Individual Creativity

In the ralli region, women take great pride in the textiles they create. Family quilts are used and appreciated primarily within the home or family compound. However, quilts may also be shared with others during weddings when visitors arrive from out of town, or during community meetings where they are hung to form temporary walls. Because quilts circulate in these ways, families mark their quilts to ensure they are returned. Traditionally, quilts were not sold or given outside the family except under exceptional circumstances. As a result, the names and stories of individual quilters were rarely recorded; their legacy endures instead through the remarkable quilts that have survived.

The ralli region is widely known for its rich traditions of arts and crafts. Craftspeople follow techniques developed long ago with painstaking accuracy, creating lacquered furniture, fine metalwork, and intricately tie-dyed fabric. Many continue to use simple tools and long-established methods of production. Textile work is central to this heritage. Mirror work (shisha), precise geometric embroidery, gold embroidery, folk embroidery, dyeing, weaving, and fabric printing are all part of the region’s ancient textile traditions.