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88-580: Nationally Recognized Locally recognized Unrecognized The Amis ( Amis : Amis, Ami, Pangcah ; Paiwan : Muqami ), also known as the Pangcah (which means 'people' and 'kinsmen'), are an indigenous Austronesian ethnic group native to Taiwan . They speak the Amis language ( Caciyaw no Pangcah ; Minuqamian ), an Austronesian language, and are one of the sixteen officially recognized Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The traditional territory of

176-480: A matrilineal kinship system, by which inheritance and property pass through the maternal line, and children are considered born to the mother's people. Traditional Amis villages were relatively large for Taiwanese indigenous communities, typically holding between 500 and 1,000 people. In today's Taiwan, the Amis also comprise the majority of "urban indigenous people" and have developed many urban communities all around

264-529: A French traveler of the 17th century who visited Safavid Persia , spoke approvingly of the vast cotton farms of Persia. Cotton ( Gossypium herbaceum Linnaeus) may have been domesticated 5000 BC in eastern Sudan near the Middle Nile Basin region, where cotton cloth was being produced. Around the 4th century BC, the cultivation of cotton and the knowledge of its spinning and weaving in Meroë reached

352-544: A commercial chain in which raw cotton fibers were (at first) purchased from colonial plantations , processed into cotton cloth in the mills of Lancashire , and then exported on British ships to captive colonial markets in West Africa , India , and China (via Shanghai and Hong Kong). By the 1840s, India was no longer capable of supplying the vast quantities of cotton fibers needed by mechanized British factories, while shipping bulky, low-price cotton from India to Britain

440-734: A deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's occupation by the British Empire in 1882 . During this time, cotton cultivation in the British Empire , especially Australia and India, greatly increased to replace the lost production of the American South. Through tariffs and other restrictions, the British government discouraged the production of cotton cloth in India; rather,

528-616: A farmer who farmed one of the biggest cotton operations. He produced over sixty thousand bales. Cotton remained a key crop in the Southern economy after slavery ended in 1865. Across the South, sharecropping evolved, in which landless farmers worked land owned by others in return for a share of the profits. Some farmers rented the land and bore the production costs themselves. Until mechanical cotton pickers were developed, cotton farmers needed additional labor to hand-pick cotton. Picking cotton

616-487: A great deal of resources would have been required, likely restricting its cultivation to the elite. In the first to third centuries CE, recovered cotton fragments all began to mirror the same style and production method, as seen from the direction of spun cotton and technique of weaving. Cotton textiles also appear in places of high regard, such as on funerary stelae and statues. During the Han dynasty (207 BC - 220 AD), cotton

704-592: A high level. The export of textiles was one of the sources of wealth for Meroë. Ancient Nubia had a "culture of cotton" of sorts, evidenced by physical evidence of cotton processing tools and the presence of cattle in certain areas. Some researchers propose that cotton was important to the Nubian economy for its use in contact with the neighboring Egyptians. Aksumite King Ezana boasted in his inscription that he destroyed large cotton plantations in Meroë during his conquest of

792-422: A new market for British goods, while the capital amassed from Bengal after its 1757 conquest was used to invest in British industries such as textile manufacturing and greatly increase British wealth. British colonization also forced open the large Indian market to British goods, which could be sold in India without tariffs or duties , compared to local Indian producers who were heavily taxed , while raw cotton

880-501: A new revenue system that was biased in favour of higher value cash crops such as cotton and indigo , providing state incentives to grow cash crops, in addition to rising market demand. The largest manufacturing industry in the Mughal Empire was cotton textile manufacturing , which included the production of piece goods , calicos , and muslins , available unbleached and in a variety of colours. The cotton textile industry

968-687: A reference to "tree cotton", Gossypium arboreum , which is native to the Indian subcontinent. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia : Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric times. It clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era, cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries. In Iran ( Persia ),

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1056-547: A soft, breathable , and durable textile . The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times; fragments of cotton fabric dated to the fifth millennium BC have been found in the Indus Valley civilization , as well as fabric remnants dated back to 4200 BC in Peru . Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, and it

