roman dress.

The Samaritan Woman - a modern rendition

Unlike for Roman styles, there are no contemporary images of first century Palestinian attire. In fact, there are very few sources that deal with ordinary Jewish women at all. With no statues or paintings to go on, reconstructing what Jewish women wore in the first century Mediterranean is piecemeal work. The only surviving material we have from that time was found in the Cave of Letters, located near En-Gedi in the Judean desert. This cave was occupied by the followers of Bar Kokhba during the second Jewish war against Rome. Therefore, assuming that the garments were brought to the cave, and not manufactured there, we have representative textiles for 100 to 135 C.E. We also have a great deal of Jewish literature that discusses clothing, particularly from the Mishnah.

Together, these sources tell us that Jewish dress was essentially the same as it was throughout the Roman Empire, but with some modifications to meet Jewish law. Most particularly, the laws of shaatnez and tzitzit. Shaatnez is from Deuteronomy 22:11: “Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together” (TNIV). This meant that the Roman style tunics (which, incidentally, used the same colour coding to denote status) were woven exclusively of wool or linen. Likewise, the tzitzit came from Deut. 22:12: “Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear” (TNIV).1

The infancy of Moses, west wall of the synagogue of Dura-Europos. One of the earliest representations of Jewish clothing.

Head Coverings

Like Roman women, Jewish women covered their heads. A woman could be divorced without payment of her marriage contract if she went out in public showing her hair.2

Again, this would better suit a discussion of 1 Corinthians 11, but it is relevant to see the importance placed on women’s modesty. It is also interesting to note that the Mishnah allows for the differences in local customs: “Women of Arabia may go out veiled, and women of Medea with their cloaks looped over their shoulder.”3 This allowance for local custom will come back in a later post as we discuss the relevance of these texts for us today.

Braids

Likewise, it is somewhat ironic that the author of 1 Timothy tells women not to braid their hair, because as far as we can tell from the limited sources we have, respectable Jewish women wore their long hair braided and pinned up. Letting your hair down was associated with the orgiastic ecstatic worship in Hellenistic cults.4 Again, this is edging near the discussions around covering women’s hair and the role of women in worship. By the way, if this interests you, be sure to check out my bibliography. Several of the sources have excellent discussions on women in first century synagogues (see, for example, Women & Christian Origins). While undeniably connected, that conversation warrants its own study. Let’s get back to fashion.

So, in summary, Jewish women’s social attire was pretty much the same as it was for Roman women. That means that the admonition in 1 Timothy 2:9-10 would have sounded very familiar to both Hellenistic and Jewish believers.

Roman veils

I came across this quote in The World of Roman Costume, and thought it was worth repeating (remember that most of the New Testament is written to audiences that included Hellenistic believers):

“The costume of the matron signified her modesty and chastity, her pudicitia. It consisted of her distinctive dress, the woolen stola, which was worn over a tunic; the protective woolen bands which dressed her hair; and the woolen palla or mantle, which was used to veil her head when she went out in public.

While to modern women of Western countries, the Middle Eastern custom of veiling women seems to signify social inequality and even inferiority, to modern women of the East it is a symbol of their honor and of the sanctity and privacy of their family life. In Islamic society today, respectable women veil to protect their honor and to signify their respectability. If a man does not show them respect, their kinship group will feel shamed and will likely take serious steps to avenge the collective family honor. Veiling in Islamic society also is a way of protecting against the evil eye. In fact, the Arabic word for veiling is related to the word for the amulet worn to counteract the evil eye.

Veiled Roman Woman

There are some indications that the Romans viewed veiling in a general way like modern Islamic society.”

Different Faiths Talking Style

It’s no great secret that I see clothing, and really all textile arts, as a means of finding a basis for dialogue between different groups of people. Clothing represents what a people believe, or at least what their authority figures believe. It gives clues to the status of men and women, children, different occupations, what sort of trade the people are engaged in, and what they do with their time. It’s why it’s such a fabulous resource for historians (can you tell I was a history major?) One of my major reasons for starting this blog (as you can read on my about page) was to create a space for people with different beliefs to come together and discuss them. This is what we call interfaith dialogue.

As in my posts about Christian prayer caps, or Muslim hijabs, an article of clothing can identify a person as belong to a particular religious or social group. In any case, as the Catholic theologian Paul F. Knitter said, in conversation we can know truth. And what better forum for conversation than fashion?

Therefore, I say wear your religion’s clothing with pride (if you so wish)! Maybe someone will ask you about it (hopefully respectfully!) and there you go. You’re off to the races with interfaith dialogue!

Christian Women’s Prayer Caps and Veiling

A lot of people are interested in why some Mennonite women (I’m not one of them) wear prayer caps, also known as “coverings” or “veiling”. So I thought I’d do a post on that.

To begin with, while those who cover their heads now are the exception, this was not always so. Women in European traditions wore head coverings up until very recently (think of ladies in the ’50s always going out with hat and gloves). It is really only within the last fifty years, or so, that this has gone out of fashion (much to my chagrin – I love hats).

