Preservation of Traditional Pacific Loom Weaving

“Loom is a solution for saving traditional Pacific island weaving from extinction”

McClure, Joyce, Pacific Island Times, February 1, 2022, pages 31-32

When the young women of Yap’s remote outer islands leave home to seek a college education, better work opportunities or medical care on the U.S. mainland, the risk of leaving their cultural traditions behind is very real.

The art of traditional weaving is among the most important.

Weaving has been passed down from mother to daughter for centuries on the small islands and atolls of Yap, one of four island states in the Federated States of Micronesia, originally known as the Caroline Islands. Scattered across 100,000 square miles of open water in the western Pacific Ocean, Yap is made up of four contiguous main islands and 134 atolls and islands of which 19 are inhabited.

One commonality among the outer islanders is the oblong length of handwoven, fringed fabric called a lavalava that the women wear as a wrap-around skirt when they reach maturity.

Woven on a handmade backstrap loom out of indigenous wood and bamboo, the young girls begin learning to make the striped cloth by watching their mothers, aunts, sisters and cousins at work. Originally woven of dried hibiscus leaves, today, spools of imported commercial thread are more commonly used.

But the art of weaving is in danger of being lost forever due to the loosened ties between the old and new generations as the younger women leave their island home.

However, that isn’t the only reason the art is being lost to time.

The backstrap looms, many of them heirlooms, are left behind when the young women leave their home islands due to its weight and size.

Once in the United States, the young women often live near older women from the islands who have weaving expertise, but also lack looms.

“It’s at this point that the link in the transmission of weaving skills is fatally severed,” said Neil Mellen, founder of Habele, a South Carolina-based nonprofit established by former Peace Corps volunteers who served in Micronesia.

Working with the “Remathau”, or Outer Islanders, of Yap, Habele is finding solutions to this loss of ancient skills and knowledge.

To help “sustain the tradition among migrants in the mainland U.S.,” Habele created and launched the online resource, WeavingConnections.org, in February 2021. Designed to provide a do-it-yourself guide, it focuses on serving Outer Island Yapese in their native language, who live within the mainland U.S.

The site provides context about the lavalava and the cultural tradition in which it is situated; but most importantly, it provides well-researched details about the parts of the loom and simple do-it-yourself instructions showing how to build one from materials available in the U.S.

While weaving is a daily necessity for the women in these ancient island cultures, making the loom is a man’s responsibility. Men learn woodcarving from boyhood in order to make the outrigger canoes used to sail from island to island. This knowledge extends to making the looms and other wooden items from native materials.

A master weaver from the island of Fais, Regina Raigetal, and her husband, Larry, a master carver and navigator from the atoll of Lamotrek, traveled to Habele’s office in Columbia, South Carolina, to serve as project leads. In partnership with weavers, craftsmen, women’s and community-based organizations in the Pacific region, and with U.S.-based anthropologists, “simple, actionable, accurate guides were created.”

Research resulted in a thorough analysis “of the limited number of references to the design and use of the region’s backstrap looms” in academic studies, books, and online museum and archive collections. Most contained brief mentions of the social and cultural significance of the lavalavas within longer articles about the arts and crafts of the Pacific islands; but only a handful mentioned the loom in any depth, and none addressed the materials and tools needed to make them, or their use in the weaving process.

Photographs, drawings, and videos were obtained from Yapese weavers and those who have moved to other FSM islands, Guam and Hawaii, and Peace Corps volunteers who once served in Yap.

Collectors and anthropologists were also contacted for information to help identify place-based differences between the construction of the loom frames and warping boards used on the islands of Ulithi, Woleai and Satawal. Most notable were the variations in the warping board pegs that dictate the design patterns.

Finally, a scale model and a full-size model of a warping board and a framed loom were constructed.

Regina Raigetal was joined by a former Peace Corps volunteer experienced in both Carolinian and Western-style weaving, to begin testing the prototypes.

Adjustments took into account the weavers’ preferences, including ease of transportation and storage since many of the weavers needed to have their boards and frames made by Habele and its volunteers, or off-site relatives, and then shipped to them. They often experience cramped living spaces and periodic relocations, as well, making compactness and transportability essential.

