Haebaru hanaori

Haebaru Town, in southern Okinawa, is known as a production area for woven textiles including Ryukyu Kasuri and Haebaru Hanaori. Near Ryukyu Kasuri Hall, the Kyan, Teruya, and Motobu settlements form part of a walking route called the kasuri road. Many workshops and craftspeople are gathered there, so the textile is tied to a town, a hall, nearby settlements, working scenes, and the sound of looms.

The most immediate feature of Haebaru Hanaori is the raised pattern on the cloth. Complexly woven threads make the motif stand up from the ground cloth, creating fine relief that can be mistaken for embroidery. The floral impression comes from the woven structure itself, where thread placement gives the surface brightness and depth.

The vocabulary of the cloth keeps the production area close to the handwork. Yashirami Hanaori, Kuwaankuwaan weaving, and Tatchiri appear in descriptions of Haebaru Hanaori, while Chippugasaa and Kwan Kwan weaving are introduced as locally named methods. These names point to raised threads, floating yarns on the reverse side, floral thread effects, and repeated loom practice in Haebaru workshops.

The colors of Haebaru Hanaori are described through concrete dye materials. Plant dyes collected in Okinawa include Ryukyu indigo, fukugi, and tekachi, also explained as sharinbai. The dyeing account also names chemical dyes by fiber: acid dyes for silk, and vat, reactive, and direct dyes for cotton. The cloth carries a color practice shaped by island plants, fiber type, and dye selection.

The continuity of Haebaru Hanaori can be traced through family teaching in the Meiji period, the Haebaru Village Girls’ Supplementary School in 1914, and postwar weaving with gathered materials. The cooperative account describes signs of mothers passing hanaori techniques to daughters in the Meiji period. After the school opened in 1914, many village women learned hanaori and twill weaving; after the war, survivors collected available materials and resumed textile production. In this textile, continuity means specific people, a village school, collected materials, and the act of returning to the loom.

Ryukyu Kasuri Hall gives Haebaru Hanaori a present-day setting where visitors can learn about Ryukyu Kasuri and Haebaru Hanaori, see textiles and work scenes, and reserve a loom-weaving experience in advance. The cloth also appears in formats such as obi, kimono fabric, small goods, bags, pouches, and kariyushi wear. Those forms show how raised woven motifs move from bolts of cloth into objects that can be handled, worn, or used in daily life.

Haebaru Hanaori has been recognized through Okinawa prefectural craft, Haebaru Town intangible cultural property, and national traditional craft frameworks; that context belongs after the place and technique are understood. For readers, those boundaries point back to Haebaru Town as the main production area, the workshop community around Ryukyu Kasuri Hall, successor training by the cooperative, and continuing control of raised weaving and dye practice.