The Loom in the New World 



By M. D. C. CRAWFORD 



THERE are three distinct types of 

 loom in the New World. On 

 the Northwest Coast is found the 

 single-barred, warp-weight type of the 

 Haida Indian tribe, commonly referred 

 to as the Chilkat loom. This is unques- 

 tionably a very early form and closely 

 related to the type used "in making 

 matting. Its distribution 

 is very curious. Among 

 the interesting objects dis- 

 covered in the neolithic 

 Swiss lake villages are 

 many clay and stone 

 weights which indicate that 

 this kind of loom was in 

 use in the dim antiquity of 

 European history. In an 

 old saga the journey to 

 the rim of the earth of one 

 of the mythical heroes is 

 described. He beheld there 

 three wrinkled old furies 

 weaving into a gruesome 

 fabric the fates of man. 

 The warps were sinews of 

 heroes, the wefts were en- 

 trails, and the loom weights 

 were skulls. Hideous as 

 this description is, it never- 

 theless indicates perfectly 

 the early Scandinavian 

 types of loom. A much 

 more pleasing record ap- 

 pears on a famous Greek 

 vase. Here Penelope is 

 shown weaving the famous 

 fabric she never finished. 

 In all essentials the loom is 

 the same as the modern 

 Chilkat type. 



Among the Ojibway and 



Menominee Indians of today, there still 

 remains a trace of what in former times 

 must have been a very extensi\'e bag- 

 M'eaving art. The American Museum 

 collections contain many handsome ex- 

 amples, which show high artistic and 

 technical skill. The form of loom is ap- 

 parently related to the one just described 



Aziec mother leaching her daughter to spin. — [From native picture 

 writing reproduced in Kingsborough's famous Antiquities of Mexico.] 

 In the upper picture the right hand holds a bundle of fiber, and the left 

 a spindle, on which the yarn is wound. The spindle rests in a small 

 pottery vessel which contains water to moisten the thread for better 

 spinning: a method used in pre-Columbian times throughout middle 

 North America, Central America, and South America to Peru. 



In the picture below, the mother is shown beating her daughter for un- 

 satisfactory work 



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