A wooden spindle with whorl attached and large amount of brown spun cotton yarn or thread wound round it. The end of the spindle has been pushed firmly into a further ball of the same spun cotton.
Spindle, with whorl, cotton thread and cotton samples. The art of weaving textiles from the cotton fibres is a very old practice amongst the Amerindians of Guyana and the wider South American rainforests. The cotton tree or yaho daya is largely native to these regions, hence the development of cotton weaving, a process wrongly and largely associated with few social and economically 'sophisticated' communities. Cotton is now grown in small holdings and is used for, among other things the making of hammocks or hamaka. The spindle whorl or kitu duir in Arawakan dialect was from crab wood. The lady who sold it to me said it is 'a machine that is still use. Thus I will only part with it if you pay me a high price for it.'
spindles (textileworking: yarn preparation & felting); thread
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