Part 3 (2/2)

This fragmentary net has one notably unique feature. Feathers, presumably decorative, were caught, not in the knots themselves, but between them (fig. 7). The knot used is identical to the ”marline spike hitch” described by Graumont and Hensel (1946, p. 69; fig. 101; pl. 29).

This type of knot--more properly called a hitch--has not been reported elsewhere among the methods of attaching feathers. As can be seen in the reconstruction, the feather serves to hold the hitch, yet if the cord were to be pulled tightly around it, the feather could be removed only with difficulty. It remains puzzling that the carrying net, rather than the hairnets, should be so decorated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 7. Detail showing insertion of feathers in hitches of carrying net.]

Turning to other archaeological examples of nets from the peninsula, we learn that specimens of square-knot netting have been found to the south in the central region from Mulege to Comondu. Caves to the west of Mulege have yielded two fragments of square-knot netting (Ma.s.sey, MS 2). Other examples derive from Caguama and Metate caves between Comondu and Loreto. In Metate Cave there was a single complete carrying net (Ma.s.sey and Tuohy, MS). Elsewhere on the peninsula little is known of them except for the southern Cape Region, where netting was in the distinct technique of lark's-head knotting (Ma.s.sey, MS 1).

On the ethnographic level, carrying nets were widely used by Indians of western North America from Canada to Mexico, and again in Central America. As part of this general distribution they were used throughout the peninsula (Driver and Ma.s.sey, 1957, pp. 274, 276, map 78).

Among the Lower Californians nets were used for carrying suitable gathered products, and also, in the central part of the peninsula at least, for carrying infants. For the latter purpose two portage methods were in vogue: the net was suspended over the shoulders from a tump band across the forehead; or from the end of a pole held by one hand across the shoulder, as a ”bindle.”

_Feathered ”Ap.r.o.n” or ”Cape”_

Even though this piece (139535b; pl. 17, _a_) is extremely fragmentary, it is one of the more interesting of the perishable artifacts. At present it measures about 25 cm. by 17.5 cm. Many of the tying cords and feathers have disappeared or are incomplete. The original bundles of bast fiber actually were probably little longer than in this fragment.

The method of making the article has been reconstructed as follows. The heavy ”waist belt” cord is a bundle of unspun fibers and spun cord, 1.5 cm. in diameter. The origin of the spun cord is lost in the ma.s.s of material; it is probable that the cord itself was held by the wrapping cords from the bark units. The hanging bundles of shredded bark were doubled over this ”waist belt” and wrapped with unspun fibers to make a rigid, tightly closed bundle. These fibers hold the feathers, which may once have covered the bundles completely for, on some, the wrapping covers the entire length. The length of these bundles varies from 13 to 17.5 cm. These bundles are held in place on the heavy cord by a wrapping cord of 2-ply Z-twisted agave, which frequently appears to cross the bundles and the heavy cord in a haphazard manner; feathers are wrapped onto the heavy cord by this means. Although now there is considerable rigidity introduced into the fibers by dirt, the ma.s.s of ties always prevented this from being a softly hanging piece.

To date no like specimens are known from the archaeology of the peninsula. We know of no similar articles in historic times in Baja California, nor to the north in southern California.

_Human Hair ”Cape”_

The human hair ”cape” from the Palmer Collection (139539; also 139538, 139550) is fragmentary, but sufficiently intact to provide complete information on the technique of its construction and manufacture (pl.

17, _b_).

The hanks of human hair forming this garment are from 12.7 cm. to 27.5 cm. long with the majority falling in midrange. The hanks are about 6 mm. in diameter. Primarily, each bundle of hanks was held together by a light wrapping of single agave (?) fibers and some such adhesive material as pitch. In addition, these bundles are secondarily secured with fine 2-ply cord, which is 1 mm. in diameter, with a hard Z-twist.

This fine cord also serves to tie each bundle to the main cord of suspension.

The bundles of hair were held together by the same tie-twining as in the matting (fig. 2). There is an overhand knot between each of the bundles.

The twining cord itself is 2-ply, Z-twisted in a loose twist. This method served to fasten the bundles to the cord, s.p.a.ce them, and to hold them closely. This tying consists of a basic cord and a wrapping cord. A third cord, which formed the wrapping of the individual bundles, is carried to the basic cord, wrapped around it, and in turn is wrapped by the whipping cord. This wrapping is not accomplished neatly; the garment--for all of this cord wrapping--is not a very strongly constructed article.

In the Palmer Collection there are broken hanks of human hair, undoubtedly parts of this specimen, which are catalogued separately (139538). Among these is a string of _Olivella_ beads strung on 2-ply cord, and wrapped in with the tying cord of a hair bundle. Thus sh.e.l.l beads were probably part of the original garment. Other tied hanks of human hair (139550) were undoubtedly parts of the specimen.

There is no single item of native culture of Baja California so diagnostic or characteristic as mantles of human hair used by shamans.

Few European chroniclers who had a chance to observe them failed to mention this article. However, none have appeared in any other reported archaeological excavations on the peninsula.

As part of the paraphernalia of the shaman, the cape or mask of human hair was indispensable from the Guaicura north to the Kiliwa and Western Diegueno. In all recorded cases the hair was obtained from relatives mourning the death of a recently deceased member of the family or from the dead themselves. Construction of the garments must have been in the hands of the shamans themselves, so secret were most aspects of the medicine-man's lore.

Although the cultural and tribal identification of masks or capes of human hair with the shaman is general for the Peninsular Yumans (Cochimi), such capes were found as far south as the Guaicura in historic times (Baegert, 1942, p. 123). Both of the major sources for the historic ethnography of the Yuman-speaking peoples of central Baja California attest to the use of this device by native medicine-men (Venegas, 1944, I:95-96, 100; Clavigero, 1937, p. 114). For the area nearest Bahia de Los Angeles, the best description of the use of these garments is that of the 18th-century Dominican, Father Luis Sales, who speaks of the capes as follows (1794, pp. 76-77):

When all are gathered, ornamented with charcoal and yellow, the old man places himself in the center of the circle. Under his arm he has a doubled mat of rushes in which he hides the rain cape from the _fiesta_.[5] On another little stick he has the hair of the dead man suspended. He indicates silence, puts on the rain cape of the hair of the dead, and causes as much horror as when a bear appears. He plays a whistle and tells them that the dead man is coming; but, however much they look, they do not see him coming. Nevertheless they believe it. Then he shows them the little stick with the hair of the dead man, and tells them that he is there, that they see him--and they see nothing. However they give cries, they pull their hair, and make other ridiculous actions. Finally, relieved by crying, the old man comforts them. He puts a thousand questions to the head of hair, and he himself answers them to his liking.

[5] Sales, 1794. p. 69. In this, his first reference to the cape of human hair in use at another ceremony, Sales says, ”The old man makes something like a rain cape from the hair of the dead.”

This 18th-century description of Indians to the north of Bahia de Los Angeles, on the Frontera, has its exact counterpart in a 20th-century description of the niwey (”Talking with the Dead”) Ceremony of the Kiliwa (Meigs, 1939, pp. 50-57).

_Tump Band_

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