The bamboo loom is an essential traditional apparatus for the Garo tribe of the Garo Hills of Meghalaya, India. The Garos, having an age-old weaving culture, have passed on the skill of using bamboo looms from generation to generation to weave complex textiles used in ceremonies. This structure is made entirely of splitted bamboo, thus serving as a living example of the ingenuity of the Garo tribe in putting to use materials found in their environment. The loom has a very simple yet extremely effective construction as it is made of woven strips of bamboo to form the framework into which fibers will be woven to form textiles.
Such textiles are used to make some of the traditional garments such as shawls, skirts, and wraps, very much a part of Garo society, especially for ceremonial purposes and as denoting a person's social status. It permits very fine control over the thread and so allows the creation of very intricate patterns and designs that have social meaning. Weaving using this loom is a fine art, highly minute, and careful, handed down from one generation to the next. It is not mere functional manufacturing of cloth but actual heritage for the Garo tribe. The Garo tribe is steeped into the land and has quite an eco-friendly way of living in which weaving is integrated in their everyday life and fabric of society. The loom is still in high demand in culture, and it further keeps the culture dynamic in the rich traditions of Garo people, with an emerging world around them.