For centuries silk was
a fabric available only to royal families or the very rich. It was regarded as
worth its weight in gold. Indeed it is a special material. Delicate and glossy,
it absorbs colours better than any other fabric. Yards and yards of pure silk
can easily go through a lady's ring. Opened up, it can be wrapped round a
person to provide warmth from the cold or a cool touch when it is warm.
No wonder silk-weaving
was a closely-guarded secret for centuries. Silk, and the silkworm from whose
cocoon it is spun, used to be fiercely-kept secrets in China. The story of silk
therefore is made up of yarns spun on legend and myth. A popular tale of how it
was first discovered is the one about a Chinese empress, Shi Ling Chi.
One day, the empress
was strolling in her palace grounds among the mulberry bushes. She noticed
little worms spinning shining amber cocoons in the bushes. Picking up one of
the cocoons, she unwound the thread and found that it was one long strand of
shiny material. Fascinated by her discovery, she pulled strands from other
cocoons through her ring to form a thicker thread. Eventually, with the help of
her ladies-in-waiting, she spun the threads into a beautiful piece of cloth.
This cloth was made into a magnificent robe for the emperor, Huang Ti. Silk
became known as the 'cloth of kings'.
For thousands of years
only the royal family of China had silk. The Chinese kept the secret of making
silk for 2,500 years. Although the material was sold to the West, the source of
the precious thread was not revealed. The punishment for disclosing that silk
came from the cocoons of the silkworms was death.
Legends abound relating
to how other countries tried to obtain the secret of silk. According to one,
the Japanese carried off four Chinese maidens with mulberry shoots and silk
moth eggs hidden in their sleeves. Another story is about a Chinese princess who
married an Indian prince. She smuggled silkworm eggs and mulberry shoots in her
elaborate headdress. Whatever truths there are in these tales, Japan and India
are the other leading producers of silk today.
Even today the palace
in Japan rears its own silkworms. The silk produced is used for repairing
treasures in the palace and making gifts for foreign dignitaries. Members of
the Japanese household often participate in silk weaving and dyeing.
How silk spread to
Europe is told in the story of the two monks who were sent to China by Emperor
Justinian of Constantinople. Their mission was to acquire some silk moth eggs
and mulberry shoots. They returned years later with the desired items hidden
inside their hollowed-out walking sticks. Constantinople was then the Byzantine
capital, and the crossroads between East and West. The secret soon spread
throughout Europe.
Today silk can be worn
by everyone. It comes in several forms: satin, chiffon, crepe, taffeta, raw
silk and so on. Fine silk is very expensive. What the silkworm took three days
to spin is unraveled in five minutes to produce three meters of silk. It takes
150 silkworms to make a man's necktie. It has been estimated that it took three
trillion silkworms to make Princess Diana's taffeta wedding gown!
Silk is also useful in a wide variety of applications from medicine to space technology and the cultivation of silkworms is possible anywhere mulberry trees are grown.
In Indonesia, silk is
being spun from the cocoons of a certain wild moth found in a village outside
Jogjakarta. The cocoons, found on tops of trees ten meters from the ground,
provide a very fine silky thread. Villagers are earning US$100 a year gathering
these cocoons. This wild moth silk industry has attracted the interest of
Japanese and Western companies. At the moment, only 50 kilograms of silk is
being produced a month.
There have been plans
to double the production soon. It is a new industry that could help revive the
Indonesian economy.
The globalisation of
the silk industry continues.
Summary: The Chinese discovered
silk and kept it a secret for 2,500 years. For a long time only royalty could
use it. Despite exporting silk to the West, the Chinese guarded their knowledge
of silk strictly. There are many stories about how the secret went abroad.
The Japanese used
Chinese maidens with knowledge about silk to smuggle out mulberry plants and
silk moth eggs. The Chinese bride of an Indian prince hid those items in her
headgear. The secret went to Europe via Constantinople, carried by two monks in
their canes.
Today silk is available
to everyone, although still highly priced. It is also useful in other fields
like medicine and technology.
A new source of silk
has recently been discovered in Indonesia. It is a wild moth producing silk
thread. Companies from developed countries are keen to know more about it. This
industry might become important to the country's economy.
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