492 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



hand of the woavor. In any case, they were secured to some moval)le 

 object which aUowed the weaver to increase or decrease the tension 

 at will. 



THE PUEBLO HEDDLE. 



There is among the Zuni Indians a style of setting- up the warp of a 

 belt or garter for heddles of this class, which relates the frame to the 

 Indian blanket loom. The warp is one continuous yavn wound round 

 and round two cjdinders, one resting against the soles of the weaver's 

 feet, the other attached to her bod}- b}" a strap which passes behind 

 her back, its ends buttoning over the ends of the inner cylinder. In 

 the use of this device the warp is loosened or tightened b}" moving the 

 feet or inclining the body, the most pliant, delicate, and responsive 

 tension device.^ (Plate 1.) 



When the woman and her loom apparatus were set up for work, 

 she raised or lowered the heddlo with one hand. The warp filaments 

 which passed through the stirrups in the healds, being fixed in their 

 places, were by this movement raised or lowered with the frame, but 

 the alternate threads which passed between the healds remained stead- 

 fast and straight. Whether the frame was raised or lowered, a " shed" 

 was formed in the warp; the weaver then passed through this "shed" 

 a simple bobbin or shuttle, often a rod with the weft woven on it, 

 after the manner of a kite string, containing the weft or woof fila- 

 ments, usually of white thread and quite fine. When the weft had 

 been passed through this "shed" between the heddle frame and the 

 body of the weaver it was beaten home by means of the shuttle or 

 with a separate tool, as among the Zuni, or by the weaver's finger. 

 This completed one weft. 



The alternate warp series were then brought to the top or depressed, 

 and a second "shed" formed. The shuttle was passed back through 

 this "shed" and the weft again beaten home. If a pattern was to be 

 wrought, the shuttle was not passed through the "shed" as described, 

 but worked, as in darning, through a certain number of the upper 

 warp threads each time before a new "shed" was made. 



THE FINLAND HEDDLE. 



In 1893, Consul-General John M. Crawford sent to the U. S, National 

 Museum, from Helsingfors, in Finland, two specimens of this t^^pe of 

 heddle, one of which resembles in general features those described, 

 while the other (tig. -1) is very suggestive of the type found in the 

 pueblos of southwestern United States, to l^e later studied (fig. 5). 



' Washington Matthews, Navajo Weavers. Third Annual Report of Bureau of 



Ethnology (1884), pp. 371-378. 



