Perspective Chapter: Examples of Knitted Money Pouches from Our Cultural Heritage

Abstract

Pouches are a vital heritage combined with tools such as needles, crochet hooks, needles, silk, wool, cotton thread, flannel, silk, embroidered fabric, and various beads, depending on the material used. Pouches, when in terms of colors, meanings of motifs, and composition, are also viewed as a means of communication through which the locals express their feelings about what they cannot say. Pouch examples can now be found in museums, dowry chests, and private collections because they are complex and laborious to make. The study intends to transfer to future generations the material cultural product pouches reflecting our cultural identity in the warehouse and display of the Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, to be examined and documented, introduced, and ensure their continuity with new designs. The study’s data collection tools included a literature review, museum inventory information, and photographic documentation techniques. Knitted pouches with animal motifs were identified and documented by using technical drawings. The examination reveals that mostly bird motifs use, and animal motifs such as rooster, deer, goat, and butterfly attempt to depict as they were in nature. Furthermore, the significance of pouches as a cultural heritage item emphasizes.

1. Introduction

Cultural heritage includes verbal or nonverbal traditions created by previous generations, traditional production methods, performing arts, social life practices, rituals, festivals, and, most importantly, transferring knowledge that emerges as a result of experiences to future generations [1, 2] or a group of inherited resources from the past that people define independently of ownership as an expression and reflection [3].

The idea of preserving culture within a particular purpose and system in the public and scientific sphere, in parallel with the emergence of experimental science and the emergence of social and human sciences such as archeology, history, anthropology, folklore, and sociology aimed at illuminating the past of humanity, “cultural property” or “cultural heritage.” It was widely adopted and used with the concepts of [4]. With the adoption of UNESCO’s Convention for the Protection of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003, cultural heritage expanded to include intangible cultural heritage elements such as cultural practices and expressions and handicrafts. The Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage promotes the idea that intangible cultural heritage can only protect by being passed down from generation to generation. At the same time, it views conservation as “preservation” rather than “preservation.” It sees studies such as scientific compilation, archiving, museums, and application in the artistic field as more supportive aspects of conservation, placing it as the first step of protection [4–6]. On the other hand, culture is a phenomenon that includes not only science and literature but also lifestyles, fundamental human rights, value judgments, traditions, and beliefs [7].

The beginning of the mechanization industrial revolution, and the rapid advancement of technology, contributed to the economic development of societies but also harmed or even destroyed their values [8]. Knitted pouches, one of our lost values and an intangible cultural heritage item, have long been used to transport precious metals such as gold and silver and objects such as tobacco, spices, watches, arrows, and juz, to decorate clothing. The pouches were used as a nonverbal communication tool, as well as to carry people’s personal belongings and decorate their clothing. For example, he used warm colors to express happiness, cold colors to express sadness, and motifs to express longing, abundance, or anger. With their elegance, needle and silk thread pouches stood out among the other pouches, such as knitting, fabric, and beads, and were always found in the dowry chest of almost every bride as a set of watches, seals, tobacco, and money, and give as gifts to the man she would marry. In the dowry tradition, the pouches prepared for the groom consist of three or four pieces, including money, seals, and watches [9]. They can now be found in museums, archives, private collections, or antique shops because there is no market for them. Therefore, knitting, Needle, and Crochet pouches must be protected, transferred, and documented. This research is limited to the knitted money bags with seven (7) animal motifs used in the warehouse and display of the Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, one of our material cultural values that play an essential role in handicrafts. The knitted bags in the museum analyze for technique, material, form, ornament, composition, and motif information to document the work photographs with technical drawings.

2. Pouch definition and history

Pouches are an intangible cultural heritage disappearing in the global and digital age. They are square, rectangular, oval, or triangle-shaped small bags, wallets, bags, or cases made with tools like crochet, needle, needle, shuttle, and materials like silk, cotton, wool, sequins, and beads [10]. Defined as a pouch, a bag for holding money, a wallet, a small or large bag, a container, a money bag carried in the pocket, a cloth bag, and a leather sheath derived from the Persian word “kise” [9]. A certain amount of money (akça) refer to as a “pouch,” and gold refer to as a “surre” [11–18]. At the same time, a pouch relates to a small bag made of “jaw-cuff” fabric or knit, a pouch, a pocket (money-tobacco), a shepherd’s pouch, a bag worn on the side [19, 20], or a pouch is worn on the side of the waist by being attached to a belt. The pockets are worn in clothing by hanging them on a belt or belt, hiding them in a belt, wearing them around the neck, or carrying them in a jacket pocket [15–17].