The 15 tools used in the weaving process were also acquired, crafted, or assembled to pinpoint the practical purpose of each item and the material it was made from. The objective was to determine “how, and if, substitutions or alterations could be made that would not impair, and possibly improve,” the process.

Recommendations were provided for the purchase, fabrication, or substitution for all but one of the tools – the beater or weaving sword, called the “hapop” in both Ulithian and Woleaian.

Traditionally made from hardwoods that provide the weight needed to create the warp-faced fabric, while maintaining a sufficiently sharp edge, ironwood, known to the islanders as “weighu”, is the common choice.

While the sword can be made of store-bought hardwoods like oak on the mainland, they lack the weight and density the weavers need. The only woods commonly found in North America that approach the hardness of ironwood are black ironwood, desert ironwood and mountain mahogany, but these are either cost- or shape-prohibitive. Woods from the Caribbean are also being tested as possible alternatives.

“That being the case,” Mellen said, “we are not able to provide much practical guidance to weavers in the U.S. who need a sword.”

Directions on WeavingConnections.org suggest that those who lack the tool should “look to friends and relatives back home to send them a hapop or contact Habele for help.” Making a hapop from live oak is also suggested.

Another challenge arose when requests were posted on the Facebook page from women saying they “would have a difficult time finding a male relative” to build the items, even with detailed instructions. Single women or women living in groups with children, but without adult men in the household, noted the challenge of building one.

“In response to those weavers who are unable to build one, or have one built, we are constructing warping boards, loom frames, and weaving tools based on the designs on WeavingConnections.org,” Mellen said.

The organization is also continuing to update the design guides “to reflect feedback received, lessons learned, and improvements, and examine and experiment with possible solutions to the challenges of procuring, crafting, or developing a sufficient substitute for the hapop,” he added.

Planning is now focused on supporting mentors in the U.S. who can teach the traditional weaving skills to younger Micronesian migrants and their daughters.

Micronesian Looms: Weaving Connections in the US (5)

This is the fifth in a series of posts dealing with Weaving Connections, a project of Habele to sustain and preserve Micronesian backstrap weaving traditions among Island populations who’ve migrated to the United States mainland. More here.

Creation of Website Content

The WeavingConnections.org domain was purchased and a draft website laid out. The site was designed to offer general context on the culture of weaving within the FAS, firsthand insights to the importance women placed on weaving, a detailed accounting of all the relevant equipment and weaving tools, as well as simple, photo-based instructions for the fabrication of these items.

Based on suggestions from weavers within the US mainland, the site would also include information guiding weavers to vendors that offer the correct thread for this style of weaving. Photographs were again solicited from former Peace Corps, collectors, and anthropologists to compliment some of the more contemporary graphics with historical ones.

Launch of Website

WeavingConnections.org was launched in a beta form in December of 2020. Access was limited to a core group of contributors and participants who provided feedback, identified shortcomings, and developed revisions.

Publication and Communications Outreach

WeavingConnections.org was officially launched in February of 2021. Earned, shared, and sponsored content on social media were used to raise awareness and drive initial traffic. These included posts of participants and contributors weaving, wearing Weaving Connections t-shirts, and/or showcasing warping boards, looms, and weaving tools either provided by Habele or made with Habele’s fabrication guides. In addition to efforts through social media, content was developed and distributed through the Habele blog as well as the K-Press newspaper.

Unanticipated Needs and Challenges

-Propriety of Traditional Skills

With a few outspoken exceptions, weavers made clear their strong support for the development and proliferation of guides to create weaving materials and equipment while simultaneously expressing equally passionate reservation about the documentation, publication, and distribution of guides to the practices of weaving.

The insightful analogy made by one weaver was that the warping board, frame loom, and weaving tools constituted the “hardware” upon which all weaving is based, and which must be available to as many actual and prospective weavers as possible. However, the practical applied skills of using this hardware to weave in the uniquely Remathau ways, the proverbial “software,” was not something weavers felt was appropriate to document and distribute.

While the context, concerns, and motivations are nuanced, broadly the reservation is founded on: 1. a concern that non-Remathau individuals would begin to practice – and potentially profit from – this very specific and unique form of weaving; and 2. that the oral transmission and in-person mentoring that unites generations across familial, village and islands lines would be lost, rendering the preservation and sustainment of the weaving process culturally hollow.

