The Bhotia people of the upper Himalayan regions of Kumaon and Garhwal in Uttarakhand, northern India, are known for making woollen goods such as carpets (dann and asan), blankets (thulma and chutka) and shawls (pankhi and pakhi). The weaving is done by the women of various Bhotia groups, and is historically associated with the communities’ transhumance and trade with Tibet. 

The Uttarakhand Bhotias (or Bhotiyas) comprise a number of semi-nomadic shepherd communities inhabiting high river valleys close to the Indo-Tibet border in Uttarakhand, specifically the districts of Pithorgarh, Chamoli and Uttarkashi. Until the Sino-Indian War of 1962, they engaged in seasonal agriculture and trans-Himalayan trade. They would settle in high altitude villages such as Harsil for the summer, where the women and elders farmed and reared sheep while the men travelled to Tibet for trade. In winter they would relocate to lower altitudes, in settlements such as Dhunda, where they made woollen textile products, largely for personal and familial use. Border regulations after the war put an end to India’s trade with Tibet, forcing the community to settle permanently in the lower Himalayas and commercialise their woollen craft for their livelihood. The Shaukas, Rungs, Tolchhas, Marchhas and Jadhs are among the Bhotia groups known to sustain the craft today.

The dann — also dun, dunn or dan — is a knotted-pile rectangular carpet used on the floor or as a bed covering. The asan is similar, but takes either a square or a narrow rectangular form, to be placed on furniture or on the floor to seat people for meals, and is also used as a prayer mat. The chutka is a pile blanket, while the thulma is a thick, heavy plain-weave blanket with a napped surface. The pankhi is a twill shawl and the pakhi is a thin, black shawl with geometric shapes. The Bhotias also make a tweed fabric with which they stitch coats, which is known as coat-patti. They once produced kambals (quilts) and dress material, both of which are no longer made. These products have different names across the Bhotia groups.

The Bhotias harvest wool from their own flocks or purchase it in markets; before the war, they favoured a Tibetan variety obtained through trade, but this has since been substituted largely by Ludhiana wool. Textile production begins by scouring the wool in a solution made from a local fruit called pangar (Himalayan horse-chestnut, Aesculus indica) which acts as a natural detergent. The cleaned wool is carded and spun into yarn on a Bageshwari charkha, a treadle-operated spinning wheel. For most textiles, the wool is used in its natural shades of white, cream, brown and black; these are sometimes blended to make shades of grey during the carding process. For colourful textiles such as the dann and asan, the yarn was dyed using extracts from flowers, fruits and tree bark; these are now replaced by cheaper and more accessible synthetic dyes.

Bhotia textiles are woven on a variety of looms. The dann, asan and chutka are pile textiles, woven on a vertical or high-warp loom (locally called dann raanch or khara raanch). They are made by hand-knotting yarn across a plain weave, and tamping down each row of knotted piles with a comb or mallet. The most popular knotting techniques among the tribes are the Turkish and Persian knotting techniques, though the Rungs are singularly known to use the Tibetan knotting technique. Once the textile is complete, it is cut loose from the loom, and the threads on either end are knotted to make fringes. The uneven pile is then trimmed to a level surface, with motifs sometimes contoured to look like they are projecting from the surface. The textile is washed and dried in the sun, then stretched to size on a metal frame.

Plain weave textiles such as the thulma, pakhi and coat–patti are made on a pit loom (known as a khadda raanch), a horizontal treadle loom or a backstrap loom. The soft and fuzzy napped surface of the thulma is achieved by teasing out the fibres on the finished surface with a brush of fine nails.

The dann is about 2 metres long and 1.5 metres wide. Asans measure about half a metre across, and may be square or oblong, measuring between 2 and 2.5 metres in length. The dann and asan are the Bhotia’s only commercial textiles to feature colourful motifs and imagery. These patterns appear in the centre field, borders and corners, and are woven in bright colours and outlined to add dimension and to contrast with the solid dark ground. 

Prior to commercialisation, the centre field typically depicted intricate geometric designs, and later incorporated imagery from Tibetan mythology, such as the mythical birds dak and jira as well as the Chinese dragon known in Tibetan Buddhism as dug. In contemporary danns, large floral motifs such as the kamal (lotus) and chameli (jasmine) occupy the central field. The borders of the dann, up to 20 centimetres wide, feature geometric patterns such as the changri (a medallion with a flower and stem on either side), matu (a double key meander) kaan (ear), swastika and moti (pearl). Danns prominently featuring the colour yellow are woven for wedding ceremonies, where they are gifted to bless the bride with a happy married life.

The Bhotia people continue to sell their woollen goods in local markets and at annual crafts fairs held at Bageshwar, Jauljibi and Thal. Goods such as the dann even have a dedicated international clientele. Despite this, machine-made synthetic alternatives pose a threat to demand for these textiles, and many Bhotia have pursued other sources of income. In 2021, the dann was given a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, following which the Uttarakhand Handloom and Handicraft Development Council (UHHDC) began to assist in its marketing and sale at outlets as well as online.