{"id":35249,"date":"2015-04-03T15:35:35","date_gmt":"2015-04-03T19:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=35249"},"modified":"2018-04-23T16:57:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T20:57:11","slug":"handmade-hammocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2015\/handmade-hammocks\/","title":{"rendered":"My Hammock Supports Me (And a Lot of Other People)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Some of my most blissful hours over the last couple of years have been spent lying in a hammock. This would be less surprising if I didn\u2019t live in an old Brooklyn apartment building where the tenants are not allowed to use the back yard. Yes, I\u2019m a little eccentric.<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Green Dome Garden, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Photo by Wally Gobetz<\/a>. Creative Commons License<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like most people who work at UncommonGoods, I\u2019m also more than a little obsessed with sustainability. One hot night a couple of summers ago, some friends and I were chatting in a neighborhood garden<\/a>. I told them I\u2019d been trying to think of ways to stay cool in the summer without using a lot of electricity.<\/p>\n

\"fan\"<\/a>I\u2019d installed ceiling fans in my apartment, and now carried a handheld folding fan with me everywhere. \u201cThey\u2019re underrated!\u201d I stolidly affirmed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Amir<\/a><\/p>\n

Plant and hammock enthusiast Amir Yarkoni<\/a>, co-creator of the Green Dome Garden. Photo by Meredith Chesney<\/a>. Used by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cHammocks!\u201d declared Amir<\/a>. \u201cHammocks are the best! The air can circulate around you and it keeps you cool!\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes! A hammock<\/a>! I needed one immediately. Wanting eclipsed reasoning. I didn\u2019t bother to wonder where I\u2019d hang it in my apartment, with its flimsy, sheetrock walls.\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hammock<\/a><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy Yellow Leaf Hammocks.<\/em><\/p>\n

We sell hammocks at UG<\/a>. I\u2019d never looked at ours closely. Now I did. It looked perfect. What Amir had recommended was an open weave Mayan-style hammock (as opposed to Brazilian style, made of tightly-woven fabric).<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe indians sleep in a bed they call an ‘hamaca’ which looks like a piece of cloth with both an open and tight weave, like a net … made of cotton … about 2.5 or 3 yards long, with many henequen twine strings at either end which can be hung at any height. They are good beds, and clean … and since the weather is warm they require no covers at all … and they are portable so a child can carry it over the arm.\u201d –Gonzalo Fern\u00e1ndez de Oviedo y Vald\u00e9s, 1535, Wikipedia<\/a>.\u00a0Source:\u00a0ibiblio<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Hammocks were (probably) invented<\/a> by aboriginal people<\/a> of the Caribbean and Central America. UncommonGoods\u2019s Mayan-style hammocks are woven by aboriginal people as well–10,000 miles away, in Thailand.<\/p>\n

In a small village in the north Thailand mountains, members of a dwindling, endangered tribe called the Mlabri learned how to make what are arguably the best hammocks in the world. Yet hammocks were never part of their culture. Making and selling them was a brilliant business move to preserve their tribe in the face of unwelcome changes to their traditional way of life.<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Mlabri dance in their traditional clothing, loin cloths, 1959. Photo by Boonserm Satrabhaya.\u00a0Northern Thai Information Center, Chiang Mai University Library<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Mlabri temporary shelter made of fresh leaves, 1959. Photo by Boonserm Satrabhaya.\u00a0Northern Thai Information Center, Chiang Mai University Library<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Up until a few decades ago the Mlabri tribe<\/a> lived a nomadic, Stone Age existence in the mountains of Thailand and Laos. Hunter-gatherers who believed farming brought bad luck, they ate roots, wild fruits, and small game. They mostly wore loin cloths. They had no written language. For shelter, they built tiny lean-to\u2019s out of bamboo and banana leaves where they stayed for a week or so until the banana leaves yellowed and shriveled. By then, they would have exhausted the area\u2019s food resources anyway. Their beliefs, as well as necessity, dictated that they move on at that point, and build another temporary shelter somewhere else.<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

An abandoned Mlabri shelter, with the famous yellow leaves. Photo by Pat Mongkron<\/a>. Used with permission<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Because all that other people ever saw of them were the dead banana leaves on their little shacks, they called them \u201cPhaw Tong Luang<\/em>\u201d (the spirits\/ghosts of the yellow leaves). (The Mlabri, being real people, prefer not to be called \u201cghosts,\u201d but they\u2019re fine with the \u201cyellow leaf\u201d part.)<\/p>\n

\"Do<\/a><\/p>\n

Mlabri in destroyed forest area. Photo by Patrick Aventurier. Used with permission. (http:\/\/www.patrickaventurier.com\/)\u00a0Flickr<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The tropical jungle where the Mlabri lived began to shrink dramatically during the 1970s. Intense guerilla combat in the area–spilled over from the Vietnam war–along with teak logging and agriculture, destroyed so much forest that the Mlabri eventually couldn\u2019t survive the way they had for nearly a thousand years. Tigers and malaria had always been dangers; starvation was now added to the list. By the 1990s, there were only 300 Mlabri left.<\/p>\n

Hmong farmers made them their slaves through a combination of manipulation and force. They schooled them in slash-and-burn agriculture and put them (including children) to work in dangerously pesticide-heavy fields, where they also often ate and slept. Drug traffickers used them; sex traffickers preyed on them; they were made to perform in demeaning faux primitive tourist shows. Not considered citizens by the Thai government because they had no birth certificates, they had no civil rights. Suicide, virtually unknown in the tribe before this, became another danger.<\/p>\n