Tribal treasures

I was shown today some bits of tribal handwork from North Vietnam gathered by a friend who scaled steep mountain tracks to remote villages where they were greeted by tribal people -still wearing their distinctive costumes and selling old pieces of handwork as well as more modern pieces, like the little hat and bag worked with lots of indigo and reds, mostly cross stitched, but with some interesting circles of braid with tiny stitches run along the top surface in white cotton. They were very eager to sell their work and my friend thought that with an influx of visiting tourists they would change their ways and much interesting costume would be lost - she said they were all working at their stitching all the time, even while walking along the very rough paths round their villages.