“The bag with silver coins,” according to Evliya Celebi’s Travel Book. Money scale. Every fifty thousand akça was considered a “pouch” [21]. Previously, each tradesman’s charity fund, denoted as “Artsmen’s Foundation,” “Craftsman’s Fund,” or “Craftsman’s Pouch,” was used. There were six pouches in the hands of all tradespeople in the Ahi-order system, which express as the atlas, green, knitted, red, white, and black. While knitted pouches are for foundation funds, and other pouches prefer for valuable documents [22]. Since pouches are the product into which shopping money, it has also been associated with the phrases “push the boat out,” “pouch-proud,” “opening the mouth of the pouch,” and “seeing the bottom of the pouch.” Since pouches are the product into which shopping money it has also been associated with the phrases “bless your pouch,” “trust your pouch,” “opening the mouth of the pouch,” and “seeing the bottom of the pouch.“ During the Ottoman period, Fatih and II, a pouch was used as a financial asset. It was thirty thousand akça or ten thousand gold at the time of Beyazt. The “Sultani Gold” pouches in the mints of Tripoli, Tunisia, and Algeria in thousand pieces, as well as twenty thousand in 944 (1537), forty thousand in 1071 (1660–61), and fifty thousand in the years after 1100 (1688) was acknowledged as. The pouch has the names “Istanbul pouch,” “Kise-i Rumi,” “Kise-i Divani,” and “Kise-i Mısıri,” and the price is 500 kurus depending on the value of the money [14]. How the place of use as a unit.

Hanging ornaments on belts was a common practice among Göktürks. It knows that during the Gokturks period, bags made of leather or fabric hung on belts with flint and tinder [15]. Karamağaralı’s [23] (Figure 1) “Miniatures Attributed to Muhammed Siyah Kalem” contains the miniature with inventory number 2153/138A. “It depicts a group including a woman carrying a vase,” according to the description. The depiction on the right leg of the miniature’s central figure resembles today’s rectangular, lidded pouches. The bag-shaped sample hanging on the arm of the female figure on the left is similar to today’s knitted and bead bags. Furthermore, pouches can be found in figures in 18th-century miniatures by artists such as Levni and Abdullah Buhari [18] (Figure 2).

Figure 1.

2153/138A İnventory number miniature [23].

Figure 2.

One of the civil servants filled tobacco in the Ottoman palace [18].

Seal pouches are pouches used to transport seals. During the Ottoman period, the sultan sent a pouch made of scarlet satin fabric with a golden seal to the grand viziers, who were the sultans’ authorized representatives, as a sign of grand viziership. This pouch’s lace would be made of gold thread as well. The grand viziers wore this seal, known as the “Seal of Humayun,” around their necks and even slept with it [24]. Sealing bags made of leather, fabric, or knitting techniques. The slip (tying cord, cord, or twisted thread), which is specific to closing the mouths of seal pouches by shrinking, usually had a tassel at each end to decorate it, as in other types of pockets. These pouches were smaller than money pouches, worn on the belt, or hung around the neck bags used for transporting documents. The larger ones hung on the waist or worn on the shoulder were meant to refer to as hanging pouches. At the same time, those placed in pockets refer as pocket pouches, and those situated in bundles are called bundle pouches [9, 25].

2.1 Knitted pouches

The pouches are manufactured in the appropriate size and shape for the goods to be used, and they take geometrical forms such as circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles and are named based on the technique and material used.

Knitting involves joining loops of materials such as wool, silk, cotton, beads, and sequins using needles, awls, hairpins, shuttles, or by hand without tools [16, 26–28]. According to Arseven [11], knitting defines as “knitted products such as ribbons, slips, belts, and pouches that are wrapped intricately against each other. Knitting is an application technique with different appearances as thin and thick. In knitting, delicate knits make using silk, cotton silk, sequins, and beads with tools such as a needle, awl, hairpin, and shuttle, and thick knits are made with wool yarn using a drill and needle. Knitting works such as crocheted money, lighters, and watch pouches have remarkable qualities [16].

