The Pulo and the Deer

Some of the oldest known knotted carpet fragments have been found in East Turkestan.Although a major stop-over on the Silk Road,it now seems likely that many items were produced locally.The later entry of Alexander into Central Asia,and the art of Gandhara,introduced Greek light into the area.Our knowledge of carpet producing areas derives chiefly from the work of Hans Bidder,whose sources were Chinese carpet dealers.Their veracity cannot be confirmed,but as is customary in the literature on the subject,when geographic terms are understood as branding, sense can be made of the whole.Thus Khotan defines a rustic,Kashgar a floral,and Yarkand an aristocratic style.Until otherwise proven,and as there is little evidence for production elsewhere,we can presume that the majority of carpets were woven in diverse manufacturies and at differing levels of accomplishment in the sprawling Khotan Oasis.

The three groups can also be divided by technical aspects,with the Khotan carpets loosely woven in a woolen Vase-Carpet style with three wefts of white and coloured wool on a cotton warp(although woolen warp is not unknown)a prevalence of silk carpets from the Kashgar area;and a frequently blue-wefted hard-beaten depressed warp structure from Yarkand.The placenames have no basis in fact and simply function as an orientation vis-a-vis structure and style.A large group of carpets attributed to the Gansu corridor in Western China will not be considered here,except as in such instances where an attribution is possible to E.Turkestan.The complex subject of silk rugs from the area may be taken up at a later date.

Khotan carpet fragment with Pu-Lau design,published Munich 1985.The word Pu-lau(or pholo)is Tibetan and means either "Ball",or "ballgame"It has also been translated as the expression for a wooden ball made out of willow.Hence its employment to describe the game of "Polo"

Tie-dyed fabric from Tibet, horse blanket 19th, internet source

"Pulo
A tie-dying technique used in Tibet that produces a pattern of small dots, crosses, or small concentric circles in a wool fabric called nambu. Gansu rugs of China of the 12th to 14th century with this field repeat are described as pulo design rugs, as are a few similarly designed 20th-century Tibetan and Chinese rugs" (p.225 Oriental Rugs by Peter F. Stone)

"The tie-dyeing technique in Chinese chronicle is called jiaoxie or popularly zaran. textiles that were tied and then dyed with color . and therefore might be predecessors of jiaoxie, have been excavated from Han sites in Dunhuang, Gansu". (Chinese Silks, D. Kuhn)

Tie-dyed tabby silk with spot pattern, Northern and Southern dynasties, excavated in Turfan, Urumqi Institute, fig. 4.9 p. 181 Chinese Silks

Other chronicles state that it "began in the Qin and Han dynasties, but in the Chien and Lang dynasties, both rich and poor all wore clothes made that way".  Archeological discoveries of confirmed jiaoxie textiles, however, date from the third century......This kind of design, like stars scattered over the surface or like the white flecks on the back of a young deer, has been called "deer's pelt" pattern (lutai).

Jin fabric bag, detail, spotted  deer, excavated in Niya, Hetian City Museum, dated 84C.E. Fig. 3.41, p. 153, Chinese Silks

A mythological story tells of a beautiful woman wearing a purple tie-dyed garment which is actually the transformed spirit of a deer. The  author describes the headdress made of deerskin as 'the image of falling stars crossing, scattered dots of linked pearls' (in Later records of Searching for Spirits, Shangai 1999)

One particular type of lutai is called 'drunken eye tie-dyeing' perhaps because its patterns are blurry washes of color, the kind of beautiful but indistict image seen by an intoxicated viewer.
In Report of a Dream over a Bowl of Millet Gruel (Mengliang Lu) of 1334, lutai fabrics are detailed described

Difficult not to parallel this 'drunken' pattern with a carpet  woven in the Middle Amu Darya region, a far but not too far area from Gansu. The Middle Amu Darya region in Central Asia is, in fact, included in the Silk Roads connecting the Far East to the West.
Ersari weavers are considered to be very versatile and easy to grasp and absorb designs out of a strict tribal tradition. Whether she knew of the deer transformed into a woman and of the stars encrusted in her skin, we do not know. But the blurry sight is curiously rendered in the dots arrangement.

