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Pashmina refers to a
type of cashmere wool and textiles made from it. The name comes from
Pashmineh, made from Persian pashm (= "wool"). This wool comes from
a special breed of goat indigenous to high altitudes of the
Himalayan
mountains. The special goat's fleece has been used for thousands of
years to make high-quality shawls that also bear the same name. The
Himalayan Mountain goat, Capra hircus, sheds its winter coat every
spring and the fleece is caught on thorn bushes. One goat sheds
approximately 3-8 ounces of the fiber. Villages would scour the
mountainside for the finest fleece to be used. Cashmere shawls have
been manufactured in Kashmir and Nepal for thousands of years, but
the Indians never called them "pashmina". They were popularly called
Kashmiri wool shawls. The test for a quality pashmina has been
warmth, feel and the passing the shawl through a wedding ring.
Pashmina is an indigenous Nepali word which only became popular
after the so-named shawls, woven in Nepal, started being popular in
the west. What are commonly thought of as pashminas have their
Origin In Nepal, where the
people have a cultural heritage of hand-weaving pashmina shawls with
the well-known fringing and hand dyeing. |