 

Kelly Lynch as Mrs. Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice" doffs the Regency's married lady's bonnet.

 

 

 In essence, women in modern plain and reform churches take the Biblical verse 1 Cor. 11:5 to heart when Paul asks women to cover their heads when they pray. They wear them at all times because they try to follow Jesus’ call to “pray always” (Luke 18:1).

The Quaker church in particular has a very beautiful concept of prayer. For them, prayer comes from a depth of quiet, and that the quiet of the heart is a state of listening for God’s voice. This is one way in which they pray.

This excerpt explains it very nicely:

“If I am tempted to be impatient with a store clerk, my prayer cap calls me to patience.  If I am tempted to judge the noisy teenager in the car pulsating with rock music, my prayer cap calls me to pray for this youngster.  When I feel hurt by a rude neighbor, my prayer cap reminds me that the word “neighbor” is a holy word and denotes someone I must love, even when the loving is hard.  And so I lift her up to Jesus.  The prayer cap is more than a symbol, it is more than a statement, it is more than a tradition, it is a way of life.  It is a way of life we are called to in Christ.” (http://www.michiganquakers.org/prayer_cap.oym.htm)

 

Mantilla

Prior to Vatican II, many Catholic women wore headcoverings – usually only in church, but some wore them always. The could be hats, a simple scarf, or a mantilla. Some traditionalist Catholics and Eastern Orthodox ladies still wear them.

I find the mantilla prayer coverings very reminiscent of what Jewish ladies wear when lighting the Shabbat candles. I would hazard a guess that there’s a link between them, going to the early history of the church and the Judaism is arose from, but I don’t know that for a fact. If anyone can shed some light on this, I would be interested to know.

 

Shabbos candles

Muslim women, of course, wear hijab because of this verse in the Quran:

O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons…that they should be known and not molested.” [Chapter 33, verse 59]

See Naheed Mustafa’s (a Canadian Muslim) article in the Globe and Mail, My Body is My Business http://www.islam101.com/women/naheed.html

 

Sisters of St. Joseph

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, it would never do to have a discussion of Christian women’s headcoverings without addressing the distinctive look of the traditional nun’s habit.

While there are variations, the general rule was a white coif (the garment’s head piece, a white cotton cap secured by a wimple or a guimpe of starched linen or cotton (sometimes covered by black crape). There is then a black veil pinned over the coif (sometimes with a white underveil). The Holy habit is the central piece of the garment and is a loose black dress. The habit is often secured with a woolen belt. Their rosary hangs from the belt, and a silver cross is traditionally worn around the neck. The outfit has two sets of sleeves, the larger ones can be rolled up to work, or rolled down for formal occasions and entering chapel. The complete outfit includes two underskirts, a top skirt of black serge and an underskirt of black cotton. All orders wear the scapular, the symbolic apron that hangs both in front and behind. The Benedictines wear it over the belt, whereas most others wear it under. A scapular comes with a set of promises for the one who wears it.

Nomads Clothing

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. So yesterday I mentioned I’d found this site listing fair trade and organic modest clothing. The next site I checked out, after yesterday’s Shukr Fashion, was Nomads Clothing. Why, oh why, do we not have companies like this in Canada?! It’s a UK based company, and ooooh the clothes. They’re even having some amazing sales right now. 

And they’ve got cool accessories, too.

All Your “Unmentionable” Needs

Ever since I began trying to buy as much fair trade as humanly (or financially) possible, my family and friends frequently roll their eyes when they find out I’m buying fair trade shoe laces, or such. But here’s the thing, pretty much everything we buy is made in sweatshops. There’s a whole heck of a lot more out there that needs to be bought ethically than just chocolate and coffee.

(By the way, yes, you can buy fair trade “personal” products including condoms and … ahem … other intimate products)

So with that in mind, here are two finds for you of the female persuasion:

 

Women's Batik Underwear, from Ghana $12

These undies look fun. The biggest problem is that, so far, they are the only fair trade underwear I can find. They’re made by Unique Batik, who also carry some cool clothes, jewellery and accessories, and are member of the Fair Trade Federation. However, as you can guess by their name, it’s all pretty colourful.

I’ve also found fair trade bras, made by Justice Clothing. Again, the selection is pretty limited (they have four options), and they don’t carry nursing bras. But hey, it’s a start! And let’s give them kudos for that. 

Yes, the scope can be somewhat limited, but fair trade is a pretty new movement, and these things take time. So let’s support the efforts to encourage more!

Happy Canada Day!

 Yup, today Canada is 142! And, like a true Canadian, I’m heading to the cottage with my family. So I won’t be posting for a week.

I was thinking I should say something about Canadian style, but there’s so much to discuss! Not that we exactly have our own Paris, or New York, but rather that our fashion is such an understated amalgam of various cultures, mostly western. But not as chic as Europe.

Here’s my favourite thing about Canadian fashion: you get to choose it. I don’t just mean you can choose whether you wear blue or green today, but rather you can choose if you want to keep your burqa from Saudi Arabia, or your sari from India. Or you may choose to combine your traditional attire with Canadian contemporary.