Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Many Makers: Collaborative Renewal Of Chahta Nan Tvnna (Choctaw Textiles), Jennifer Byram

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Using an Indigenous research model of relationality to community and to land, this paper presents the production of a 1700’s style skirt in bison and dogbane fiber by a group of Choctaw textiles artisans. By translating existing archaeological and textual resources into newly produced garments, these practices communicate the research to the Choctaw community in an accessible and inspiring format. Textiles discussed in this paper are made with twining and oblique interlacing techniques using dogbane, bison, and nettle yarns decorated with natural dyes, pigments, or shells. Members of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma revitalized a traditional art that had been …

Transformative Power Of Stitchery: Sashiko From Cold Regions Of Japan And Embroidery Work Of The Nui Project, Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper seeks to reveal the transformative power of stitchery by examining textile practices in Japan and articulating how a threaded needle can be viewed as the co-agent of stitchers, infusing their materials with properties in a “processual” and relational manner that reflects the currents of their lifeworld.^[1] I will contrast and compare two practices, one ancient and one modern, one responding to life’s necessities and the other simply to the act of stitching. In the ancient world, stitchery was essential for human survival, and later in rural Japan, sashiko stitchery was a medium that connected textiles with daily …

Reawakening Chahta Nan Tvnna (Choctaw Textiles), Jennifer Byram

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Choctaw people have crafted textiles from the land for thousands of years. Native to Mississippi and Alabama, U.S.A., the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma resides today in the Southeastern part of the state and numbers over 200,000 citizens. This paper comes out of the tribe’s Historic Preservation department’s work in conjunction with community efforts to reawaken Chahta nan tvnna, Choctaw textiles. By piecing together disparate parts of the Choctaw textile narrative, the Choctaw community is creating new textile work that recalls the ancestors and brings the identity of Chahta nan tvnna to new generations of Choctaw artisans.

Flax Fibre: Innovation And Change In The Early Neolithic A Technological And Material Perspective, Susanna Harris

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Flax (Linum sp.) was one of the first domestic plants in Neolithic Europe, providing a potential cultivable source of fibres for the first farmers. As the plant provides both oil and fibre, it is a matter of enquiry as to whether the plant was first domesticated for its seeds or stem. Through examining new data collected by the EUROEVOL Project, UCL it is possible to chart the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for flax species in Europe. This provides the basis on which to consider the origin of fibres from the flax plant (linen) as a basis for change and innovation in …

The Aegean Wool Economies Of The Bronze Age, Marie-Louise Nosch

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

This paper will explore the importance of wool in the emergence of complex societies during the Bronze Age in the Aegean. The 2nd millennium BC Aegean witnesses the emergence of a highly particular system of wool economy, beginning with the Minoan and followed by the Mycenaean centralized palace economies with strict administration of flocks, herders, wool, and textile production by thousands of women and children. This system monitors annual production targets and surplus production, and production strategies ensuring that the palaces’ needs are met. Textile production is the largest sector of the palace economy and employs the highest number of …

Textile Materials And Techniques In Central Europe In The 2nd And 1st Millennia Bc, Karina Grömer

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

For over a millennium, the site of Hallstatt, located in the Austrian Alps, was a meeting point between north and south, east and west, serving as a melting pot of new ideas and innovations. About 300 textile units (more than 700 single fragments) from Bronze and Iron Ages are known from the prehistoric salt mines, dating from 1500-300 BC. They display a wide range of textile techniques and provide insight in different aspects of textile craft. Their outstanding preservation allows us to investigate many crucial steps in the chaîne opératoire of textile production. The 2nd millennium BC is a time, …

Maguey Hammock: A Weaving Of Resistance And Persistence In Puerto Rico, Soraya Serra Collazo

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Textiles are primary technology to almost all societies. Puerto Rico and the Caribbean are no exceptions. There is an object that has been weaved in the region since pre-Columbian times and it is still passing through the fingers of local artisans. Hamaca, an invention of the American inhabitants,² is an indigenous voice incorporated into many languages. It was in the Caribbean, where Europeans saw its utility, and it was quickly incorporated as the best way of sleeping in their transatlantic voyages. Its production has spread throughout the world and today it is made in many countries. In Puerto Rico …

Dressing The Leader, Dressing The Ancestor: The Longue Durée In The South Central Andes, Ann H. Peters

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

The preservation and adornment of the dead in the South Central Andes can be traced over some twelve thousand years. The potential for preservation of human bodies and fine textiles in desert sands and high altitude caves contributed to a continuing social and political role of the dead in the lives of the living. Colonial period documents describe well-dressed mortuary bundles that participated in public ritual and could be cited as proof of heritage and validation of social leadership. However, the nature of social and political ancestry and its relationship to power change over time with the development of large-scale …

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necroplis, And Ocucaje: Looking At Appropriation And Identity With Only Material Remains, Ann Peters

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

Paracas Cavernas, Paracas Necropolis, and Ocucaje are groups of burials made some 2000 years ago on the south coast of Peru. The Peruvian coast is a desert, and textiles, basketry, and other artifacts made from plant fiber and animal fiber and other organic materials are preserved there in ancient tombs. The Andes is known for funerary traditions that emphasize the dressing of the dead, with documented preservation of mummified ancestors or funerary bundles, and in some cases their participation as ancestors in kin group and community ritual.

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It is clear that there are continuing relations of contact, …

Ancient Andean Headgear: Medium And Measure Of Cultural Identity, Niki R. Clark, Amy Oakland Rodman

Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings

From the earliest recorded periods of southern Andean history, distinctive clothing styles have served to identity specific socio-cultural groups and provide clues about cultural origins. Unique environmental conditions, especially present along the arid Pacific coast of South America, have allowed the preservation of a vast archive of usually perishable material. From the far south coast of Peru to the northern desert regions of Chile, textiles, and especially headgear forms were worn to distinguish between the diverse populations who established permanent settlements along the narrow river valleys linking highland regions and the coast.

The south central Andes region has always known …