Alak women weaving cloth in Attapu Province

Photographer

Sage, William

Date

• 1970

Summary

• A small Alak refugee village is located in the vicinity of the Laven village of Houei Kong (XB 6473, L-56) in Attapu Province. Both men and women weave in the Alak culture, traditionally using the backstrap loom. The Alak produce the textile made into skirts worn by the Nyaheun women. Historically, the Alak also produced the textile worn by the Nyaheun men as elaborate loincloths and traded their woven cloth for buffalo from the Laven and Nyaheun and other southern Laos ethnic groups. The Alak ethnic group primarily lived in Saravan Province, north of the Boloven Plateau but some families moved as refugees to the Houei Kong area to escape the war in their area.