Bodo Dokhna Eri Cotton Weaving Kokrajhar Assam

Dokhna is the traditional two-piece dress fabric of Bodo women in Assam's Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) — Kokrajhar, Chirang, Baksa, and Udalguri — consisting of the dokhna (skirt) and aronai (stole) woven on backstrap looms using eri silk, cotton, and muga silk in the characteristic Bodo pattern vocabulary. Bodo women are hereditary weavers who weave their own dress fabric on the household backstrap loom, with the pattern created by the supplementary weft pick-up technique in geometric motif sequences called agan (lightning), khonthia (peacock eye), and aikhon (fish). The Bodo textile tradition is distinguished by its complex supplementary weft pattern vocabulary that encodes community identity, clan affiliation, and female skill. Bodo weaving has GI recognition as Bodo Endi (eri) silk. The BTAD administration and Kokrajhar Weavers Cooperative support Bodo weaving as a livelihood industry. Contemporary Bodo weaving has expanded to stoles, bags, and fashion fabrics for urban markets, and export buyers supply Bodo textile to ethical fashion brands in Europe.