Though an outspoken minority initially encouraged Habele to document and distribute guides to the weaving, the larger consensus was agreed that this was not prudent, despite the fact that Habele’s application for the TAP grant specifically articulated out initial intention to “…publish videos detailing key aspects of fabrication of loom and basics of assembly and usage to compliment published specifications.” It was this “usage” that our partners and clients requested we interpret to mean installation and setup of the equipment, rather than the processes of warping and weaving, which they were passing along in-person and through video chats but did not want Habele to record and publish.

-Need for Looms among single women, and residents of GU and HI

The project proposal envisioned development and publication of a design guide, premised on the understanding that while migrants on Guam and Hawaii lived in or near extended family groups and had access to looms, migrants in the mainland US were more dispersed, but living in nuclear families (including males) who could build the boards, looms, and tools.

As noted above, Habele received a high volume of requests from younger women in Guam and Hawaii who indicated there were no relative adult males in proximity who could build them a loom. Habele also received many requests from women of all ages in the US mainland who similarly sought looms, citing a lack of male relatives within driving distance who could assemble one. While Remathau women are eminently cable of fabricating loom frames and warp boards themselves -as was clearly demonstrated throughout this project in the prototyping phase- the participating women reported without exception strong desire to adhere to the traditional distribution of labor across gender lines for the building of weaving equipment.

Though the basic premise of publishing a simple design guide was clearly working, as evidenced by feedback posted online, emails, and social media messages, it has become clear that migrants in Guam and Hawaii face many of the same obstacles as migrants in the mainland United States to sustaining and preserving their weaving traditions.

-Balance of Ease to Build and Compactness

As noted above, there is an intrinsic tension between the design and fabrication of equipment that is simple and inexpensive and those designs which are easier to transport and store. Ease of transportation and storage remains an important priority because many would-be weavers have needed to have their boards and frames fabricated by Habele and its volunteers, or other off-site relatives, and then shipped to them. These women often experience cramped living spaces and periodic relocations, making compactness and transportability of looms and boards very desirable.

-Weaving Swords

Fifteen distinct weaving tools, or peripherals, are traditionally used in in Remathau weaving. Habele was able to provide practical guidance for the purchase, fabrication, or substitution of all but one of these tools.

A weaving sword is also known as a batten or beater. In both Ulithian and Woleaian it is called the hapop. In practice, it defines and extends the sheds to allow the shuttle to pass, and it is also used to tighten and beat weft as woven.

It is a single edge shaped wooden tool that averages three feet long, 2 ¼ inches wide, and ¾ inch thick on the flat edge. The sword must be at least several inches longer than the total width of the warp so that it extends outside of the warp during weaving. There is a subtle curvature to the top face when the sword lies flat.

Weaving swords are traditionally made from very hard woods, which is essential for having a sword of sufficient weight for creating the traditional warp-faced fabric, while maintaining a sufficiently sharp edge. Specifically, they are crafted of ironwood, the Casuarina litorea L, known locally to the Remathau as weighu.

While swords can be made of store-bought hardwoods, such as oak, these lack the weight and density weavers require. Oak sold at home improvement stores tends to be red oak (Quercus rubra). The densest form of oak, Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana), can be purchased in the US but is not often found commercially, and only rarely in boards of appropriate size.

The only woods commonly found in North America which truly approach the hardness of ironwood are Black Ironwood (Krugiodendron ferreum), Desert Ironwood (Olneya tesota) and Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus spp), but these are either cost or shape prohibitive.

This being the case, Habele is not able to provide much practical guidance to weavers in the mainland US, all of whom must have a sword to weave. The directions currently posted on WeavingConnections.org reflect this:

“…Remathau in the mainland US seeking a weaving sword should look to friends and relatives back home to send them a hapop or contact Habele for help. Alternatively, they may try to fabricate an ersatz sword using oak, but will need to use Live Oak, also called Southern Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) to ensure a sufficient density.”

This is the fifth in a series of posts dealing with Weaving Connections, a project of Habele to sustain and preserve Micronesian backstrap weaving traditions among Island populations who’ve migrated to the United States mainland. More here.