This style is typical of skirts worn in the Haka area of Northern Chin State, a hilly region of west Burma on the border with India. The skirt is known as hni tial, meaning “spotted skirt”, in reference to the scattered diamond patterns. These were made by weaving silk threads horizontally across the skirt – a technique known as supplementary weft weaving. It has been suggested that this particular style of skirt was only worn on special occasions especially by less wealthy women, as the imported cotton from India and silk from China were costly and the processes of natural dyeing and weaving took up much time.
