Our story
Handicrafts of Northeast India, exactly as they are made
Earth grown, hand finished.
Every piece here begins with something the earth gives: silk, metal, wood. In Northeast India, practised hands turn it into something worth keeping.
Wildtera brings that piece to you with the maker’s name on it, and then steps aside.
Who we are
The maker comes first
Wildtera is a home for the handicrafts of Northeast India. It works for the people who make them: the weaver, the bell metal smith, the wood carver, the jeweller.
Each piece is chosen in person, in the village, with the person who made it. Wildtera buys it from them directly. No trader, agent or wholesaler stands between the maker and us.
The maker’s name travels with the piece. It is on the product page, on the maker’s own page, and on the card inside your parcel.
From their hands
Four steps, the same four every time
Every piece takes the same road from the maker’s hands to yours.
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Step 1. Met at the source
The piece is chosen in the village, with the person who made it, in their home or their workshop. The material, the tools and the motifs are written down there, with the maker.
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Step 2. Seen before it is listed
Nothing is listed unseen. Where a craft holds a Geographical Indication, the product page names the registration and its year. Where it does not, the page says nothing.
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Step 3. Written down
Material, origin, technique, dye and motif go on the product page as a short record you can read before you buy. If something is not known, it is left out. Nothing is guessed.
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Step 4. Named, packed and sent
The maker packs the piece with a card inside that carries their name.
Earth grown
It begins with what the earth gives
Muga silk is golden because the thread itself is golden. No dye puts that colour there.
Eri silk is spun, not reeled, because its cocoon is open at one end.
Brass and bell metal are beaten into shapes that are used for generations, not seasons.
A handloom runs on hands and feet. It needs no electricity.
None of this was invented to look green. It is how these things are made here: largely by hand, in small numbers, to last. Keeping these crafts in use is the most honest way Wildtera knows to help make the world a little greener.
Hand finished
A loom that is working is a loom that stays
Handicraft in Northeast India is living work. A day at a loom must be worth more than a day spent on anything else. The same is true of a forge, a carving bench and a woodworker’s verandah.
Wildtera designs nothing. The material, the technique and the motifs belong to the maker and to the place they come from.
You can see the hand in the finished piece. The weft is packed a little differently from row to row. Colour laid in by hand sits a little differently along six metres of cloth. No two beaten bowls ring quite alike. That is not a flaw. It is the maker’s signature.
When you choose a piece, that skill earns its place at home. A daughter or a son has a reason to learn it. And the maker is free to attempt their finest work.
Seen as it is
The pictures are plain on purpose
The light is daylight. There is no studio.
You will see bare walls, old timber, yarn on the floor and tools left in the frame. Nothing was tidied away.
Where to go next
Start with the craft
Every piece here is an argument about time. The craft page makes that argument properly.
Or go straight to the pieces and read their records.