#kunaa

By 

Andrew Forbes

July 22, 1996 12:01 am ET

Male, The Maldives

These islands have achieved fame in the modern world for their pristine beaches and clear, blue waters. But centuries ago they were known regionally for a different aesthetic--finely woven grass mats, decorated with geometric patterns.

I became a devotee of this aesthetic after an epiphany in the basement of the Peabody Museum at Harvard, when I unwrapped some of the archipelago's grass mats, subtly colored in saffron, orange and black dyes and richly decorated with intricate geometric sequences. My pilgrimage began when, upon arrival in Male, I started making inquiries about the craftsmen responsible for what are surely the finest grass mats in the world.

I soon learned that the mats, called kunaa in Divehi, the Indo-European local tongue, were manufactured on only one of the nearly 2,000 islands that make up the far-flung island chain. The center of mat-making activity is Gadu, a tiny speck of land on the southeastern rim of Suvadiva Atoll, close to the equator and more than 250 miles south of Male.

I had time to read up on kunaa on the week-long voyage south aboard a traditional inter-island ferry. Traversing the calm lagoons of the inner atolls was plain sailing, literally. There was plenty of time to lie back on deck, enjoying the spicy, if predictable, tuna curry and watching an apparently endless succession of Robinson Crusoe islands slip by.

Crossing the deep-sea channels between the atolls was altogether another matter. The tiny cockle-shell of a ferry, no more than 30 feet long, was buffeted by huge waves as soon as we left the protection of the surrounding coral reefs. Almost immediately I was wracked by seasickness and crawled to the side of the boat where I hung for the rest of the crossing. The islanders, born and bred to the ocean, looked on stoically. By the time we reached our next inter-atoll crossing (there are no fewer than six on the voyage to Suvadiva), I had learned my lesson and was well-dosed up with Avomine. This had the curious effect of making me not merely resistant to seasickness, but also very hungry. Accordingly, as the boat was flung violently from side to side, I consumed bowl after bowl of tuna curry. The islanders, a quiet people whose native politeness sometimes borders on diffidence, were clearly puzzled by the transformation, but were too shy to comment.

Gadu is, by Maldivian standards, a medium-sized island, about half a mile long by a quarter mile across. The single village, built largely of white coral stone, is surrounded by craning coconut groves and banana plantations. It was here that I met Mariam Saeeda, master mat-weaver, who showed no surprise at this unexpected intrusion by an inquisitive Westerner. She acquainted me with the secrets of her hereditary craft; kunaa weaving, it seems, is an exclusively female occupation. The women of Gadu cross regularly to the neighboring island of Gan where they harvest a specially resilient grass known as hau . This is then colored with a variety of natural dyes before being woven into traditional designs on a simple loom.

The designs, Ms. Saeeda explained, are handed down from mother to daughter. Why are they always geometric arabesques? "Because our religion forbids images." Islam has been the religion of the Maldives for more than eight centuries, ever since a wandering Arab holy man converted the king of the Buddhist islanders in 1153.

The proscription against images traces back to a hadith , or tradition of the Prophet. It is reported that, one day in 7th-century Arabia, the Prophet Mohammed returned home to find that his favorite wife, Aisha, had bought some cushions decorated with illustrations of birds and animals. The Prophet explained that only God could bestow life, and that pale imitations, such as the pictures on the cushions, should be avoided. As the hadith puts it: "The house which contains pictures will not be entered by the angels."

By the mid-17th century, Gadu's kunaa had become so prized in the neighboring Indian Ocean region that they were sent as part of the annual tribute from the Maldivian sultan to the kingdom of Sri Lanka. The craft had come to a low ebb since then, so I rounded off my visit to Gadu by purchasing a number of exquisite kunaa from Mariam Saeeda, with whom I left pictures of the ancient designs preserved at Harvard and in London. She intended to copy them and, if it proved commercially viable, to send them to Male for sale in the developing tourist trade.

On a later trip to the Maldives, I found that the trade in kunaa was indeed beginning to pick up again. At the back of one tourist shop in Male I was delighted to find Mariam Saeeda, visibly more prosperous, negotiating the sale of a bundle of freshly woven mats. After exchanging greetings, I asked if I might examine her wares. Giving me a decidedly wary look, she agreed, though with a puzzling lack of enthusiasm.

All became clear when I asked the price. "You won't get them cheap like you did last time," she said with finality. "They're so valuable that someone has written a book about them."