THE TAJIN TOTONAO — PART 1 — KELLY AND PALERM 



229 



A small pottery bowl or a decorated calabash is 

 placed on the lap, and on its floor the tip of the 

 spindle revolves. The bowl is home-made; the 

 calabash is of dubious provenience. One used by 

 Nicolasa de Leon is though by her to be from the 

 State of Puebla; the motif is typically Olinala, 

 although the general effect is somewhat different. 

 We watched three women spin : 



Nicolasa de Leon holds the unspun cotton in the left 

 hand and extends her arm, with the hand almost upright. 

 With the right hand, she turns the spindle, supporting it 

 between the thumb and second finger, and revolving it 

 clockwise with the index finger. It moves rapidly, rest- 

 ing on the floor of the calabash. When a short length 

 of thread has been twisted, she revolves the spindle in 

 the opposite direction, removes her hand, and the thread 

 winds itself on the rod. 



Ignacia Hernandez holds raveled pabilo in her left hand, 

 with the arm almost upright. With the right hand, she 

 twirls the spindle rapidly, clockwise, between the thumb 

 and the first two fingers. Once the whorl is set in mo- 

 tion, it continues for some moments to revolve rapidly 

 without further assistance on the floor of the clay dish, 

 while the hand is removed and is moved upward along 

 the pabilo, to feed the latter, without knots, to the spindle. 

 When a short length of thread is completed, the twirling 

 is halted, and the spindle is turned more slowly (counter- 

 clockwise?), winding the prepared thread on its shaft. 

 During the winding, the left arm is extended almost hori- 

 zontally to the side. In short, the left arm is in a nearly 

 upright position as the thread is being formed (pi. 28, c), 

 in a horizontal position while it is being wound (pi. 28, f). 



Carmen Perez Reyes indulges in less violent arm move- 

 ments in the course of spinning (pi. 28, a, b). She twirls 

 the spindle clockwise, both as the thread is being formed 

 and as it is wound on the shaft. 



Prepared thread either is wound in balls or on 

 a stick and is stored until required. 



WARPING 



Before warping, one calculates the length of the 

 textile to be made. Measurement is in terms of 

 "elbows" (codos, paka) , that is, the distance from 

 the elbow to the middle finger; fractions are ex- 

 pressed by cuartas, the distance between the thumb 

 and little finger, with the hand opened wide. A 

 ruedo, for example, may be planned at 3 codos, 

 plus 1 cuarta. Width calculations are based upon 

 the number of warp threads. 



Once the approximate length of the fabric is 

 determined, three stakes are set vertically in the 

 ground, within the house or outside. The termi- 

 nal ones give the over-all length, plus a comfort- 

 able margin. The center post is alined, but is 



only one-third or one-fourth the distance from 

 the first post. Height of the stakes varies with 

 individual weavers; irrespective of the width of 

 the textile, Carmen Perez Reyes uses posts only 

 20 cm. tall. 



Warping (puAuyunuma) takes place in figure-8 

 fashion over the three stakes (pi. 28, g ; fig. 55) : 



<rc 



fflr 



^ 



Figure 55. — Manner of warping. 



Maria Loreto ties the end of the warp (toyunu) about 

 the middle of the first stake, which is on her left. Then, 

 as shown in figure 55, she winds the thread until the 

 desired number of warps has been prepared. 



Carmen Perez Reyes follows the same procedure, but 

 starts at the right instead of at the left. Unlike Dona 

 Maria, who has the thread wound on a short stick, she 

 has hers in a ball, which reposes in a wooden tray, on 

 the ground to her right. One day, during the process of 

 warping, Dona Carmen hastily sent her daughter for a 

 handful of maize kernels, which she tossed into the tray, 

 "to be sure there would be sufficient thread." 



When the necessary number of threads has been 

 wound on the posts, a string is passed through the 

 warps on each side of the middle post, and tied 

 loosely, to preserve the figure-8 formation and to 

 prevent tangling. 



Regardless of whether the thread is handspun 

 or commercial, at this point it is customary to dip 

 the warp into liquid from the ni-xt-amol- or into a 

 mixture of ground tortillas and water.- 1 This 

 stiffens the threads and simplifies handling, al- 

 though some women condemn the procedure, say- 

 ing that it darkens the threads, which do not 

 bleach "until the cloth is almost worn out." The 

 knobbed end sticks of the loom then are passed 



21 The Chinantec are said to daub the cotton with water con- 

 tninin^' maize paste "during the weaving" (Bevan, p. SI). 



