Digital Commons Network^™

Approaching Fabrics Through Impressions On Pottery, Penelope B. Drooker

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Organic fabrics only rarely survive under archaeological conditions. Particularly in humid temperate or tropical zones, textiles and other fiber perishables rapidly decompose and disappear quite soon after deposition. A few remnants may be found in dry caves or anerobic wet sites, or as charred fragments or metal pseudomorphs, but these represent only a tiny proportion of regional prehistoric fabric production. Fortunately, though, the archaeological record does sometimes yield secondary evidence in the form of impressions on pottery of yam, fabric, and basketry.

Following the theme of this year's TSA symposium, "Approaching Textiles, Varying Viewpoints," this paper focuses on methods and …

Bureaucratic Ideals And Artisanal Reality Survival Strategies In The Production Of Echigo J U, Melissa M. Rinne

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The production of Echigo j u, a fine Japanese ramie textile, is in crisis. Woven on a body-tension 100m from hand-plied threads and often incorporating detailed warp and weft kasuri (ikat), Echigo j u is arguably one of the most sophisticated extant bastfiber traditions in Japan, and perhaps the world. Media and researchers alike regularly laud its ancient production processes, but contemporary makers are facing the almost insurmountable challenge of remaining financially solvent in a rapidly diminishing kimono market, with an increasing scarcity of artisans. One reason that Echigo j u survives today is because it has …

Discussion Of Panel "Textile Tradition And Fashion In The Context Of Globalization", Joanne B. Eicher

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The papers by Hazel Lutz, Heather Akou, and Cathy Daly raise several overlapping issues that bridge three words-two, fashion and tradition that we have used commonly and perhaps, carelessly. The third, globalization, that is newer in our vocabularies but so common that it approaches or has become a buzzword.

Before continuing with analysis of these words as concepts and their place in understanding textiles today, I want to compliment the authors of the papers for providing their thoughtful and richly documented examples of textile traditions that emerge from Africa and Asia with impact on other continents. Each author provided in-depth …

India-West Africa Trade Textiles (Iwatt): 'An Escapade In The Life' Of Gujarati Mirror-Work Embroidery, Hazel A. Lutz

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In this paper I will analyze the development of design within the several-hundred-yearold tradition of producing textiles in India for export to specific cultural markets in West Africa, in particular the appearance of Gujarati-style mirror-work embroidery within RMHK Fancy in the 1990s. I begin by describing the research process and defining RMHKFancy.

The paper is based on ethnographic field research I completed in Madras, India on contemporary embroidery production for export to West Africa in 1997. The research addressed the question of how design and production occur in a transnational trade textile tradition¹ between India and West Africa, involving …

Perpetuating Ritual Textile Traditions: A Pueblo Example, Laurie D. Webster

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

For over a thousand years, textiles have played a vital role in Pueblo ritual and social identity, linking past and present and reinforcing cultural bonds between widespread Pueblo communities. The group known collectively as the Pueblo Indians of the southwestern United States includes the Hopi people of northern Arizona, the Acoma, Laguna, and Zuni people of western New Mexico, and a string of Pueblo communities located near the Rio Grande in the vicinity of modem-day Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Taos. Contemporary Pueblo people use virtually the same styles of ceremonial garments as those worn by their ancestors five to six …

Textiles, Scholarship, And Art Education: An Art College Perspective, Wendy Landry

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In many communities the art college is the last formal refuge of active textile-making knowledge and heritage. This location appears to value playful, risky, or challenging material explorations which might result in creative design or meaningful visual expression. This should be the best environment for cultivating adventurous students able to integrate a wide range of experience and resources towards generating new ideas for interesting contemporary textiles. It could be a good place in which to discover how textiles contribute to human experience and history, and how they are meaningful. However, I submit that this art environment is still detrimental to …

The Order Of Things In Ancient Peru Visual Metaphors In Wari-Associated Dww Textiles, Jane W. Rehl

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Two very different types of high status ritual textiles were produced with the use of the discontinuous warp and weft (hereafter DWW) technique during the Wari sojourn on the coast of Peru (ca. 600-800 C.E.): complex tie dyes, in which case the undyed cloth was woven in a DWW -based technique, and cloth woven in mUltiple techniques, wherein DWW is one of several weaves in a single textile.¹ In all probability, both types of ritual cloth were created on the coast of Peru for use by the highland Wari culture and/or their coastal representatives.² In the following paper, …

The Washita Chief Blanket: Part I, Textile Analysis, Peggy Whitehead, Joyce Herold

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A unique historic textile treasure of the early American West, the Washita Chief Blanket (Figure 1) originated in the early to mid-1800s trade to the Plains Indians. It served Southern Cheyenne people for many years as a fine and expressive garment. In 1868 in a tipi village along Lodge Pole, or Washita, River, in western Indian Territory, it survived a major Indian Wars attack that is now known as the Washita Massacre. A soldier's "battlefield pickup," the blanket has been preserved and respected for 133 years as a war relic, a collectors' trophy, and a museum heirloom of sensitive nature. …

The Washita Chief Blanket Part Ii, Provenance And Ethnohistory, Joyce Herold, Gordon L. Yellowman Sr.

