Date Palm Leaf and Fibre Craft of Uttar Pradesh

Being a Gangetic plain date palms are found in abundance in Uttar Pradesh. Almost every part of the tree including the fronds, fruits, and wood is valuable. While the fruit is consumed, the wood is carved to make furniture and pressed to extract oils. The fronds are woven, rolled and twisted into a variety of useful products from brooms, chattai/mats, pankha/hand fans to bhoki /basket, dolchi /square basket and baja /trumpet. Dried fronds are tied up to make inexpensive brooms which is popular across the state. The tool used is kasau/ knife. The manufacturing of mats and hand fans escalate during summer. Simple mats are used as packaging material and are popular in villages. Basket/ bhoki are also made of leaves and are in demand during festivals. They are sold outside the temples along with dolchi/ square baskets and small baskets as devotees use them to place offerings for the deities. Despite the raw material being freely available the craftsmen face challenges in earning enough.