roTH] HAMMOCKS 397 
thus consists in arranging the warps so that those passing from left 
to right run direct from side to side of the frame, while those in the 
opposite direction coil around the two warps immediately preceding. 
When the desired width of hammock has been reached it is finished 
off by means of an edge made of four warps wound around spirally 
in exactly the same manner as was adopted at the commencement, 
and finally tied (d). In removing the hammock from the frame, 
care is taken that a scale line is immediately inserted so as to pre- 
vent the mesh coming undone. 
478. Something remains to be said with regard to the coloration 
of the hammocks. In the now obsolete huge cotton ones of the 
Demerara, when the weaving was completed the hammock was 
stained with juice from the bark of trees so as to form various 
figures, which were red and ever after indelible. The trees which 
yielded this juice, according to information received by Bancroft, 
were the wallaba and red mangrove (BA, 255). In Cayenne the 
Galibi painted most of them red after they were made and while they 
were yet upon the loom, the painting being done by the men. The 
Brazilian women made scarcely any but white hammocks, and if 
they mixed either red or blue or green with the white, or all of them 
together—as they did frequently—they worked them with thread 
ready dyed, and so the men did not touch them, whereas in Guiana 
these beds were painted only by the men, the women leaving this 
work to them when they had finished the web (GB, 54-57). At Sao 
Gabriel, on the Rio Negro, the cords of the ite-fiber hammock, says 
Schomburgk, are colored blue with indigo, pink with the roots of the 
mirapiranka tree, yellow with the fruit of the mankaratice, ochre 
from the oruku (ruku) or annatto. Figures are usually worked in 
the hammocks, and'a good workwoman can finish one in three days. 
They sell at Manaos and Para for about 10 or 12 milreis (ScQ, 
254). In the tucum fiber hammock on the same river the weft threads 
may occasionally be colored—black with genipa, yellow with a de- 
coction from certain timbers, seldom red with carayuru (KG, 1, 212). 
479. I propose the following tentative classification of hammocks, 
based on their order of structure: 
A. Warp and weft distinct and separate: Weft of a series of threads. 
each series constituting a “ bar.” 
a. Frame: Of two vertical posts; warp horizontal, weft vertical. 
1. Each bar composed of two threads: Two warps taken up 
at a time (secs. 460, 461). 
2. Each bar composed of four threads: 
i. Two warps taken up at a time (sec. 462). 
ii. One warp taken up at a time (sec. 463). 
iii. One alternate warp taken up at a time (sec. 464). 