Pouches can divide into five groups according to the purpose of use and the nature of the material placed inside.

1. Storage and carrying pouches for daily use (such as money, watches, tobacco, and seal pouches).

2. Pouches for storing writing instruments and books (such as divot, inkwell, juz, and Qur’an pouches).

3. Storage pouches for kitchen utensils (such as cutlery, dried legumes, and spice racks).

4. Storage and carrying pouches for war and hunting equipment (such as bow and arrow pouches).

5. Pouches are used for cleaning and storing items (such as bath, face, soap, and comb pouches) [17] (Figure 3).

Figure 3.

(a) Bead pouch, (b) fabric pouch, (c) needle lace pouch [Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum].

Money, watches, tobacco, and seal pouches, formerly ferace (Women’s coat-like top dress with a loose back, collarless, often extending to the skirts) [29], stored in breastplates, jackets, belts, skirts, trousers, and dress pockets, were carried or hung from a thick cloth or rope tied around the waist. Watch pouches consist of small geometric forms from circles, ovals, or money pouches. They are pouches made of needle, crochet, fabric, and leather pieces, usually used by men and stored in the pocket of the jacket, with a space called a mouthpiece suitable for the watch to be inserted.

The pouch’s making starts with the chain loop, which is the basis of crochet. The coils produce by pulling through each other with the help of an awl. For triangular or circular pouches, the yarn is started by making a simple loop and creating a loop through this loop [26].

3. Findings

Eight (7) animal-shaped knitted pouch samples were examined in the study. As a result of the examination, the pouch dives into sections according to the arrangement of motifs such as vegetable, animal, symbolic and geometric used in triangular-shaped bags. In the research, pouch samples explain according to these sections (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Section of the pouch [By Kayadibi].

3.1 Example 1

The money bag study is a paraboloid (half ellipse). With the frequent needle technique, the pouch, which starts from the lower part of the pedestal tip or almond, starts vertically with the motif of “flower in a pot.” A water motif in the form of a zigzag patterned ribbon surrounding the pouch body wraps the central figures from above and below. In the middle, there are two bird figures placed on a branch. The shrink mouth of the pouch, lace ends with two-sided laces on the rim, and the base end decorates with tassels (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İnventory No:1980 money pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

3.2 Example 2

A sequential border surrounds the base part of the sac in the form of a wildflower consisting of flowers, leaves, and branches. The figure of “four birds, large and small, perched on two separate branches” is placed on the body part. This motif complements by a thin border called water in decorative art, which repeats in the form of flowers and leaves in rows above and below. To shrink the mouth of the pouch, lace, also called cord, which forms by hand twisting (twisting) of the two-sided threads, is made on the rim, and the lace ends, and the base ends decorate with a flower motif (Figure 6).

Figure 6.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İnventory No:2581 pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

3.3 Example 3

The pouch’s base makes of three hook-shaped triangular geometric patterns. On the body part, a figure of “birds perched on a branch that regularly follows one after the other” place Patterns are created by repeating short, curved lines connected to the upper and lower parts of the figures. Two-sided laces make by knitting a chain handrail around the rim of the pouch to shrink the mouth. Crochet lace decorates the railing, the lace ends, the base end, and the mouth part (Figure 7).

Figure 7.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İnventory No:1900 money pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

3.4 Example 4

The pouch’s base started with a border formed so that the long sides of the isosceles triangles were parallel to each other. On the part of a ground form, there is a “goat tied to a tree” figure. Small leaves that repeat themselves are at the top and bottom of the statistics. To shrink the pouch’s mouth, the lacing, which forms by twisting the two-sided yarns by hand, is passed through the handrail, the lace ends and base end decorative with tassels, and the mouth cosmetic with crochet lace (Figure 8).