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

A remarkable historic textile treasure of the early American West, the Washita Chief Blanket, originated in the early to mid-1800s trade to the Plains Indians, served as a fine garment among Southern Cheyenne people, and in 1868 survived an Indian Wars battle along the Washita River in western Oklahoma Territory. Since 1968 the blanket has been preserved at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The preceding article by Whitehead and Herold entitled "The Washita Chief Blanket: Part I, Textile Analysis" introduces and illustrates the object and presents the current research design, textile description of the blanket, and comparisons with …

Tivaevae: Local Aesthetics And Cook Islands Quilts, Suzanne P. Macaulay

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

What better image for a Cook Islands tivaevae than the vision of this colorful messenger embellishing the fabric's design in a magical moment of trust and oblivion? The sleeping bird brings tidings from Havaiki., the source of myth and memory, and is lured to rest in a field of imaginary flowers a long way from its poetic homeland.

The applique or patchwork tivaevae most representative of this genre appear to have been vigorously brushed by the mythical bird's feathers and left shimmering in an array of color. Cook Islands women who have created these patterns speak a language of …

Weaving From The Womb: Textiles, Gender, And Kinship In Rupshu (Eastern Ladakh), Monisha Ahmed

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper examines traditional weaving systems among the nomadic pastoralists of Rupshu in Eastern Ladakh, North India. Local narrative states that the craft of weaving was bestowed upon Rupshu by the gods. In this region both women and men weave, each on a different loom. During my fieldwork here I interacted with female and male weavers and found that the discourse on women's identification with weaving is stronger in Rupshu than a man's. While it is mandatory that all women, including nuns, weave, it is not essential for a man to weave. In this paper I focus on the significance …

Embodying Embroidery: Researching Women's Folk Art In Western India, Michele Hardy

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

South Asia is home to an incredibly rich variety of embroideries that include folk, courtly, ritual, and commercial traditions. The scholarly literature on South Asian embroidery has been meagre however and historically emphasized professional embroideries at the expense of the folk^l. With few recent exceptions² folk embroidery in the Sub-Continent has most often been described and classified without reference to the women who make it or the specific cultural traditions that support and give meaning to it³. These 'characterising' accounts of folk embroidery are likely the result of historic circumstance and ancient bias⁴ but …

Clothes From Cactus? Ancient And Contemporary Examples Of Cactus Fiber Clothes And Textiles In Ecuador, Lynn A. Meisch

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Indigenous Andeans and the Spanish chroniclers in the early colonial era wrote about the pre-Hispanic and colonial use of what we commonly call cactus fiber for clothing and other textiles in Ecuador. In this paper I use colonial accounts and ethnographic evidence to examine the use of such fibers in clothing and other textiles and their social and cultural significance. For example, the Incas considered cactus-fiber garments barbarous and uncivilized compared to those made of cotton and camelid hair, and used this as part of their justification for conquest; they were bringing civilization to the savages. While Ecuador's damper climate …

Decoding The Divine: Kathi Embroideries Of Saurashtra, Victoria Z. Rivers

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses on nineteenth and early twentieth century textiles produced by the Kathi people of Saurashtra in northwest India, and motifs similar to the Kathi's repertoire. The purpose is to stimulate new thinking about archaic embroidered images and how they relate to the larger world of ancient solar/astral worship and the regenerative principles of nature. To understand this complex construct, let's start with the Kathi background, a brief history of the region, an analysis of some ancient motifs, and geographical heritage.

Pitfalls, Perceptions, Problems, And Possibilities In The Perusal Of Prehistoric Fabrics, Mary Elizabeth King

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Nearly 40 years ago, Anna Gayton wrote a paper entitled, "The Cultural Significance of Peruvian Textiles: Production, Function, Aesthetics for the Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers (1960). Textile studies at that time and earlier had tended to focus on one or more of these three categories when dealing with ethnological textiles, but studies of archaeological textiles were almost entirely descriptions of techniques and designs. While in the past 10 or 15 years, significant advances have been made in the interpretation of ancient fabrics; we still have a long way to go.

