Weaving is a dance between nature, life and humanity.
Nestled among the sacred waters of the Mekong, the island of Koh Ouknatey, also called “Koh Ukgnatey កោះឧកញ្ញ៉ាតី” or “Tey” for the locals, stands as a living tribute to craftsmanship. With every breath, the shuttles of traditional wooden looms glide between the weavers’ fingers. This timeless art, though skill and patience, transforms Khmer silk into traditional fabrics and garments.
Located north of Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh ; the island of Koh Ouknatey កោះឧកញ្ញ៉ាតី, has become the living heart of a craft passed down from generation to generation. The soul of Cambodia emanates from every thread, interwoven with rural life and ancient Khmer history.
To understand deeply these ancestral techniques passed down from generation to generation,
we are invited to experience them through an immersive audio journey,
taking us to the heart of the weaving looms and silkworm rearing :
we are invited to experience them through an immersive audio journey,
taking us to the heart of the weaving looms and silkworm rearing :
TRANSCRIPT 1
[00:00] ~ Ok, so we got like 20 women working along with 20 looms. And each woman, she carries a specific pattern. Pattern that mean the design, and that design has been left from generation to generation within the family. So one lady carries one specific design.
[00:17] ~ And she never…
[00:20] ~ Yeah, she never changes. Sometimes the lady wants to change, but, you know, changing the pattern is very difficult. She has to spend more time to learn because all of those, she practice about like young age, just like you.
[00:32] And then 10 years later, she is very skilled of the pattern. Then, she can just pattern to support her family.
[00:40] ~ So at what time does she start ?
[00:43] ~ Starts about 16, 17 or 18 years of her age. From her mom practicing the skill, and then when she gets married, she can rely on that. Then they usually practice before they get married about a young age. And after that, she can rely on the skill.
[00:58] So why is she supposed to stay at home?
Like, the household spend time with the family, with the kids, especially with the loom. The husband has to leave the house in the morning for the field to produce some kind of vegetable, plant, crop, and then fruits.
[01:18] ~ Ok…
And you said the looms are in bamboo trees?
[01:21] ~ Yeah, the looms are made from bamboo trees and wood, very common materials.
Wood, yeah wood, not wool. There are some woods like this, very common. Bamboo tree is very easy to find and easy to cut.
[01:37] For Silk Island (// Koh Oukhatey), we have 16 traditional patterns. Those 16 were combined into big four : animals, flowers, diamonds, and temples.
[01:50]… Okay, this is the first of all the process : we call it “The house of the silkworm”.
This place, where the lady raises the moths. The moths turn to be caterpillars, or what we call them silkworms. And then those silkworms eat mulberry out here.
You can see this is like mulberry trees and out there as well… The green leaves tree that is all mulberry.
[02:08] ~ Mulberry.
[02:10] ~ Mulberry, right. It's a special leaf that the worm eats.
TRANSCRIPT 2
00:01] ~ So this is like the moths or what some people know as a butterfly. We have to put them together right here for eight hours : male and female moths.
[00:09] After eight hours, the female moth is ready to lay the eggs. So one of the female moth starts to lay 100 or 200 eggs a day right here, but for only three days of her life.
Threes day later she dies as well. Very sorry for her…but this is natural, you know, right?
[00:26] ~ Yeah.
[00:27] ~ These are all eggs. You can see it right here, the white thing, those are all eggs.
So it takes only eight days until all the worms hatch from the eggs to here.
[00:37] Ok, so this is not a single day. They're gonna be 10 or 20 days old already. So one-day-old worm, they're gonna be very small and tiny, even three times smaller than the egg itself.
When they just hatch, the lady has to feed them with the leaf like I told you : we call them mulberry tree. But we cannot put the whole leaf like this one, because this is a little bit grown up already.
[01:02] I mean their age is right to eat by themselves. When they just hatch, the lady has to chop the mulberry into small pieces because the worm’s mouth is very small and the leaf is too big.
[01:12] If you place the whole leaf for them, they're gonna starving to die. They cannot eat by themselves. Chopping it into small pieces and then let them eat two times a day until they turn to be like 10, 15 or 20 days old like this age.
[01:25] They can put the whole leaf so they can feed themselves. Only three times a day for those 10, 15, or 20 days until they turn to be like 20, 25, and 27 days old.
[01:40] At this age, we call them the grown-up worms. They eat a lot when they are big, you know, eight times a day from the mulberry tree.
[01:49] And after 27 days, these worms change color. This is like their original color ; you can see green and white. That is their original color. And after 27 days, this worm is going to change to this color : yellow color. You can see this is still the original color : green and white.
[02:15] Yellow, that means they are ready to produce the silk. So, if you see one of those that changed the color from here, you must pick them up from the basket and place them on the branches of the tree. This is also known as the “madari” branches as well.