1144-483: A voiced /z/ with voiceless /s/ . In the practical orthography, /ts/ is written ⟨c⟩ , /j/ ⟨y⟩ , /ʡ/ ⟨'⟩ , /ʔ/ ⟨^⟩ , /ɮ/ ⟨d⟩ , /ŋ/ ⟨ng⟩ , and /ʜ/ ⟨x⟩ . Amis has three common vowels, /i a u/ . Despite the fact that a great deal of latitude is afforded by only needing to distinguish three vowels, Amis vowels stay close to their cardinal values, though there

1232-593: Is a moribund language spoken among the northernmost ethnic Amis but is mutually unintelligible with the Northern Amis dialect. The following discussion covers the central dialect of Amis. The voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ is in parentheses because it only occurs in some loanwords, such as rigi /riˈɣiʔ/ 'ridge between sections of a rice field'. The epiglottal consonants have proven difficult to describe, with some sources describing them as pharyngeal or even uvular as opposed to epiglottal. It's unclear if [h]

1320-743: Is a separate phoneme from [ʜ] or if it's just an allophone of it. The voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ] is a word-final allophone of /ʜ/ . The voiceless plosives /p t k ʡ/ and the affricate /t͡s/ are released in clusters, so that cecay "one" is pronounced [t͡sᵊt͡saj] ; as is /s/ : sepat "four" is [sᵊpatʰ] . The glottal stop is an exception, frequently having no audible release in final position. The voiced fricatives, /v ɮ ɣ/ (the latter found only in loanwords) are devoiced to [f ɬ x] in utterance-final and sometimes initial position. /ɮ/ may be interdental or post-dental. The sibilants, /t͡s s/ , are optionally palatalized ( [t͡ɕ ɕ] ) before /i/ . /j/ does not occur in word-initial position. /ɺ/

1408-448: Is both used in everyday life and during rituals. It is traditionally used to carry betel nut, limestone , betel and smoking pipes . Traditionally black, Amis clothing has evolved during the 20th century to using more and more red, “for its perceived festiveness and compatibility with ethno-tourism”. The coloring of necklaces distinguishes different Amis communities. Floral headdresses are also often used during special occasions, such as

1496-622: Is ineffective against many cotton pests, such as plant bugs , stink bugs , and aphids ; depending on circumstances it may still be desirable to use insecticides against these. A 2006 study done by Cornell researchers, the Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy and the Chinese Academy of Science on Bt cotton farming in China found that after seven years these secondary pests that were normally controlled by pesticide had increased, necessitating

1584-605: Is more movement of /a/ and /u/ toward each other (tending to the [o] range) than there is in front-vowel space (in the [e] range). A voiceless epenthetic schwa optionally breaks up consonant clusters, as noted above. However, there are a small number of words where a short schwa (written e) may be phonemic. However, no contrast involving the schwa is known, and if it is also epenthetic, then Amis has words with no phonemic vowels at all. Examples of this e are malmes "sad", pronounced [maɺə̆mːə̆s] , and ’nem "six", pronounced [ʡnə̆m] or [ʡə̆nə̆m] . Stress regularly falls on

1672-486: Is often post-alveolar, and in final position it is released: [ʡuʡuɺ̠ᵊ] "fog". /ɮ/ shows dramatic dialectal variation. In Fengbin , a town in the center of Amis territory, it is pronounced as a central dental fricative, [ð] , whereas in the town of Kangko, only 15 km (9.3 mi) away, it is a lateral [ɮ̪] . In Northern Amis, it is a plosive [d̪] , which may be laxed to [ð] intervocalically. The epiglottals are also reported to have different pronunciations in

1760-504: Is the most widely used natural fiber cloth in clothing today. Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world's arable land . India is the world's largest producer of cotton. The United States has been the largest exporter for many years. There are four commercially grown species of cotton, all domesticated in antiquity: Hybrid varieties are also cultivated. The two New World cotton species account for

