Chilkat and Mayan Weaving

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Long before the industrialization of textile manufacturing, two cultures on different ends of the North American continent developed distinctive weaving techniques: on the Northwest Pacific Coast, the Tlingit and Tsimshian with the famed Chilkat blanket; and in Latin America, the Maya peoples of Guatemala, using the backstrap loom. The Chilkat blanket is a ceremonial robe of bark and wool embroidered with abstracted, curvilinear animal motifs. Mayan textiles of colorful cotton often feature geometric designs. Although the Chilkat blanket and Guatemalan weaving differ in technique, function, design, and they share a legacy as sophisticated works of woven art. The Chilkat blanket is woven on a single beam loom. The warp, or vertical, strands hang down freely from a simple frame. The rigidity of the twined cedar bark and mountain goat wool make tension unnecessary. Finer horizontal strands of wool, the weft, are threaded by hand through the warp. The complex patterns of the blanket are achieved through a technique called weft twining, wherein supplementary weft strands of different colors are wrapped around both sides of the warp. Using this technique, the weaver copies a design from a painted pattern board. This is the origin of the Chilkat blanket’s uniquely curved designs. The pattern board shows half of the planned blanket; the weaver makes the other half symmetrical. Additionally, rounded cedar bark templates may be used to create the blanket’s distinctive ovoid shapes (Samuel, 162) Mayan textiles are traditionally woven on the backstrap loom, which holds warps – cotton strengthened by corn meal – in tension by attaching to the weaver’s waist. The other end is attached to a nearby pole or tree so that the frame of the loom sits diagonally. Different rods along the frame keep alternate warp threads crossed; a mobile batten separates strands, allowing the cotton

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