Throughout the indigenous Americas and over the millennia weavers have employed the same basic backstrap loom, much like a thousand-year-old Andean example. This one is from Oaxaca in southern Mexico. Similar ones remain in use in Guatemala as well…
Only partially finished, this thousand-year-old belt was being made on a Chancay backstrap loom. It probably was still in process when its weaver died; it was a fairly common practice in various ancient Andean cultures to include unfinished textiles…
This modern Maya backstrap loom has most of its original parts, except for the belt (fastened to the lower bar that goes around the weaver’s waist) and a new rope added to the top bar and affixed onto a tree branch or a house post. Tension is created…
The carved bone batten is another elaborate weaving tool, its pointed ends used for picking up certain warps to create patterns and its wide blade for packing down wefts. Not simply a tool, this “art-batten” is carved with two caiman heads on the…
