The jamana is a square of cotton, about 140 by 140 centimetres, wound over the klaw skullcap with its fringed ends left hanging. The cloth is white; the pattern is black thread. Which pattern a man wears reads as tribe and region — black-and-white for the Zebari, Harki and Doski, red-and-white for the Barzani.

This system takes the cloth literally. Black check on bright white is the base state, red is brought in as figure, and every edge is a woven band or a run of fringe. Nothing is rounded, nothing floats: it is cloth, laid flat.