What, then, are the approaches that we must now take …

Of Gods And Men, Ancestors And Tapestry In The Central Andes, Amy Oakland Rodman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

During the Andean Middle Horizon, a period that lasted from approximately the eighth to perhaps the twelfth century, a new religion swept the Peruvian coast. In the previous period, known as the Early Intermediate, no single culture nor religion could characterize the entire region. Instead Paracas and later Nasca in the south, Lima in central Peru, and Moche in the north, each developed independent and very strong traditions that included distinct customs, deities, garment styles, textile structures, architecture, and burial pattern. This paper discusses the period following these seemingly strong and independent local cultural traditions along the Peruvian coast when …

The National Honors Report, Volume Xxi, Number 1/2, Spring/Summer 2000

The National Honors Report

First, The Cover - taken from Damir Sinovcic's mural based on da Vinci's "Man as a Measure of All Things," with special thanks to Lydia Daniel (Director of Honors Institute, Hillsborough Community College); cover design by Stephanie Lucas with Jon Wszalek, and thanks to Joyce Wszalek (Associate Director, James Madison University VA).

1. "The Story Behind" by Lydia Daniel … 1 The director of the Honors Institute shares how the mural came to be. With comments from Damir Sinovcic, the artist.

2. "About Damir's Mural" by Margaret Brown … 2 Students and faculty awed by Damir Sinovcic's mural. Many other …

Title And Contents- Winter 2000

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY

Volume 20/ Number 1/ Winter 2000

CONTENTS

"THE BOY'S MOTHER": NINETEENTH-CENTURY DRUG DEPENDENCE IN THE LIFE OF KATE M. CLEARY Susanne George Bloomfield

CHANGING THE PITCH: AMERICANISM, ATHLETICISM, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF LEGION BASEBALL IN NEBRASKA Kent M. Krause

THE INFLUENCE OF WILLA CATHER'S FRENCH-CANADIAN NEIGHBORS IN NEBRASKA IN DEATH COMES FOR THE ARCHBISHOP AND SHADOWS ON THE ROCK Kathleen Danker

STATES OF BEING IN THE DARK: REMOVAL AND SURVIVAL IN LINDA HOGAN'S MEAN SPIRIT Eric Gary Anderson

BOOK REVIEWS

Ward Churchill A Little Matter of Gerwcide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present …

Review Of Edward S. Curtis And The North American Indian, Incorporated By Mick Gidley, Martha H. Kennedy

Great Plains Quarterly (through 2013)

This important book by the leading authority on Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) has been awaited with high expectations. Gidley, a Professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds, has published extensively on many aspects of Curtis's work. In this outstanding new volume, he illuminates the multi-faceted nature of the photographer's enterprise, reprints original documents relating to the project, analyzes with insight some of the best known images and accompanying texts, and thereby places Curtis's opus within its complex historical context.

For nearly thirty years Curtis studied and photographed more than eighty tribal groups living west of the Mississippi and …

Sandal Types And Archaic Prehistory On The Colorado Plateau, Phil R. Geib

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Perishable artifacts provide an alternative to projectile pointsfor examining spatial patterns in Archaic material culture between northern and southern portions of the Colorado Plateau of the North American Southwest. This is so because they possess a potential great variety of specific construction and design attributes and can be directly dated to establish independent chronolo- gies of development. The analysis and dating of a collection of warp-faced plain weave sandals from Chevelon Canyon, Ari- zona demonstrates the potential utility of perishable artifacts to our understanding of prehistory. The collection provides an importantfirst sample of early Archaicfootwearfor the southern Colorado Plateau. AMS …

Rough Cilicia Archaeological Survey Project: Report Of The Year 2000 Season, Nicholas K. Rauh, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

During the 2000 season the RCASP Survey Team surveyed approximately five square kilometers in the vicinity of Lamos and along the ridges surrounding the Adanda River valley in interior Rough Cilicia. Geoarchaeological inspection of beach, lagoon, and terrace deposits of the Hacimusa River was conducted by F. Sancar Ozaner and Hülya Caner. Together Ozaner and Caner identified the locations where geomorphological trenches would be excavated during the 2001 season. Caner also collected surface sediments from lagoonal deposits of the Hacimusa and Bickici Rivers for further analysis. Under the direction of Michael Hoff and Rhys Townsend, a preliminary architectural map was …

Tribal Jurisprudence And Cultural Meanings Of The Family, Barbara Ann Atwood

Nebraska Law Review

This article explores the ways in which Indian tribal judges are constituting their tribe's unique culture through jurisprudential "weavings" in the realm of family dispute resolution. Part II describes the history of tribal courts in this country and the contemporary characteristics of many such judiciaries. In addition, Part II highlights the vast differences among modern tribal courts but also suggests that many tribes share common values regarding the cultural role of dispute resolution. Part III briefly explores the incorporation of custom and tradition into judicial decision making by tribal courts, including the methods by which traditions are proven and the …

The History Of Archeological Research At Medicine Creek Reservoir, Robert Blasing

