JANUARY 1972 Vol.1, No. 1 ”The September Oriental Rug Company buying trip to Afghanistan uncovered a wealth of information about many varieties of kilims and rugs that are seldom exported…Most impressive to us was a variety of large Kuchi Bag camel bag that the local dealers identify as 'Kuchi,' which means simply 'nomad.' Designs were obviously taken from neighboring Turkomans, although the source seems to be the Pashtun nomads that move about the country. The bags are Persian knotted and rather loosely woven. They are surrounded by elaborately tied bands of additional fringe material, usually in dark blue and red.” To that description, I might have added that the bags always had large, Dulatabad-type guls and that they had startlingly good colors, including what seemed to be madder red and a natural yellow. After Murray wrote the above, we had occasion to enter Koochi camps a couple of times with one eye open for weavings, and, in particular, the bags referred to above. We never saw evidence that Pashtuni nomads weave anything at all like them. I have often wondered who, then, did weave the bags. I have never learned the answer definitively, but I believe these days most people would say they were woven by Uzbeks. Do any readers have good information about them? In any case, I  have not seen one in the market since those we bought and sold in the 70s. Why didn't I keep just one?!!    “Perhaps the most surprising rugs we found were a small group identified by bazaar merchants Click to magnify as ’Waziri’ pieces, alleged to be made by Pashtun tribesmen south and east of Kabul…We found a few Waziri rugs in the Free Port of London, but otherwise we have not seen  them outside of Afghanistan.”   It sounds as if the Kabul dealers of the day liked  to attribute anything puzzling to the Pashtuns. But as Murray Eiland noted much later, the strangeness of Waziris may be the result of Western influences, and their weavers were most likely Turkmen of  Northern Afghanistan.   Click to magnify Now, a few ”special sale items” offered by the Oriental Rug Company in 1972:     Eagle Kazak 5.6 in by 8.6              $800 Afghan Katchli (engsi) 6 by 4.2      $210 Yomud  8.9 by 6.10                       $425 Yomud  6.5 by 10                          $600   (Return to The Oriental Rug Company Newsletter Index) Oriental Rug Zine is brought to you by Emmett Eiland's Oriental Rugs, a trusted San Francisco bay area oriental rug and oriental carpet dealer since 1969.