1848-578: The 56 ethnic groups of the PRC. A genetic study showed that Austronesian speakers such as the Ami and Atayal of Taiwan, and Kankanaey of Philippines have significant ancestry (67% to 74%) related to Neolithic Fujian source. That Neolithic Fujian source is also estimated to contribute between 35% to 40% of Han Chinese ancestry in Guangdong and Fujian. Family affairs, including finance of the family, are decided by

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1936-591: The Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization , and cotton may have been an important export from it. Cotton bolls discovered in a cave near Tehuacán , Mexico, have been dated to as early as 5500 BC, but this date has been challenged. More securely dated is the domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico between around 3400 and 2300 BC. During this time, people between the Río Santiago and

2024-649: The Deep South . To acknowledge cotton's place in the history and heritage of Texas, the Texas Legislature designated cotton the official "State Fiber and Fabric of Texas" in 1997. China's Chang'e 4 spacecraft took cotton seeds to the Moon's far side . On 15 January 2019, China announced that a cotton seed sprouted, the first "truly otherworldly plant in history". Inside the Von Kármán Crater ,

2112-473: The Delhi Sultanate . During the late medieval period, cotton became known as an imported fiber in northern Europe, without any knowledge of how it was derived, other than that it was a plant. Because Herodotus had written in his Histories , Book III, 106, that in India trees grew in the wild producing wool, it was assumed that the plant was a tree, rather than a shrub. This aspect is retained in

2200-532: The Industrial Revolution in Britain provided a great boost to cotton manufacture, as textiles emerged as Britain's leading export. In 1738, Lewis Paul and John Wyatt , of Birmingham , England, patented the roller spinning machine, as well as the flyer-and-bobbin system for drawing cotton to a more even thickness using two sets of rollers that traveled at different speeds. Later, the invention of

2288-469: The James Hargreaves ' spinning jenny in 1764, Richard Arkwright 's spinning frame in 1769 and Samuel Crompton 's spinning mule in 1775 enabled British spinners to produce cotton yarn at much higher rates. From the late 18th century on, the British city of Manchester acquired the nickname " Cottonopolis " due to the cotton industry's omnipresence within the city, and Manchester's role as

2376-730: The Norte Chico , Moche , and Nazca . Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages along the coast for large supplies of fish. The Spanish who came to Mexico and Peru in the early 16th century found the people growing cotton and wearing clothing made of it. The Greeks and the Arabs were not familiar with cotton until the Wars of Alexander the Great , as his contemporary Megasthenes told Seleucus I Nicator of "there being trees on which wool grows" in "Indica." This may be

2464-666: The Taitung Plain called themselves "'Amis" because their ancestors had come from the north. This later explanation is recorded in the Banzoku Chōsa Hōkokusho , indicating this term may have originated from a group classified by anthropologists as Falangaw Amis, the Amis group occupying territory from today's Chengkung to the Taitung Plain. Their closest genetic relatives appear to be the native Filipino people . According to Taiwanese Aboriginal History: Amis ,

2552-405: The harvest . The musical project Enigma used an Amis chant in their song " Return to Innocence ", on their second album, The Cross of Changes (1993). This song was used as the theme song of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics . The main chorus was sung by Difang and Igay Duana , who were part of a Taiwanese aboriginal cultural performance group. Maison des Cultures du Monde had earlier recorded

2640-511: The 1840s. Indian cotton textiles, particularly those from Bengal , continued to maintain a competitive advantage up until the 19th century. In order to compete with India, Britain invested in labour-saving technical progress, while implementing protectionist policies such as bans and tariffs to restrict Indian imports. At the same time, the East India Company's rule in India contributed to its deindustrialization , opening up

2728-504: The 19th century. India's cotton-processing sector changed during EIC expansion in India in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. From focusing on supplying the British market to supplying East Asia with raw cotton. As the Artisan produced textiles were no longer competitive with those produced Industrially, and Europe preferring the cheaper slave produced, long staple American, and Egyptian cottons, for its own materials. The advent of