United States National Park Service: Publications

Medicine Creek is a tributary which flows southeast into the Republican River, which in turn contributes to the Kansas River. The drainage basin is in southwest Nebraska and is about 75 km or 50 miles in length. It drains an area of slightly under 700 square miles.
Medicine Creek Reservoir (Reservoir) was completed in 1949. It was built primarily to control destructive flooding on both the Medicine and Republican drainages. It is also part of the Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation Project, administered by the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation).
The area around the Reservoir is covered by a deep mantel of wind blown …

Ancient Traditions, New Interpretations: Compression Resist Textiles In North And Mesoamerica, Virginia Davis

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Anasazi pieces from the Southwest USA, circa 1100 - 1300 AD, are known having compression resist patterning by tieing or stitching. These may possibly show influence from further south. In Mexico, tie and stitch resist is seen in pre-Hispanic indigo dyed brown cotton fragments recovered in the region of Tehuacan, Puebla. The codices are rich in depiction suggesting tie-dye, in particular, the cloak of Nezahualpilli, Lord of Texcoco, Codex Ixtlilxochitl, analyzed by Dr. Patricia Anawalt. Nezahualpilli, means in Nahuatl "blue knot," linguistically reflecting the design in the legitimizing cloak. Codex Mendoza shows tribute to the Aztecs with tie design from …

Cloth In Contemporary West Africa: A Symbiosis Of Factory-Made And Hand-Made Cloth, Heather Marie Akou

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

The concepts of "tradition" and "fashion" both center on the idea of change. Fashion implies change, while tradition implies a lack of change. Many scholars have attempted to draw a line between the two, often with contradictory results. In a 1981 article titled, "Awareness: Requisite to Fashion," Mary Ellen Roach-Higgins argued that,

If people in a society are generally not aware of change in form of dress during their lifetimes, fashion does not exist in that society. Awareness of change is a necessary condition for fashion to exist; the retrospective view of the historian does not produce fashion.¹

Although …

Conversing With The Cosmos, Linda L. Beeman

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper focuses on the silk tapestry headcloths woven by Tausug peoples from the Philippine Sulu Archipelago. Called pis siyabet, they captured my attention because they diverge so wildly from the cotton or abaca warp ikat weaving one associates with indigenous peoples from the Philippines and Indonesia. Their material, structure, motif and color fly in the face of local tradition. The dense complexity created by their interlocking square, triangle and diamond motifs suggests cosmic mazes - treasure maps to the unconscious. Pis puzzle us and compel our imaginations.

Some history is in order. The Philippine Archipelago was first peopled …

Dynamics Of Warp And Weft: Contemporary Trends In Naga Textiles And The Naga Collection At The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Vibha Joshi

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

This paper, based on preliminary findings, attempts to show the dynamic processes of change and incorporation of new ideas and materials in the textiles of the Nagas of northeast India by comparing the contemporary textile trends with those seen in the Naga collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM) in Oxford.

The discussion derives from Emma Tarlo and Appadurai's views on museum collections and the role clothes play in a people's identity. Tarlo (Clothing Matters, 1996) writes that textile and clothes displays in museums often take the clothes out of their social, political and economic context. Following Appadurai …

Symbolic Content In Textile Motifs: Using The Semiotic Approach, Patricia Williams

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

John Deely (1990) stated that "the whole of human experience .. .is an interpretive structure mediated and sustained by signs". The investigation of the role of signs in the sphere of textiles is, to use Deely's phrase, one of "semiotic consciousness" or the awareness of symbolic content in clothing, cloth and textile motifs.

Semiotics is the theoretical accounting for signs and what they do. It is the study of signs and sign-using behavior including semiosis or the action of signs. The action, which may be physical or psychological, takes place between two subjects that exist physically plus a third element …

The "Invasion" Of Zapotec Textiles: Indian Art "Made In Mexico" And The Indian Arts And Crafts Act, W. Warner Wood

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In May 2000, in Capitol Hill hearing testimony Andy Abeita described the "threat"," largely coming from South of the border as an "onslaught" creating "significant losses" because of ''unfair competition." He further described the situation as a "takeover" causing "economic harm" against which those in the U.S. should be "protect[ed]." Abeita's choice of vocabulary was not out of the ordinary.¹ As a number of authors have pointed out, Mexican workers are often described as an invasionary force.² megal and legal Mexican migration and work in the U.S. or in the maquiladora manufacturing plants that have sprung up along …

Tokapu Messages, Catherine Julien

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

Tokapu are geometric designs that were woven into Inca tapestry garments. They were also used in the design of lacquered wooden cups, although perhaps not before the time of the Spanish arrival in the Andes in the mid-sixteenth century. During the time of Spanish colonial rule a richly narrative style of representation developed that depicted people and objects in a variety of scenes. Tokapu appear as abstract geometric motifs on cups that have narrative scenes in other registers. They also continue to be used on men's and women's garments, as they had in the prehispanic period.¹ Students of Andean …