WALLA WALLA, Wash. -- No one can say Kinoka Onnah Ogsbury, known as Oni to
her classmates at Whitman College, lacks appreciation of the spoken and written word.Her name, Kinoka Onnah, is taken from the language of the Arapahoe Indians and means "Sky Blue" in English. Early in life, she moved between both languages and was exposed to other Indian languages as her family traveled between reservations. Later, she studied French for nine years and Spanish for three more.
In December, 1996, Ogsbury graduated from Whitman with a major in English literature and minor in Spanish literature.
But when Ogsbury embarks later this summer on a year-long trip to Guatemala, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand and Bhutan to study cross-cultural communication, her focus will shift from words to the feminine language of weaving.
Ogsbury, a graduate of Boulder (Colo.) High School, is one of three Whitman College seniors who recently received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to finance a post-graduate travel-study project.
Each of the countries Ogsbury plans to visit is home to rich weaving traditions. Depending on rhythms established by the weavers she meets, she expects to spend five hours or more per day weaving. Her goals are three-fold.
First, she wants to learn the language of hand-weaving used in each country, beginning with the technical aspects of weaving but also including the cultural and social significance of the activity.
"In the majority of the countries, each weaver prepares her own fibers and dyes, as well as the tools of her craft," Ogsbury said. "Stick shuttles, shed sticks, tapestry bobbins, warping frames and support frames for the back tension looms are all handmade."
Not only are technical aspects of weaving critical to a better understanding of cultural and social implications, they may prove valuable to Ogsbury later in life. While studying at Whitman, she has worked in costume design at Harper Joy Theatre, and she is considering a future career in textile design.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, Ogsbury wants to use her expanded knowledge of weaving to effect a greater exchange of ideas between women in the United States and the countries on her itinerary. "Like the ancient Chinese princess who helped further the unprecedented exchange of commerce and knowledge over the Silk Road, I hope to further an exchange of knowledge . . . as I trace my own Woven Road."
Third, Ogsbury wants to visit industrial weaving factories and explore the effect industrialization is having on the language of women weavers.
In Bhutan, where 80 percent of all women weave by hand, people are struggling to preserve that heritage. Although inexpensive power-loomed imports from India continue to enter the country, the Bhutanese government has taken protective measures. In 1989, for example, the King of Bhutan ruled that all citizens must wear traditional, hand-woven clothing, which has come to represent prosperity, fertility and social well being.
Ogsbury, who began sewing clothes in high school, began exploring the language of textiles during year-long study trips to Lyons, France, in 1991 and to Costa Rica in 1995.
Although she had studied French for six years before arriving in France, she discovered that her ability to communicate in that language was somewhat limited. "My interest in fabrics, sewing and clothes emerged as a way of communicating what I could not communicate verbally," she said. "I found I could understand things that my host mother Monique Girel would show me with a needle and thread, that I could not understand when she tried to explain the same thing to me with words, and that often there were no words capable of expressing these things."
Years later, at the University of Costa Rica, Ogsbury took classes in textile design and drawing, and worked as an intern to Annia Delgado, a clothing designer.
"Although I never learned all the words I needed, Dona Annia and I engaged in a rich exchange of ideas and techniques," Ogsbury said. "My work with Dona Annia brought me into a very private sphere of Costa Rican women's lives. In the privacy of the shop, women talked about everything from death to childbirth, marriage to divorce, religion to politics. It was not only what I heard, but what I saw and experienced in Dona Annia's shop that introduced me into the world of a feminine language hitherto unknown to me."
While in Costa Rica, Ogsbury also traveled to Guatemala where she spent time weaving with Highland Indian women. "Gradually, I glimpsed a whole weaving language encompassing many aspects of these women's lives."
Ogsbury plans to return to Guatemala as the first stop on her Watson fellowship project. In Indonesia, she will focus on two types of textiles. One variety, known as "soul cloth," is given as a protective measure to Batak women pregnant with their first child. The other is "gerinsing," a sacred textile woven according to rituals not shared with outsiders.
In Laos and Thailand, Ogsbury plans to explore the relationship between Buddhism and weaving. "While Buddhist traditions, in these countries, undervalue women, their work as weavers has tended to earn them a great deal of respect," she said.
In a larger sense, Ogsbury expects to spend the next year unweaving many of her own certainties, beliefs and expectations.
"In the Odyssey by Homer, Penelope practices this process of weaving and unweaving as a means of protecting herself from her suitors and enduring Odysseus' absence," she said. In a similar way, she added, her Watson travels will "challenge me to weave, unweave and reweave words, yarn and my understanding of myself, others and the world in which I live."
Dave Holden, Whitman College News Service, (509) 527-5902
Email Address: holden@whitman.edu