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2816-478: The 20th Century with the arrival of cotton , acquired by the Amis through barter, which progressively phased out the use of traditional material in favor of cotton . There are two clothing styles: Hualien and Taitung . Both use a head scarf, chest covering and a skirt. Chiefs and priests, on the other hand, wear robes and rattan headgear, to distinguish themselves. They also have an ‘alufo’ (“lover’s bag”), made with betel nut by their mother or their lover, which

2904-406: The Amis are classified into five groups: Such classification, however widely accepted, is based simply on the geographical distribution and ethnic migration. It does not correspond to observed differences in culture, language, and physiques. The People's Republic of China (PRC), which claims Taiwan as part of its own territory , considers all of the Amis as part of a Gaoshan ethnic group, one of

2992-702: The Amis includes the long, narrow valley between the Central Mountains and the Coastal Mountains ( Huadong Valley ), the Pacific coastal plain eastern to the Coastal Mountains and the Hengchun Peninsula . In 2014, the Amis numbered 200,604. This was approximately 37.1% of Taiwan's total indigenous population, making them the largest indigenous group. The Amis are primarily fishermen due to their coastal location. They traditionally had

3080-733: The Arabic-speaking lands in the later medieval era at transformatively lowered prices. The earliest evidence of the use of cotton in the Old World , dated to 5500 BC and preserved in copper beads, has been found at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh , at the foot of the Bolan Pass in ancient India , today in Balochistan Pakistan. Fragments of cotton textiles have been found at Mohenjo-daro and other sites of

3168-668: The British to cheap calico and chintz cloth on the restoration of the monarchy in the 1660s. Initially imported as a novelty side line, from its spice trading posts in Asia, the cheap colourful cloth proved popular and overtook the EIC's spice trade by value in the late 17th century. The EIC embraced the demand, particularly for calico , by expanding its factories in Asia and producing and importing cloth in bulk, creating competition for domestic woollen and linen textile producers. The impacted weavers, spinners, dyers, shepherds and farmers objected and

3256-633: The Egyptian cotton industry. By the time of the American Civil war annual exports had reached $ 16 million (120,000 bales), which rose to $ 56 million by 1864, primarily due to the loss of the Confederate supply on the world market. Exports continued to grow even after the reintroduction of US cotton, produced now by a paid workforce, and Egyptian exports reached 1.2 million bales a year by 1903. The English East India Company (EIC) introduced

3344-530: The Hualien and Taitung railway stations, broadcast in Amis alongside Mandarin. However, few Amis under the age of 20 in 1995 spoke the language. It is not known how many of the 200,000 ethnic Amis speak the language, but overall a third of the aboriginal Taiwanese population does. Amis is a dialect cluster . There are five dialects: Southern Amis, Tavalong-Vataan, Central Amis, Chengkung-Kwangshan, and Northern Amis (Nanshi Amis, which includes Nataoran). Sakizaya

3432-495: The Mughal era. It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds (13 kg) of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds (110 kg) per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labour was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly. In

3520-468: The Northern and Southern hemispheres, but a large proportion of the cotton grown today is cultivated in areas with less rainfall that obtain the water from irrigation. Production of the crop for a given year usually starts soon after harvesting the preceding autumn. Cotton is naturally a perennial but is grown as an annual to help control pests. Planting time in spring in the Northern hemisphere varies from

3608-530: The Río Balsas grew, spun, wove, dyed, and sewed cotton. What they did not use themselves, they sent to their Aztec rulers as tribute, on the scale of ~116 million pounds (53,000 tonnes) annually. In Peru , cultivation of the indigenous cotton species Gossypium barbadense has been dated, from a find in Ancon, to c.  4200 BC , and was the backbone of the development of coastal cultures such as

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3696-540: The United States, even with the use of humans as slave labor. The gin that Whitney manufactured (the Holmes design) reduced the hours down to just a dozen or so per bale. Although Whitney patented his own design for a cotton gin, he manufactured a prior design from Henry Odgen Holmes, for which Holmes filed a patent in 1796. Improving technology and increasing control of world markets allowed British traders to develop