Ersari carpet, Pulo design, MAD, 19th, Marc Feldmann

The Sino-Tibetan textile tradition presents the same tie-dyed technique in the nambu textiles both dyed and knotted.

Nambu textile, bench cover, Central Tibet circa 1900, T. Wild

Nambu design sitting rug, Tibet, early 1900, in Patterns of Life, coll. R. L. Baylis

That is why some Tibetan carpets' design may be interpreted as the knotted version of a pulo-nambu, although the leopard pelt pattern is also a plausible reading.

Tibetan carpet, about 1880, Alberto Levi

Tibet had ever since relations with the Han empire and was bordering Gansu. In 832 most of the Tibetan empire territories were attributed to the Tang empire. During the Tang period the tie-dyed technique was continued with similar decorative results.

A Song vase testifies to the continuous apreciation of the pattern after the turn of the first millennium. "In Report of a Dream over a Bowl of Millet Gruel (Mengliang Lu) of 1334, lutai fabrics are properly described.....annualy" a significant bolts of this type of patterned fabric were produced. Also the Liao and Jin dynasties  contributed a lot to the output of coloured patterned deer's pelt textiles.
From Song accounts we come to know that the allover pattern was embellshed with golden (sewn thread) clouds and phoenixes on black ground

Spotted jizou vase, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279), Sotheby's photo credits

However, more striking is the presence of the spot/dot design in 18th and 19th century carpets from Gansu.
Gansu was a cradle of 'Chinese' civilisation - motherland of important Neolithic cultures as the Majiayao and Nijia and of the first state-founding tribe, the Qin. Historical place also of the Han and archeological reference for the excavation of jiaoxie textiles, in Gansu the looms seem to reflect the ancient jiaoxie or deerskin's spot in dramatically coloured allover carpets or punctuated with elegant medallions.

Gansu Pulo carpet, 1800 circa, Moshe Tabibnia

Gansu Pulo carpet, 18th II half , Moshe Tabibnia

The oasis of Khotan in the Tarim basin reputedly wove the Pulo pattern as well.

Khotan Pulo carpet, Tarim Basin, 19th, Moshe Tabibnia

Khotan (?) Pulo carpet, Tarim Basin, 18th, Ben Banayan photo credits

Here an excellent link to a Pulo Show https://www.flickr.com/photos/rugbam/albums/72157666620284446
from where these three source, the last in the window format.

Pulo carpets,  19th, Tarim Basin, rugtracker.com photo credits

Whether the Deer is still alive or not, usually a field pattern of old memory crosses the Time weaves thanks to its auspicious meaning, that in China parallels  longevity and in Tibet good omen.
In the case one doesn't like deers, the pattern might be called from the technique originating it, the tie-dyeing or resist dye found in northwestern China excavations starting from the 3th-5th AD. In Chinese the fabric is termed xie/jiaoxie.

Bibliography

P. Stone, Oriental Rugs
D. Kuhn, Chinese Silks
I. Alimov, Concerning "Records of Searching for Spirits" of Gao Bao
G. O'Bannon, Rugs of Eastern Turkestan Khotan, Yarkand or Kashgar?
H. Bidder, Carpets from Eastern Turkestan
M. Eiland,  Chinese and Exotic Rugs
E. Gans-Ruedin, Chinese Carpets
L. Larsson, Carpets from China, Xinjian and Tibet
Sphuler, Konig, Volkmann, Old Eastern Carpets
T. Cole in Hand-Knotted Carpets from Nepal
T. Cole, Dream Weavers: Textile Art from the Tibetan Plateau
T. Cole, Patterns of Life: The Art of Tibetan Carpets
C. Bausback, Alte Teppiche Aus Tibet
D. Miller, Auspicious Carpets: Tibetan Rugs and Textiles
Intrecci Cinesi, Moshe Tabibnia
H. Konig, Gansu Carpets, Hali 2005
Konig and Franses, Glanz der Himmelsshoene . Kaiserliche Teppiche Aus China 1400-1750
Uighur Carpets from Altishahr in rugtracker.com
Xie, a Technical Term for Resist Dye in China: Analysis Based on the Burial Inventory from Tomb 26, Bijiashan, Huahai, Gansu Le Wang, Donghua University, Shanghai Feng Zhao, China National Silk Museum, Hangzhou.