Navajo weavers | Page 8

shed-rod, and the lower shed with a set of healds. Then the stick at f
(upper stick in Plate XXXVI) is put in; this is simply a round stick,
about which one loop of each thread of the warp is thrown. (Although
the warp may consist of only one thread I must now speak of each turn
as a separate thread.) Its use is to keep the different threads in place and
prevent them from crossing and straggling; for it must be remembered
that the warp in this case is not secured at two points between three
stranded cords as is the blanket warp.
When this is all ready the insertion of the weft begins. The reed-fork is
rarely needed and the batten used is much shorter than that employed in
making blankets. Fig. 57 represents a section of a belt. It will be seen
that the center is ornamented with peculiar raised figures; these are
made by inserting a slender stick into the warp, so as to hold up certain
of the threads while the weft is passed twice or oftener underneath them.
It is practically a variety of damask or two-ply weaving; the figures on
the opposite side of the belt being different. There is a limited variety
of these figures. I think I have seen about a dozen different kinds. The
experienced weaver is so well acquainted with the "count" or
arrangements of the raised threads appropriate to each pattern that she
goes on inserting and withdrawing the slender stick referred to without
a moment's hesitation, making the web at the rate of 10 or 12 inches an
hour. When the web has grown to the point at which she cannot weave
it further without bringing the unfilled warp nearer to her, she is not
obliged to resort to the clumsy method used with blankets. She merely
seizes the anterior layer of the warp and pulls it down towards her; for
the warp is not attached to the beams, but is movable on them; in other
words, while still on the loom the belt is endless. When all the warp has
been filled except about one foot, the weaving is completed; for then
the unfilled warp is cut in the center and becomes the terminal fringes

of the now finished belt.
The only marked difference that I have observed between the
mechanical appliances of the Navajo weaver and those of her Pueblo
neighbor is to be seen in the belt loom. The Zuñi woman lays out her
warp, not as a continuous thread around two beams, but as several
disunited threads. She attaches one end of these to a fixed object,
usually a rafter in her dwelling, and the other to the belt she wears
around her body. She has a set of wooden healds by which she actuates
the alternate threads of the warp. Instead of using the slender stick of
the Navajos to elevate the threads of the warp in forming her figures,
she lifts these threads with her fingers. This is an easy matter with her
style of loom; but it would be a very difficult task with that of the
Navajos. Plate XXXVII represents a Zuñi woman weaving a belt. The
wooden healds are shown, and again, enlarged, in Fig. 58. The Zuñi
women weave all their long, narrow webs according to the same system;
but Mr. Bandelier has informed me that the Indians of the Pueblo of
Cochiti make the narrow garters and hair-bands after the manner of the
Zuñis, and the broad belts after the manner of the Navajos.
[Illustration: PL. XXXVIII.--BRINGING DOWN THE BATTEN.]
[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Girl weaving (from an Aztec picture).]
§ XI. I will close by inviting the reader to compare Plate XXXVI and
Fig. 59. The former shows a Navajo woman weaving a belt; the latter a
girl of ancient Mexico weaving a web of some other description. The
one is from a photograph, taken from life; the other I have copied from
Tylor's "Anthropology" (p. 248); but it appears earlier in the copy of
Codex Vaticana in Lord Kingsborough's "Antiquities of Mexico." The
way in which the warp is held down and made tense, by a rope or band
secured to the lower beam and sat upon by the weaver, is the same in
both cases. And it seems that the artist who drew the original rude
sketch, sought to represent the girl, not as working "the cross-thread of
the woof in and out on a stick," but as manipulating the reed-fork with
one hand and grasping the heald-rod and shed-rod in the other.
NOTE.--The engravings were prepared while the author was in New

Mexico and could not be submitted for his inspection until the paper
was ready for the press. Some alterations were made from the original