3784-598: The backbone of the southern American economy. In the United States, cultivating and harvesting cotton became the leading occupation of slaves . During the American Civil War , American cotton exports slumped due to a Union blockade on Southern ports , and because of a strategic decision by the Confederate government to cut exports, hoping to force Britain to recognize the Confederacy or enter

3872-424: The basis of a new indigenous industry, initially producing Fustian for the domestic market, though more importantly triggering the development of a series of mechanised spinning and weaving technologies, to process the material. This mechanised production was concentrated in new cotton mills , which slowly expanded until by the beginning of the 1770s seven thousand bales of cotton were imported annually, and pressure

3960-645: The beginning of February to the beginning of June. The area of the United States known as the South Plains is the largest contiguous cotton-growing region in the world. While dryland (non-irrigated) cotton is successfully grown in this region, consistent yields are only produced with heavy reliance on irrigation water drawn from the Ogallala Aquifer . Since cotton is somewhat salt and drought tolerant, this makes it an attractive crop for arid and semiarid regions. As water resources get tighter around

4048-434: The calico question became one of the major issues of National politics between the 1680s and the 1730s. Parliament began to see a decline in domestic textile sales, and an increase in imported textiles from places like China and India . Seeing the East India Company and their textile importation as a threat to domestic textile businesses, Parliament passed the 1700 Calico Act, blocking the importation of cotton cloth. As there

4136-479: The capsule and seeds sit inside the Chang'e 4 lander. Successful cultivation of cotton requires a long frost -free period, plenty of sunshine, and a moderate rainfall, usually from 50 to 100 cm (19.5 to 39.5 in). Soils usually need to be fairly heavy , although the level of nutrients does not need to be exceptional. In general, these conditions are met within the seasonally dry tropics and subtropics in

4224-537: The cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds. The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, Egypt and India. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa. Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. The fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make

4312-497: The dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by water power. The earliest clear illustrations of the spinning wheel come from the Islamic world in the eleventh century. The earliest unambiguous reference to a spinning wheel in India is dated to 1350, suggesting that the spinning wheel was likely introduced from Iran to India during

4400-521: The early 19th century had the fifth most productive cotton industry in the world, in terms of the number of spindles per capita. The industry was initially driven by machinery that relied on traditional energy sources, such as animal power , water wheels , and windmills , which were also the principal energy sources in Western Europe up until around 1870. It was under Muhammad Ali in the early 19th century that steam engines were introduced to

4488-650: The early 19th century, a Frenchman named M. Jumel proposed to the great ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali Pasha , that he could earn a substantial income by growing an extra-long staple Maho ( Gossypium barbadense ) cotton, in Lower Egypt , for the French market. Mohamed Ali Pasha accepted the proposition and granted himself the monopoly on the sale and export of cotton in Egypt ; and later dictated cotton should be grown in preference to other crops. Egypt under Muhammad Ali in

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4576-596: The endes of its branches. These branches were so pliable that they bent down to allow the lambs to feed when they are hungry." (See Vegetable Lamb of Tartary .) Cotton manufacture was introduced to Europe during the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula and Sicily . The knowledge of cotton weaving was spread to northern Italy in the 12th century, when Sicily was conquered by the Normans , and consequently to

4664-533: The female householder, in the Amis tradition. The most important traditional ceremony is the Harvest Festival . The Amis Harvest Festival is held to express the people's thanks and appreciation to the gods, and to pray for harvest in the next coming year. It takes place every July to September. Traditional Amis clothes were made with cloth knitted with bark and banana threads with bamboo needles, and used wear-resistant linens and pelts. This evolved during

4752-587: The final syllable. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights translated into Pangcah: Verbs in the Amis language have some inflections including existential clause , active voice , passive voice , disposal sentence , imperative mood , optative mood , and prohibitive mood . Cases are marked by case particles. There are two word orders in Amis called "General" Word Order and "Special" Word Order . Below are some examples of Amis sentence: Sing ’Olam (2011:300–301) lists

