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.

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 …