Frame For Weaving Broad Belts
name: label: Collector
content: Henry R. Schoolcraft
label: Donor Name
content: Accession Number Unknown
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "(ORIGINAL OBJECT) NAME: FRAME FOR WEAVING BROAD BELTS*. (IN REMARKS, ITS IDENTIFICATION HAS BEEN UPDATED AS:) *A HOLE-AND-SLOT HEDDLE. ILLUS. IN USNM REPT., 1899; FIG. 1, P.488, WHERE IT IS A "CHIPPEWA HEDDLE FRAME," COLLECTED BY HENRY R. SCHOOLCRAFT. IN SCHOOLCRAFT'S "INDIAN TRIBES OF THE U.S.", PART 2, 1851, PLATE 77, FIG. 8 IS A SKETCH OF THE SAME HEDDLE. PAGES 515-516 MENTION IT. IT WAS CATALOGUED IN THE OLD (LEDGER) BOOKS AS PART OF THE WILKES COLLECTION. HOWEVER, THE ORIG. WILKES CATALOGUE LISTS NO FRAMES FOR WEAVING HAVING BEEN COLLECTED BY THE EXPEDITION. THIS LISTING HANDWRITTEN IN OLD CAT. BOOK, IS AT THE END OF A SERIES OF SPECIMENS FROM THE WILKES COLLECTIONS, FOLLOWED BY SOME WAR DEPARTMENT SPECIMENS. FOR TYPOLOGY SEE: STURTEVANT, "THE HOLE AND SLOT HEDDLE," IN: "ETHNOGRAPHIC TEXTILES OF THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE," I. EMERY & P. FISKE (EDS.), 1976 PROCEEDINGS OF THE TEXTILE MUSEUM,(SEPT., 1978) WASHINGTON, D.C. P. 325-355. BGS/1979." As indicated above, Otis T. Mason published the heddle in Fig. 1, p. 488 of the USNM Annual Report for 1899. He identified it there as having been collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and on pp. 489-90 commented on it: "The very object described by Mr. Schoolcraft was in the possession of the United States Government before the U.S. National Museum was founded ...; but there is on the specimen and in the catalogues no allusion to the distinguished ethnologist and none to the function of the apparatus. It is carved from a single block of beech wood one-eigth of an inch thick. The upper margin is rounded and cut into patterns as with a jig saw, representing two animals, two hearts, and a symmetrical pattern in the middle. The lower margin is treated in the same way, only the designs are such as might be seen on old-fashioned furniture, The working part of this apparatus is the rectangular space constituting the middle portion. There are thirty-seven upright healds or 'heddle dents; and thirty-eight spaces. The healds are not inserted into the wooden frame, but are a part of it, and are about the twenty-fourth of an inch in thickness, the material having been cut away on both sides so as to leave these as thin as safety would allow. Each heald or upright piece is wider in the center than at the ends and is there perforated with a small hole. The whole frame is just 7 1/2 inches wide and the healds about 3 inches in length. ... The healds and spaces, together seventy-five in number, make provision for seventy-five warp threads in all."
label: Notes
content: As noted in the catalogue card, the donor of the piece is uncertain, coming at the end of a section of Wilkes/U.S. Exploring Expedition material and at the beginning of a section of War Department material in the Anthropology catalogue ledger book. Jane Walsh, who has researched the Wilkes/U.S. Exploring Expedition collection extensively, does not consider this object to be part of the Wilkes/U.S. Exploring Expedition collection. Otis T. Mason identified it as collected by Henry R. Schoolcraft (whose first wife, Jane Johnston Schoolcraft (1800-1842), was half Chippewa). Schoolcraft did indeed publish it, but made no mention of its provenance in his book. Note also that Schoolcraft published illustrations of U.S. Exploring Expedition and War Department objects in the same book where he published the heddle. E3649, another weaving implement, is identified in Anthropology records as from the War Department collection, therefore it may be speculated that E3648 might also be from the War Department collection?
label: Record Last Modified
content: 30 Jul 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: United States / Canada, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Chippewa (Ojibwe, Anishinaabe)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 000000
label: USNM Number
content: E3648-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Heddle