4840-553: The following Amis names for villages and towns in Hualien County and Taitung County of eastern Taiwan. Cotton Cotton (from Arabic al-qutn ) is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll , or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae . The fiber is almost pure cellulose , and can contain minor percentages of waxes , fats , pectins , and water . Under natural conditions,

4928-592: The fourth largest GM cotton crop area of 2.6 million hectares in 2011. The initial introduction of GM cotton proved to be a success in Australia ;– the yields were equivalent to the non-transgenic varieties and the crop used much less pesticide to produce (85% reduction). The subsequent introduction of a second variety of GM cotton led to increases in GM cotton production until 95% of the Australian cotton crop

5016-568: The heart of the global cotton trade. Production capacity in Britain and the United States was improved by the invention of the modern cotton gin by the American Eli Whitney in 1793. Before the development of cotton gins, the cotton fibers had to be pulled from the seeds tediously by hand. By the late 1700s, a number of crude ginning machines had been developed. However, to produce a bale of cotton required over 600 hours of human labor, making large-scale production uneconomical in

5104-589: The history of cotton dates back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC); however, there are few sources about the planting of cotton in pre-Islamic Iran. Cotton cultivation was common in Merv , Ray and Pars . In Persian poems, especially Ferdowsi 's Shahname , there are references to cotton ("panbe" in Persian ). Marco Polo (13th century) refers to the major products of Persia, including cotton. John Chardin ,

5192-467: The island. In recent decades, Amis have also married exogamously to the Han as well as other indigenous peoples. The Amis people refer to themselves by two different ethnonyms. While those living in the East Rift Valley and Hualien County generally identify as Pangcah, which means "human" or "people of our kind," Amis living in coastal Taitung County employ the term Amis. Perhaps because of

5280-477: The main pests in commercial cotton are lepidopteran larvae, which are killed by the Bt protein in the transgenic cotton they eat. This eliminates the need to use large amounts of broad-spectrum insecticides to kill lepidopteran pests (some of which have developed pyrethroid resistance). This spares natural insect predators in the farm ecology and further contributes to noninsecticide pest management. However, Bt cotton

5368-405: The name for cotton in several Germanic languages, such as German Baumwolle , which translates as "tree wool" ( Baum means "tree"; Wolle means "wool"). Noting its similarities to wool, people in the region could only imagine that cotton must be produced by plant-borne sheep. John Mandeville , writing in 1350, stated as fact that "There grew there [India] a wonderful tree which bore tiny lambs on

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5456-480: The new textile industries of the Northeastern United States and northwestern Europe. In 1860 the slogan " Cotton is king " characterized the attitude of Southern leaders toward this monocrop in that Europe would support an independent Confederate States of America in 1861 in order to protect the supply of cotton it needed for its very large textile industry. Russell Griffin of California was

5544-409: The north, but the descriptions are contradictory. In Central Amis, /ʜ/ is always voiceless and /ʡ/ is often accompanied by vibrations that suggest it involves an epiglottal trill [ ʢ ] . Edmondson and Elsing report that these are true epiglottals initially and medially, but in utterance-final position they are epiglotto–pharyngeal . Sakizaya, considered to be a separate language, contrasts

5632-406: The official name, in 21st-century Taiwan, the term Amis is much more frequently used. This name comes from the word 'amis , meaning "north." There is still no consensus in the academic circle as to how "'Amis" came to be used to address the Pangcah. It may originally have been a term used by the Puyuma to refer to the Pangcah, who lived to the north of them. Another theory is that those who lived in

5720-410: The raw fiber was sent to England for processing. The Indian Mahatma Gandhi described the process: In the United States, growing Southern cotton generated significant wealth and capital for the antebellum South, as well as raw material for Northern textile industries. Before 1865 the cotton was largely produced through the labor of enslaved African Americans. It enriched both the Southern landowners and

