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Transcribe page 5 of 170
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Download PDF for NMAI-022_002_02_005 (project ID 12361)
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Transcription
Spent 1/2 hour sitting with Alejandrina (daughter of Francisco Huatta) while she was finishing a belt (for her mother?). The weaving was completed, and she had completed half of the terminal 3-strand braid. She selected an appropriate amount of threads, and held the belt looped around the back warp stick under her knees, the warp stick with threads lying loosely in front. She braided with the threads under her, the braid sticking straight up. She used the first two fingers of each hand to hold the looped threads whileshe braided (slipping the just braided end to the third finger of the other hand). It took about three minutes for each braid (about 6" long). Each motion in braiding was done very forcefully. At the very end (last inch or so) she slowed down and it appeared that instead of crossing the threads past each other, she pulled the small loops through each other to within 1/2 1/4" of the end; she then picked up the finished braid with a safety pin. When all the braiding was finished, she began too unwrap the front warp cord which held the belt to the loom bar - the cord was white alpaca ? braided ? tied with a knot at either end tightly around the loom bar. The loom parts visible were only front and back loom bars. Last night I saw the same piece with weaving still unfinished - it had a brown and white braided [[strikethrough]] piece [[/strikethrough]] cord ? holding it closed - I also saw heddle rod, heddle, shuttle (stick with wrapped weft) and small bundles of thread. Is this a backstrap loom, or a ground loom (loom bars stretched between stakes?) [[image - drawing of braides held with safety pin and warp stick annotated "braided held to safety pin" and "ends looped around warp stick" and "west"]] [[image - drawing of two hands holding thread; halfway braided]]
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