The North American Indians employed rushes and animal skins as the
principal coverings for themselves and their tents. They used sinews and
thongs for thread and cord, and thus avoided largely the necessity for
spinning fiber or making textiles; for these or possibly other reasons, we
find few spindle-whorls among them compared with the number found in
Europe. Yet the North American Indians made and used textile fabrics, and
there are pieces of woven cloth from mounds in Ohio now in the Department
of Prehistoric Anthropology, U. S. National Museum. The Pueblo Indians
spun thread and wove cloth in pre-Columbian times, and those within the
States of Colorado and Utah and the adjoining Territories of Arizona and
New Mexico, particularly the Navajoes, have been long noted for their
excellence in producing textile fabrics. Specimens of their looms and
thread are on display in the National Museum and have been published in
the reports. Special attention is called to that by Dr. Washington
Matthews in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82.
Dr. Matthews is of the opinion that the work of the Pueblo Indians
antedated that of the Navajoes, that the latter learned the art from the
former since the advent of the Spaniards; and he remarks that the pupils
now excel their masters in the beauty and quality of their work. He
declares that the art of weaving has been carried to greater perfection
among the Navajoes than among any native tribe in America north of the
Mexican boundary; while with none in the entire continent has it been less
influenced by contact with Europeans. The superiority of the Navajo to
the Pueblo work results not only from a constant advance of the weavers'
art among the former, but from a deterioration of it among the latter.
This deterioration among the Pueblo Indians he attributes to their contact
with the whites, their inclination being to purchase rather than to make
woven fabrics, while these influences seem not to have affected the
Navajoes. He represents a Navajo woman spinning (see pl. 22 of the present
paper). She is seated, and apparently whorls the spindle by rubbing it on
her leg. The spindle is of wood, as are all other spindles, but the whorl
is also of wood. In this these people are peculiar and perhaps unique. The
whorl, among most other savage or prehistoric peoples, as we have already
seen, was of stone or clay. These wooden whorls are thinner and larger,
but otherwise they are the same. An inspection of the plate will show that
with it the spinning apparatus forms the same machine, accomplishes the
same purpose, and does it in the same way. The sole difference is in the
size and material of the whorl. The difference in material accounts for
the difference in size. It is not improbable that the Indian discovered
that the wooden whorl would serve as well as a stone or pottery one, and
that it was easier made. The machine in the hands of the woman, as shown
in the figure, is larger than usual, which may be accounted for by the
thread of wool fiber used by the Navajo being thicker and occupying more
space than the flaxen thread of prehistoric times; so it may have been
discovered that a large whorl of wood served their purpose better than a
small one of stone. Stone whorls of large size might be too heavy. Thus
may be explained the change from small stone or pottery whorls to large
wooden ones.
[Illustration: Fig. 357. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL WITH DESIGN SIMILAR TO
SWASTIKA. Valley of Mexico. Cat. No. 27875, U. S. N. M.]
[Illustration: PLATE 22. NAVAJO WOMAN USING SPINDLE AND WHORL. Dr.
Washington Matthews, Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,
1881-82, Pl. XXXIV.]
_Mexico._--Fig. 357 represents the two sides and edge of a pottery
terra-cotta spindle-whorl. It is the largest of a series of six (Cat.
Nos. 27875-27880) from the valley of Mexico, sent to the U. S. National
Museum by the Mexican National Museum in 1877. Fig. 358 also represents
one of a series from Mexico, obtained by W. W. Blake, July, 1886 (Cat.
Nos. 99051-99059). The National Museum possesses hundreds of these from
Mexico, as well as the small ones from Peru.
[Illustration: Fig. 358. MEXICAN TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORL WITH DESIGN
SIMILAR TO SWASTIKA.]
These specimens are chosen because they are the largest and most
elaborately decorated. It will be perceived at a glance how the style of
decoration lends itself to the Swastika. It consists mostly of geometric
figures, chief of which is the Greek fret, the labyrinth, the circle, and
the volute, but as in the color stamps (pp. 946-947) there is no Swastika.
[Illustration: Figs. 359 and 360. TERRA-COTTA SPINDLE-WHORLS. Omotepe
Island, Nicaragua. Cat. Nos. 28898, 28899, U. S. N. M.]