5808-495: The region. In the Meroitic Period (beginning 3rd century BCE), many cotton textiles have been recovered, preserved due to favorable arid conditions. Most of these fabric fragments come from Lower Nubia, and the cotton textiles account for 85% of the archaeological textiles from Classic/Late Meroitic sites. Due to these arid conditions, cotton, a plant that usually thrives moderate rainfall and richer soils, requires extra irrigation and labor in Sudanese climate conditions. Therefore,

5896-548: The rest of Europe. The spinning wheel , introduced to Europe circa 1350, improved the speed of cotton spinning. By the 15th century, Venice , Antwerp , and Haarlem were important ports for cotton trade, and the sale and transportation of cotton fabrics had become very profitable. Under the Mughal Empire , which ruled in the Indian subcontinent from the early 16th century to the early 18th century, Indian cotton production increased, in terms of both raw cotton and cotton textiles. The Mughals introduced agrarian reforms such as

5984-482: The singing of this group while on tour, and released a CD. This song was subsequently used by Enigma (although they did not note the ethnic origin of the song and the singers). The recording studio and the Taiwanese group filed a suit for copyright infringement, which was later settled by Enigma out of court. Ami singing is known for its complex contrapuntal polyphony . Amis language Government services in counties where many Amis people live in Taiwan, such as

6072-471: The use of pesticides at similar levels to non-Bt cotton and causing less profit for farmers because of the extra expense of GM seeds. However, a 2009 study by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stanford University and Rutgers University refuted this. They concluded that the GM cotton effectively controlled bollworm. The secondary pests were mostly miridae (plant bugs) whose increase was related to local temperature and rainfall and only continued to increase in half

6160-441: The vast majority of modern cotton production, but the two Old World species were widely used before the 1900s. While cotton fibers occur naturally in colors of white, brown, pink and green, fears of contaminating the genetics of white cotton have led many cotton-growing locations to ban the growing of colored cotton varieties. The word "cotton" has Arabic origins , derived from the Arabic word قطن ( qutn or qutun ). This

6248-442: The villages and then taken to towns in the form of yarn to be woven into cloth textiles, was advanced by the diffusion of the spinning wheel across India shortly before the Mughal era, lowering the costs of yarn and helping to increase demand for cotton. The diffusion of the spinning wheel, and the incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin, led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during

6336-506: The villages studied. Moreover, the increase in insecticide use for the control of these secondary insects was far smaller than the reduction in total insecticide use due to Bt cotton adoption. A 2012 Chinese study concluded that Bt cotton halved the use of pesticides and doubled the level of ladybirds, lacewings and spiders. The International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) said that, worldwide, GM cotton

6424-543: The war. The Lancashire Cotton Famine prompted the main purchasers of cotton, Britain and France , to turn to Egyptian cotton. British and French traders invested heavily in cotton plantations. The Egyptian government of Viceroy Isma'il took out substantial loans from European bankers and stock exchanges. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned to cheap American exports, sending Egypt into

6512-582: The world, economies that rely on it face difficulties and conflict, as well as potential environmental problems. For example, improper cropping and irrigation practices have led to desertification in areas of Uzbekistan , where cotton is a major export. In the days of the Soviet Union , the Aral Sea was tapped for agricultural irrigation, largely of cotton, and now salination is widespread. Cotton can also be cultivated to have colors other than

6600-529: The world. A long-term study on the economic impacts of Bt cotton in India, published in the Journal PNAS in 2012, showed that Bt cotton has increased yields, profits, and living standards of smallholder farmers. The U.S. GM cotton crop was 4.0 million hectares in 2011 the second largest area in the world, the Chinese GM cotton crop was third largest by area with 3.9 million hectares and Pakistan had

6688-523: The yellowish off-white typical of modern commercial cotton fibers. Naturally colored cotton can come in red, green, and several shades of brown. The water footprint of cotton fibers is substantially larger than for most other plant fibers. Cotton is also known as a thirsty crop; on average, globally, cotton requires 8,000–10,000 liters of water for one kilogram of cotton, and in dry areas, it may require even more such as in some areas of India, it may need 22,500 liters. Genetically modified (GM) cotton

