String and It's Origins

[hsifeng]

Thank you topearl for posting this article.

Some thoughts it brought up:

"Until the invention of the spindle, for which the earliest current evidence is in the Neolithic (Barber 1994), the only way to create twisted fibre string was by rolling on a part of the body, normally the thigh, or twisting between the fingers. MacKenzie (1991) estimated that it

Comments

[hohenstein]

This reminds me of something some long-career art quilting women said. They were pioneers in the field, but it was ignored as "art" until men started doing it. Then it stopped being dismissed as "just a womans home crafty thing" & began getting write-ups in serious art magazines (usually profiling the men, from what she tells me).

A.

[hsifeng]

This is reflected i the male/Guild take over of many of these crafts during the evolution of the town systems.

[docryder]

I took the Pre-Columbian Art History at CSUF while getting my BFA. The instructor mentioned fabrics in Peru. There are scads of fairly well preserved examples from the Andes. They are sometimes found in hanging burial bundles which were made by some of the tribes and hung in the mountains. More fabric was found in caves. In both cases, it was used as part of the mummification process. The stuff in caves was usually better protected, as the caves were so cold that you essentially had an anaerobic environment freeze drying the body, and preventing rot of both the body and the fabric.

He was quick to point out that fabric making is extremely time consuming. The Peruvians of those eras (upwards of 3000 years ago) used very simple foot looms (I think that's what you'd call them; two sticks anchored at the feet and neck while sitting). With the amount of time consumed in the fabric's creation, the wealth of the dead person could be measured by the amounts of fabric the body was wrapped in.

[dravon]

Did you see the information I had posted after I read "Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years" by Elizabeth Barber? I pulled out dozens of really good quotes, basically everything I highlighted as "nifty" or "important" that I might want to reference later. It's a shorthand way of reading a book without reading the book, though in this case I did a whole lot of highlighting since that was a great book.

http://dravon.livejournal.com/357854.html

Barber's theory as to why women tended to work with the textiles is that it's one of the few things which can be interupted frequently and doesn't require heavy labor, so you can watch the kids while doing it. Can't take the toddlers hunting with you, and that sort of thing. She even goes into her theories about why innovations take off or what motivates men to take over traditionally 'women's work'. An awesome book!!!!

[hsifeng]

*sweet!* I will have to check this book out when I get the chance. Anything that gets heavy highlighting from a fellow reader has to have good stuff in it...*grin*

I can't BELIEVE that I somehow missed your response the first time around. *blargh* I blame it on work...and since I have been out of town for most of this last week of vacation, I guess I can blame it on vacation too...*snort*

BTW - I wanted to drop you and M a note to say "Thank You" for the note we got from you (along with the infusion of green stuff). It was much appreciated and VERY helpful. *HUGS* Thank you again!