Bangkok’s Cham community strive to keep matriarchal heritage alive through silk weaving

Passed on down the generations dating back to their time in Cambodia, the silk-weaving heritage of the Chams is a crucial link to their past

One renowned silk brand in the Baan Krua community is still going strong today, decades after being a main supplier for Jim Thompson’s company

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American businessman Jim Thompson pictured with some of Baan Krua’s silk weavers in 1955. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 4:00pm, 8 Mar 2020Updated: 4:47pm, 8 Mar 2020

Traces of the matriarchal heritage of the Cham people can still be found in their much sought-after handicrafts, and are especially evident in their complex woven silk work – an art the Cham community in Bangkok is struggling to preserve as it comes under increasing pressure to assimilate into modern life.

The Cham, a Muslim group of ethnic Malays who once ruled the ancient Kingdom of Champa, in present-day southern Vietnam, were well-known for their matriarchal and Hindu-influenced society before Islam spread eastward into Southeast Asia and the Indochinese Peninsula.

The group was pushed out by the Vietnamese at the end of the 17th century before settling in Cambodia, where a series of wars as well as French colonisation drove them to Thailand. They now make Bangkok’s historic Baan Krua community their home and continue their centuries-old silk-weaving artistry.

Nipon Manuthas, 70, a Baan Krua resident, recalled how his mother built a thriving silk weaving business in Bangkok during King Rama VI’s reign in the 1910s and 1920s.

Nipon Manuthas, left, owner of Phamai Baan Krua silk brand, shows Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, right (in yellow shirt), his silk products in 2010. Photo: Handout

He said his family’s weaving techniques and skills were passed from generation to generation, but originated in present-day Cambodia.

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