Agrun

What is Agrun?

Agrun is a shawl-like garment rather than a saree. Hajong women wear it, and the sources note that men use it as well. It is a woven rectangle of cloth, draped over the body and kept for festivals and special days rather than everyday work. What marks it out is the patterning: large shapes that answer each other across the cloth, built from geometric forms and from leaves and flowers drawn in a stylised way. Coloured silk makes the motifs, and gold or silver thread may be added. Traditionally the pieces were very large, and they carried whole scenes, with herons, ducks and peacocks and the kadamba tree brocaded into the weave.

Where does Agrun come from?

The sources give no founding story and no date for the Agrun. What they do say is that it belongs to the Hajong and is worn in the Indian subcontinent, in present-day India and Bangladesh. Sidney Endle's book The Kacháris, published in 1911, appears in the source list, so the cloth has been written about since at least the early twentieth century. Nothing is recorded here about when the very large old shawls with brocaded birds and trees gave way to other styles, or how the craft fared over time.

How is Agrun made?

Agrun is shuttle-woven. A shuttle is the boat-shaped tool that carries the weft thread across the warp, so the term tells us the cloth is built up on a loom, thread crossing thread, rather than printed or painted afterwards. Silk and cotton are the fibres named. The pattern is made in the weaving itself: coloured silks are introduced where the motifs sit, and gold or silver thread can be worked in at the same stage. Because the designs are brocaded, the birds, trees and flowers sit within the structure of the cloth instead of resting on its surface.

Colours, motifs and borders

The look is orderly and symmetrical. Large motifs repeat and answer each other across the field, and the vocabulary is largely geometric, alongside stylised leaves and flowers. In older pieces the scale was grand, with herons, ducks and peacocks and the kadamba tree filling the cloth in brocade. The sources name no colour for the ground, only coloured silks for the patterning and the option of metallic thread. Nothing is said of a border or a marked end, so the scheme reads as all-over rather than framed.

How Agrun is worn

This is a shawl, so it sits on the shoulders and upper body rather than being tied at the waist. The sources describe it as shawl-like and as a wrap worn by Hajong women, and they add that men use agrun too. Traditionally the cloth was very large, which suits a wrap meant to cover the shoulders and fall around the arms. Beyond that, no set method of putting it on is recorded, and no blouse or petticoat is mentioned, since those belong to saree wearing rather than to this garment.

When Agrun is worn

Agrun is festive dress. The sources call it a form of festive wear, used on special occasions, and that is the only setting they give for it. It is not described as work clothing, and it is not tied to a named festival, fast or rite. Both men and women use it, so within Hajong life it is not a women-only cloth, even though the article introduces it through the women who wear it. No religious affiliation is stated for the garment anywhere in the material.

Styles of Agrun

The clearest distinction in the sources is one of scale and pattern. Very large traditional pieces carried birds and trees worked in brocade, while other agrun show geometric shapes and stylised leaves and flowers in coloured silks. The sources do not explain how these types relate to each other in time or place. The name itself shifts in spelling, appearing as agrun, agron, argon and agon. No comparison of handloom and powerloom versions, and no account of imitations, is given.

What Agrun means

The cloth carries Hajong identity. It is named as theirs, worn by them, and listed against the Hajong people among the makers of the garment. That it is used in both India and Bangladesh points to a tradition shared across the two countries rather than confined to one. The sources record no Geographical Indication, no official protection and no revival effort, and they say nothing about the earnings or working conditions of the people who weave it.

Questions people ask about Agrun

Good reading and sources

• Agrun on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data