Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1902-05-17
THE PANAMA HAT.
To Weave n Good One Requires Six
Months of Work.

The Panama hat was extremely pop
ular last summer, but this summer IL
will be more popular still. Women, as
Wen as men, are going to wear 1t, anu
the dealers, though their stocks are
large, expect to run out, as they did In
1901. before the season shall be over.
The cause of the popularity Of the
Panama hat hes in the beauty or the
shape in which, after 200 years. 1t has
at last come to be made. For these
hats, for 200 and maybe for 300 or 400
years, have been made by the Indians
of South America; but they were all
woven, up to 1900, upon round blocks,
and they had a form that was unendur-
able save to old men-a circular form,
with crease, like the crease In a pair
Of trousers, running through the centre
of the crown.
But in 1897 an ingenious dealer In
Guayaquil, the shipping point of Ecua-
dor, had a few dozen hats woven In
what is termed the Fedora or Alpine
or tourist shape. These he sent to Lon
don, and one of them he presented to
the Prince of Wales. Their success was
instantaneous and overwhelming. They
sold at a tremendous figure. And two
of them were brought to Philadelphia,
one by John L. Conaway, the other by
Barchlay Warburton, and here, too,
they had an instantaneous and over
whelming success, and the dealers were
besought vainly by their patrons to
procure a stock Of them, but this 1t
was Impossible at first to do.
fanama hats are made by old men,
women and little children in the inte-
rior Of Ecuador-whence the best come
and of Colombia, and Of Peru. They
are woven Of the leaves Of the screw
palm, which the Indians call the jipi-
japa (pronouncing it hippyhappa) and
which naturalists call the carludovlca
palmata. OF this palm Charles Rich
ards Dodge, the United States govern
ment expert upon f1bres says: 1T Is
stemless species, common in shady
places all over Panama and along the
coast of New Granada and Ecuador
The leaves, plated like a fan, are borne
on three cornered stalks, six to four
teen feet high. They are about four
feet in diameter and deeply cut into
four or five divisions, each Of which Is
again cut. The leaves are gathered
while young and stiff. and the parallel
veins are removed, after which they
are split into shreds; but not separated
at the stalk end, and immersed in boil
ing water for a short time and bleach
ed in the sum-"
These fibres which are half-inch in
width and yard in length. are rolled
by the weavers from either edge. They
thus become each a yard-long straw,
round, with two little circles showing
on the under side. They are then
pressed out fiat. and are ready for the
processes Of weaving. They are rolled
in that peculiar way in order that they
may have no raw edge.
The Indian weavers can work by
natural light during only the first hour
Of daybreak and the last hour Of twi-
light Though the rest of the day the
sun is so warm and the air so dry that
the fibreS of the palm become brittle
and break in the weaving. But at dawn
and at twilight the air is sufficiently
moist to permit of the making Of hats
of an ordinary fineness. though the
extremely fine ones-those that cost
from s1O0 up-are never worked on
save by candle light.
The 1ndians-old men, women, boys
and girls-sit on the ground before their
little houses to work. the hat block, a
wooden sphere. between their knees.
Their straw is pliable, and every mo-
ment they dip it in water. They begin
to weave from the centre Of the crown,
and their little circular beginning,
which is the size of a 10-cent piece, is
ca.led the button. BY this button an
expert can tell where a hat was made
for the Panama of Ecuador has but
ton of one shape, that of Colombia an
other, that of Peru another, and those
of Jamaica and Of France another still.
a hat of the very finest quality
takes six months in the weaving; its
texture is like damask, ard its fibres
are as delicate as threads of linen. A
straw broken, knot obtruding on the
pattern decreases the value of this hat
from so to 10 per cent. Hence the care
the natives use may be imagined.
Woven from end to end by hand,
Panama hats cannot be made save by
those born and bred to the art. The
little children down there are set to