[02:31] We only pick the yellow ones and place them right here because the yellow one, do not eat anymore. All they have to do is look for some space and then make the cocoon. Only the green ones are still eating, like those ones as well.
[02:44] It's time to produce the silk. You can see the silk coming out from the mouth right there.
[02:46] ~ Yeah, I saw…
[02:50] It means when they are here, they are still trying to find the finish.
[02:54] ~ Yeah, exactly. That's why you can see a lot of thread fiber stuck in there.
Not good, because they get stuck with everybody else and they get injured or killed. So we must remove them from the basket and place them on the branches.
[03:05] ~ But they are killed by the others ?
[03:08] ~ They don't die from the others, but they spin the thread fiber. They have acid in their thread from their saliva. That acid can injure another worm. So we have to remove them from the basket and place them on the branches.
[03:22] After we place them on the branches ; these worms are looking for some space. After they found space and then feel safe, they start to produce one of these : we call them the cocoon.
So one worm can produce a cocoon like this within 24 hours. If you place them today, about this time tomorrow, you come back, you have one of these right here.
[03:41] ~ You can touch ?
[03:42] ~ Yeah, you can touch it and then you can shake…you can hear the sound. That is the worm in there, right? Exactly.
[03:47] ~ But… he’s sleeping ?
[03:49] ~ Yeah, they're sleeping. Don't worry… they just shake their bed !
Ok, so this is 300 meters for a male and for a female, she can produce like 500 meters long.
[03:59] ~ How do you recognize male and female ?
[04:01] ~ The size, the huge one.
The huge cocoon is like the female and the small one is the male. You can recognize everything : the moth, worm and cocoon. The small one is male and the big one is female.
[04:15] And after the worms finish their job, they stay in there. But they only temporarily stay in here for 10 days. 10 days later, they’re gonna turn themselves from worms and they become moths.
[04:31] And after that, the lady bring all of these cocoons and then put them in the second stage where she can pull the silk fiber. So inside we got the moth and outside we got almost a thousand layers of silk fiber right there.
[04:44] This silk fiber that the woman pulls out, she can use that fiber to make some scarves, skirts, fabrics… We call them “silk scarf” or “silk fiber”, right here from this thing. In order to pull them smoothly without interruption or breaks, you must put them in water. Without water, they're gonna be break like this.
[05:00] Because the worms use the natural glue from their mouths and those glue helps to hold the thread tightly to the stick. You must remove that glue first before you can pull it out smoothly right there. So, water is needed.
[05:14] ~ Hot water ?
[05:15] ~ Hot or cold water. You can just use water… If you use cold water, you have to wait four hours until all the cocoon gets out. But if you use hot water…
[05:24] ~ It’s faster !
[05:25] ~ Only half an hour. Yeah, very fast. Ok, and the whole process takes a month and ten days… One month and ten days.
This is what everybody on the island does…every family. That's why this island is called “Silk Island”. But the real name of this island is not “Silk”, it’s “Tey” : T-E-Y.
[05:42] ~ Ah, I saw it was “Koh Dach”?
[05:44] ~ Yeah, Koh Dach is over there and Tey is over here.
TEY means “far away from the others”… It’s a lady’s name. She's the founder, and then they give the name after her. But when everyone was moving around, we got a very common job in the silk process.
[05:58] So, the island that produces much more silk is “Silk Island”, but only for tourists. To me, I still call Tey…everybody here still calls it Tey.
[06:09] Ok…and the whole process takes a month and 10 days.
Any questions about the full process?
…
[06:18] You know, like I thought you stay here for a couple more days. To be honest with you, I'm just a tuk-tuk driver. My real job is trying to work with the ferry, but I don't drive a rickshaw. I drive the big one, you know, a remorque.
[06:29] ~ Yeah, yeah.
[06:30] ~ Exactly, but this is a very low season, not many tourists. So I came here to use English as a translator.
[06:36] ~ You speak very good English…I think your English is better than mine !
[06:43] ~ Really ?! Thank you…
Okay, so you can see all the ladies. She just replaced the worms and then put them in the new one. Because these worms require a clean place, very hygienic.
You know, like if you left, if you did not replace the old leaves, they gonna die.
[07:06] ~ I can take pictures ?
[07:07] ~ Yeah, sure, sure.
[00:00] ~ With the pot for half an hour. Half an hour later, all the cocoons get up and they are ready to pull the silk fiber. But in order to pull the silk fiber, we cannot pull a few threads. I mean, we have a rule : if you pull 1, 2, or 3 threads together, it is not much work because they are very small and tiny and they are very fine for thread fibers, you can see.
[00:21] So we pull at least like 10 or 20 from here and then they go together as one right there.
[00:28] ~ But how do you not make like a knot like a disorder? How is it possible to stay in order?
[00:35] ~ We use a leaf like this.
