Mac & Magic/Sunday afterLOOM/Taiwan
[06] Welcome at the Sunday AfterLOOM at the Drielanderpunt Aachen-Vaals.
Mac & Magic Loom Design proudly presents you its new Bamboo Foot Loom from the Paiwan people on Taiwan in the public showLOOM! It seems it‘s the previous model of the Atayal Box Loom, a very early bird. Even these foot loom type of loin looms once have spread allover the main part of southern Chinese mainland, you won‘t find any of them on nowadays mainland, just on Taiwan and Hainan this type of loin loom (backstrap loom) survived.
Foot loom of an Ancient Time
Already finds from ancient times show bamboo canes used for warp beams, even this is a pretty huge one. In following times these huge canes seem to be exchanged by even more huge, wooden models, made of trunks from I.e. camphor trees, before modern times designed the nowadays box types, we showed you on last Sunday AfterLOOM.
For a perfect Paiwan-Style bamboo cane loom you may add a twig-type of heddle and another twig-shaped warp divider (shed rod).
This old version may get a bit seldom, but you may find even bigger sized versions. Nobody knows, but we can imagine, that these huge cane types have been existing already since 3.000 years and more. You may think it‘s uncomfortable to balance this easily 6-8 kg heavy cane on your toes while weaving, but you may be surprised it‘s not after you tried it once. It gives a totally new sensation of comfortability.
Spreading Width
The width of the warp is limited by the spreading of the weaver’s legs, but with some exercise and fitting circumstances you may reach 1,20 m of width. Any kind of garment can be produced by this loom, not just light cloth lacking density. You may weave a heavy denim, no probs! Even silk works out; you may wonder, but first silkwork of the world is done by these bamboo loin looms.
The world of the basic silkworm is the bamboo and works have been realized by these simple bamboo looms, you won‘t believe! We may also think the size of the cane is just a functional thing to get distance between the upper and the lower warp, and to build a small triangular-shaped leading of the warp, but that‘s just the pragmatical part of this „stoneage artwork“:
Another part is a sculptural thing of expression, initializing the museal presentation of their cultural artifacts. So this kind of foot loom is not just practical & mobile thing, but a cultural beauty on top.
And again we use one of our Karen-style warps, so it‘s not authentic on this ethnic loom, demonstrating that in many, if not most cases, the warp can be transferred from one loom to an other. That's a great thing with loin looms!
All events at Sunday afterLOOM!
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