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red dye for dyeing thread, chewing pan |
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Along the way Chinyang showed me a small tree from the root of which one gets red dye. The root is shaved and mixed with lime in water. The water then turns light red and the colour is used for dyeing thread. The root of a creeper is used to dye rattan bracelets etc. Pan leaves are only chewed by people who live in the villages near the plains. The people of the unadministered area do not know them at all and use the bark of a tree which they chew with lime and pounded tobacco. Only recently the villages closer by have started to sometimes trade pan leaves. |
