The reports and letters of silk specialists employed by the EEIC contain a wealth of information about the methods employed to produce silk thread in Bengal. Their reports for London frequently referred to the inefficiency of sericultural and silk reeling practices used in Bengal. None of these processes were close to the methods practiced in Italy or China.
George Williamson – a former employee of the EEIC – wrote one of the best descriptions of the methods used in the production of raw silk in Bengal. A plate of drawings accompanied his descriptions of the rearing and feeding the worms and of the reeling and winding the silk in 1775 (Figure 1.2).
According to George Williamson’s account, the moths were placed on a mat to mate so that the females would lay their eggs on this mat (figure 1.2A). When buds appeared on the mulberry shrubs, the silkworm eggs wereexposed to enough sunlight to make them hatch. The worms were given food the morning after hatching in order to ascertain which were the healthiest. Those worms that were able to climb onto the leaves given to them were transferred onto mats and fed with mulberry leaves (figure 1.2B). During the rearing of the worms, the mats were stored on trays (figure 1.2D) that were kept in special buildings (figure 1.2C). When the worms were ready to spin their
Varadajan, ‘Silk in Northeastern and Eastern India: The Indigenous Tradition’, Modern Asian Studies 22 (3), 1988, pp. 565-70.
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cocoons, they were moved onto a different mat which had a spiral of bamboo for the worms to fasten their thread (figure 1.2E).
Figure 1.2. Plate Depicting the Practices of Sericulture and Silk Reeling in Bengal in 1775
Source: Goldsmiths’ Library [G.L.], 1775 fol.: George Williamson, Proposals Humbly Submitted to the Consideration of Court of Directors for Affair of the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies: For Improving and Increasing the Manufacture of Silk in Bengal (London, s.n., 1775), pp. 17-18 B F A C D E G H I J
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The Indian method of killing the moth inside the cocoon was considered by Europeans to be detrimental to the quality of the raw silk. In Italy the normal practice was to kill the chrysalis inside the cocoon (before it could conclude its metamorphosis) in an oven or through the use of steam [at temperature of 70° or 80°C].15 In India the moths were killed by exposing the cocoon to the rays of sunlight (figure 1.2F).16 However, this method was unreliable because the cocoons could only be exposed to sun after all the cocoons were spun. Some silkworms spun their cocoon faster some slower, thus some had already started the metamorphosis into a moth at the time when the cocoons were exposed to sun. If the chrysalis was not killed inside the cocoon, the moth tore the cocoon while getting out. This lowered the quality of the silk and could render the cocoon unsuitable for further use.17
The last four scenes of Figure 1.2 depict the ‘country’ method of reeling and the processes of re-reeling the ‘country-wound’ silk. The silk was either reeled in the peasant households or by cuttanies, reelers who travelled from village to village.18 A cuttany using reels and a split bamboo for reeling cocoons is depicted on figure 1.2G. Silk reeled using this method was known as ‘country-wound’ or ‘Putney’ and was deemed to be low quality as silk filaments of different lengths and fineness were reeled
15 Richard Hills, ‘From Cocoon to Cloth: The Technology of Silk Production’, in Simonetta Cavaciocchi (ed.), La Seta in Europa Secc. XIII-XX (Prato: Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica, 1993), p. 63. 16 Figure 6 shows the mat on which the worms were kept before being exposed to the sun.
17 Hills, ‘From Cocoon to Cloth’, p. 63.
18 Cuttanies had a reputation for not paying attention to quality: “the cuttanies who manufacture the Putney are dispersed all over the country neither under control or inspection; that they have no interest in the quality or sale of the silk nor any consideration beyond their daily pay which they receive from the chassars who rears the worm”. WBSA, BoT Prcds 23 June 1778, ‘Observations on Raw Silk and Remarks on these Observations’, as cited in Davini, Una Conquista Incerta, p. 127; Id., ‘The History of Bengali Raw Silk as Interplay between the Company Bahadur, the Bengali Local Economy and Society, and the Universal Italian Model, c.1750 – c.1830’, Commodities of Empire Working Paper 6 (2008), p. 8.
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together.19 A further problem was inequality within the skeins as some contained single,
double, triple or even quadruple parts.20 Finally, it was often observed that much of the final silk was dirty or unfit for use.21
Country-wound silk did not have a market in Europe so the EEIC had to have the silk rewound before sending it to Britain. The country-wound silk was delivered to merchant agents and rewound by winders called nacauds.22 The process of rewinding is
depicted on figures 1.2H, 1.2I, and 1.2J. First, threads of different fineness had to be separated from each other using a reel and bobbin (figure 1.2H); then silk threads of different colours were separated by reeling the thread from the bobbin onto large reel (figure 1.2I), after this the reel was placed in the sun for the thread to dry. Only then was the silk twisted into skeins (figure 1.2J). 23