Figure 8.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İnventory No:2051 pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

3.5 Example 5

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The base part of the pouch starts with a border consisting of symmetrical triangles. Next, the figure of “two deer” is placed on the body part. Next, a chain-shaped frame makes above and below the figures. Finally, to shrink the mouth of the pouch, a braided crochet chain and a braid called a handrail makes on the edge of the rim, decorated with crochet lace (Figure 9).

Figure 9.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum İnventory No:2582 pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

3.6 Example 6

The “butterfly” figure, formed in a regular sequence, is placed in the middle of the square-shaped pouch, inclined. These figures are bordered by regularly repeating triangles above and below: the mouth and lower part of the pouch decoratives with crochet lace (Figure 10).

Figure 10.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic arts museum, İnventory No:1644 pouch and drawing [by Kayadibi].

3.7 Example 7

There is a figure of “two roosters facing each other and a bird on a branch” in a square-shaped pouch. On the right corner of the pouch is “heirloom” in Arabic letters. To shrink the mouth of the bag does not appear to have a crochet chain and a braid called a handrail on the edge of the rim, decorated with crochet lace (Figure 11).

Figure 11.

Bursa Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, İnventory No:2582 pouch and drawing [By Kayadibi].

4. Conclusions

Pouches are a cultural item used for protection, transportation, storage, and decoration in many areas, including daily use items, writing instruments and books, kitchen tools, war, and hunting equipment, used in cleaning works and cleaning goods.

Pouches change shape depending on where they use; It mainly operates as money pouch in parabolic or triangular shapes resembling an ellipse. However, it also comes in various forms, such as rectangles, pentagons, and squares. There are examples of pouches made according to the oval shackle clock in watch pouches. Tobacco pouches are typically rectangular. Other pouch samples produce according to the form of the goods to be used.

According to the material used, pouches, Fabric is classified as crochet knitting, needle knitting, and bead knitting pouches.

When examined as a composition, a pattern consisting of small motifs in triangular forms uses in the initial part, called a pedestal. In the body part, there are figures in the middle and thin borders surrounding the statistics above and below. Rectangular pouches, it covers by a narrow edge at the top and bottom. Animal figures use as the central motif in the middle.

In the pouches, small or single bird figures perched on a large branch, and animal figures such as goats, deer, roosters, and butterflies can see. In mythology, the bird figure symbolizes the guardian spirit and justice [30]. At the same time, he is a messenger who brings information from his beloved, his son who went to the military, and his wife. As the symbol of the sun and pride, the rooster figure establishes a connection between the rooster’s crowing and the sunrise [31]. Thus, the clock, whose chirping signals the morning, takes its duty. Denizli rooster is famous in Anatolia for its beautiful, harmonious, and long crowing [32]. In addition, rooster and chicken figures found in artifacts excavated from pazyryk kurgans consider protective symbols that exorcize evil spirits [30]. Butterfly figures’ beauties include abundance, a transformation from caterpillar to butterfly, rebirth, flapping and rising of wings, delicacy, and joy; deer figure fertility, power, and dominance; the goat symbolizes stubbornness.

With the development of technology and the change in our needs, the usage area of the pouch has decreased. Therefore, this study was carried out to transfer our handcrafted pouches, one of our vanishing values, to future generations, raise awareness about our culture, document it, and contribute to its survival.

Traditional handicraft products that have survived today are among the essential elements of cultural heritage preserved with a sense of shared identity and belonging [33]. People not only add esthetic value to the goods they make based on the social and cultural characteristics of the environment in which they live, but they also give meaning to the motifs and colors in handicraft products, which have enabled it to happen [34]. Despite the result of changing preferences, global change, technological development, human life, and tastes have had the most significant impact on cultural heritage. Our knitting sacs and motifs, in particular, are in danger of being forgotten, and examples can only find in museums. Our handicraft products, which are very important in cultural heritage, should be preserved to pass on our values, such as their meanings, motif characteristics, technical and composition characteristics, protection, and sustainability from generation to generation. Various forms of marketing, such as exhibiting these products in museums or introducing various activities such as festivals and festivals, can be evaluated for this purpose [35]. Intangible Cultural Heritage Products can be transferred and preserved by participating in courses at preschool educational institutions, workshops, and museums that include practices and stories.