It can be eggplant or jackfruit leaves. So this is a very common leaf that people use : eggplant or jackfruit, because they have a little bit of scratch at the surface.
But this is gonna be dried out, let me try.
[00:52] This is how we fold the silk fibers together right there. Use the leaf. And then, the lady collects them like this together right here…thank you. And she squeezes them like this and puts them aside right here. She can pin and we pull together right there. You can see multiple threads joining together as one.
[01:16] This is right. I'm a not professional at pulling this thing, but the ladies can pull them. They can pull more than 20 threads together. The more you pull from here, the stronger it is.
[01:25] You can take at least like 10 or 20 fibers in there.
So you can put them together right here and then you can dip the whole thing until it doesn't break. It's very strong.
So strong, very strong.
[01:41] ~ She's so strong ! Because like, it is not breakable.
[01:44] ~ Yeah, not breakable because in one thread, they have 10 or 20 fibers already.
If you spin them, you can see multiple threads joined as one.
[01:55] And the lady spends only half an hour to pull between 300 to 500 meters with that tool. We call it “the spinning wheel”.
[02:03] This is what raw silk looks like after we pull it out from the cocoon.
You know, silk is unique. I mean, after you leave them for too long on the outside without touching water, they're gonna be hard and strong.
[02:16] ~ And dry.
[02:17] ~ But after you wash or put them in water, they're smooth and soft. Very common for putting in bottles.
[02:22] ~ It looks like hair from a horse.
[02:25] ~ Yeah! Horses’ hair.
TRANSCRIPT 4
[00:00] ~ So we have only one natural color : it’s gold. And for the rest, we must dye the color. The people use plants and flowers or fruits to dye the color.
[00:09] Which one is your favorite color in here? It's like gold is natural.
[00:12] ~ Me… I'm natural.
[00:14] ~ Oh, natural… It's gold. Looks like your clothes here, right?!
[00:18] ~ Yeah, I try to.
[00:20] ~ After they dye the color, they make them soft. The people use the same wheel to move the striped fiber and keep them on the bobbin right there. So the bobbin is just like storage. They keep the thread in order not to break. But they don’t use it with the loom.
[00:34] If you want to use it with the loom, you must move it from the big one and keep it on the small straw.
You know straw ? Like drinking water through a straw, right?
[00:42] ~ No…
[00:43] ~ Yeah, right here.
[00:44] ~ Ah, okay. Yeah.
[00:45] ~ You can see ; because the big one doesn't fit. So we have to move it to keep it on the small one.
[00:50] ~ Ah, yeah… I understand.
[00:52] ~ A stick through the middle allows the straw to spin…
[00:54] ~ To pass between…
[00:55] ~ Exactly… Pass between the loom and this one ; we call them “the shuttle”.
[00:58] ~ Shuttle.
[01:00] ~ Shuttle, right. The shuttle carries thread and color.
The woman uses… like the maximum is four to five shuttles at the same time and then she throws them back and…
Yeah, one shuttle, one color.
TRANSCRIPT 5
[00:00] ~ So the first loom, the pattern is peacocks, animals pictures and this is diamonds… come here.
[00:10] This is what we call the half design. We got full design and half design. So full design is only below your knee when you wear it. The one that she’s doing right now, we call fabric. And the lady, we call her the “weaver”.
[00:23] So the lady has to work in here, eight or ten hours every day, and she spends almost three weeks alone to make four meters of fabric.
[00:31] Four meters : that means enough to make something like a whole dress for you ; for me, we get a shirt and pants for a boy.
[00:38] Let's talk about the loom. The loom has four important parts : the first part of the loom, we call the “parrot”. You can see… beneath the legs.
So when the lady pushes the parrot down, the gap opens a little bit right here.
[00:50] ~ Yeah.
[00:51] ~ When the gap opens, she has to throw that too, like I told you. Shuttle…
The shuttle runs across the loom and then releases the thread.
[00:58] After the thread has been released from here, she has to pull this one back. We call it the “compressor”.
The compressor uses the reed to compress every weft thread to fit against each other perfectly right here. After the thread has been compressed, she adjusts the pattern right there to create the picture.
[01:14] So every picture and color that you see, comes from here, the parrot.
And that is the most difficult part of the loom. You spend a lot of time to make that design happen.
It is through the passing down of traditions,
In a world where everything is impermanent,
That they may, if only for an instant,
Awaken the breath of Eternity.
In a world where everything is impermanent,
That they may, if only for an instant,
Awaken the breath of Eternity.
Home of Silkworms, Silk Island
+855 (0)12 522 192
Koh Touch Village, Koh Ouknatey Commune,
Arey Ksat City, Kandal Province, Cambodia.
© 2026, Mains de Silence - Caroline Elise Martin, All rights reserved.
caroline.martin03@hotmail.fr