ORIENTAL RUG ZINE
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Dhundup Tsering
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 A Blend of Merino
and Tibetan Sheep
Emmett Eiland
That’s right, not a blend of wool but a blend of sheep. Dhundup Tsering, a Tibetan refugee living in Berkeley, California, tells us that his parents, who raise sheep in
the far eastern part of Tibet near Lake Kokonur, are breeding native Tibetan sheep with New Zealand’s Merino sheep. The object is to produce wool that is less coarse than Tibetan wool and more lustrous.
In Tibetan rug production in Nepal, most rug weavers blend wool from Tibetan sheep with imported wool from New Zealand. One can imagine that a blend of two right off the sheep’s back would be more economical.
Tserings’s parents began their project in 1980 with a female sheep from New Zealand they obtained through the Chinese. It has proved very hard to keep the
cross-bred lambs alive through their first, tough Tibetan winters. As adults, though, the new breed of sheep thrive. Today about 70% of the sheep are the new cross.
Tsering himself grew up taking part in the family enterprise. Along with his family, he lived a semi-nomadic life in tents, migrating three times a year to
follow the grass. In 1992, Tsering fled Tibet on foot with 12 others, across the Himalayas and into Nepal. One of his companions died on the journey. Today he works at Emmett and Natasha Eiland’s Oriental Rug Company in
Berkeley. Because of our interest, he has asked his parents to send samples of pure Tibetan wool, pure Merino wool and the wool from their special cross-bred sheep. Tsering dreams of bringing his parents to the States
someday. He has not told them his plan, though. “They would not be able to sleep,” he says.
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Shearing Sheep the Newfangled Way
“New Scientist” magazine reports that Biological Wool Harvesting of Sydney has applied for patents on a biotech alternative to shearing. Hair is weakened by an “epidermal growth factor” and falls off a
few days after application. (After the stuff is applied, the sheep are bundled up for three weeks so as not to lose their coats in the field.)
The question, of course: Is this newfangled shearing
performed by the men or the women of the tribe? Ed
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