6776-426: Was GM in 2009 making Australia the country with the fifth largest GM cotton crop in the world. Other GM cotton growing countries in 2011 were Argentina, Myanmar, Burkina Faso, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa and Costa Rica. Cotton has been genetically modified for resistance to glyphosate a broad-spectrum herbicide discovered by Monsanto which also sells some of the Bt cotton seeds to farmers. There are also

6864-559: Was a source of income for families across the South. Rural and small town school systems had split vacations so children could work in the fields during "cotton-picking." During the middle 20th century, employment in cotton farming fell, as machines began to replace laborers and the South's rural labor force dwindled during the World Wars. Cotton remains a major export of the United States, with large farms in California, Arizona and

6952-459: Was developed to reduce the heavy reliance on pesticides. The bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) naturally produces a chemical harmful only to a small fraction of insects, most notably the larvae of moths and butterflies , beetles , and flies , and harmless to other forms of life. The gene coding for Bt toxin has been inserted into cotton, causing cotton, called Bt cotton , to produce this natural insecticide in its tissues. In many regions,

7040-401: Was grown by Chinese peoples in the southern Chinese province of Yunnan . Egyptians grew and spun cotton in the first seven centuries of the Christian era. Handheld roller cotton gins had been used in India since the 6th century, and was then introduced to other countries from there. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of

7128-418: Was imported from India without tariffs to British factories which manufactured textiles from Indian cotton, giving Britain a monopoly over India's large market and cotton resources. India served as both a significant supplier of raw goods to British manufacturers and a large captive market for British manufactured goods. Britain eventually surpassed India as the world's leading cotton textile manufacturer in

7216-451: Was invented in India during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th–14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire some time around the 16th century, and is still used in India through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared in India some time during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The production of cotton, which may have largely been spun in

7304-443: Was no punishment for continuing to sell cotton cloth, smuggling of the popular material became commonplace. In 1721, dissatisfied with the results of the first act, Parliament passed a stricter addition, this time prohibiting the sale of most cottons, imported and domestic (exempting only thread Fustian and raw cotton). The exemption of raw cotton from the prohibition initially saw 2 thousand bales of cotton imported annually, to become

7392-422: Was planted on an area of 25 million hectares in 2011. This was 69% of the worldwide total area planted in cotton. GM cotton acreage in India grew at a rapid rate, increasing from 50,000 hectares in 2002 to 10.6 million hectares in 2011. The total cotton area in India was 12.1 million hectares in 2011, so GM cotton was grown on 88% of the cotton area. This made India the country with the largest area of GM cotton in

7480-400: Was put on Parliament, by the new mill owners, to remove the prohibition on the production and sale of pure cotton cloth, as they could easily compete with anything the EIC could import. The acts were repealed in 1774, triggering a wave of investment in mill-based cotton spinning and production, doubling the demand for raw cotton within a couple of years, and doubling it again every decade, into

7568-603: Was responsible for a large part of the empire's international trade. India had a 25% share of the global textile trade in the early 18th century. Indian cotton textiles were the most important manufactured goods in world trade in the 18th century, consumed across the world from the Americas to Japan . The most important center of cotton production was the Bengal Subah province, particularly around its capital city of Dhaka . The worm gear roller cotton gin , which

7656-605: Was the usual word for cotton in medieval Arabic . Marco Polo in chapter 2 in his book, describes a province he calls Khotan in Turkestan, today's Xinjiang , where cotton was grown in abundance. The word entered the Romance languages in the mid-12th century, and English a century later. Cotton fabric was known to the ancient Romans as an import, but cotton was rare in the Romance-speaking lands until imports from

7744-461: Was time-consuming and expensive. This, coupled with the emergence of American cotton as a superior type (due to the longer, stronger fibers of the two domesticated native American species, Gossypium hirsutum and Gossypium barbadense ), encouraged British traders to purchase cotton from plantations in the United States and in the Caribbean . By the mid-19th century, " King Cotton " had become

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