Page:Castes and Tribes of Southern India, Volume 6.djvu/318

SALE reaching as high as their hips, and, as they pass, they unwind the thread from the spindle by means of the wand, and pass it over each alternate upright. The threads, thus separated, are subsequently lifted with their bamboo uprights from the ground, and, while extended from tree to tree in a horizontal position, are washed with rice-water, and carefully brushed. The threads are now ready to be made into cloth, and the actual weaving is carried on by means of primitive hand looms inside the houses." Weavers, like many other classes in Southern India, are eminently conservative. Even so trifling an innovation as the introduction of a new arrangement for maintaining tension in the warp during the process of weaving gave rise a short time ago to a temporary strike among the hand-loom weavers at the Madras School of Arts. For the following note on the weaving industry, I am indebted to Mr. A. Chatterton. "The hand-weavers may be divided into two great classes — (1) plain weavers, who weave cloths or fabrics with a single shuttle, which carries the weft from selvage to selvage; (2) bordered cloth weavers, who weave cloths in which the threads of the weft of the portion of the fabric forming the borders are distinct from the threads of the weft of the main body of the cloth. To manufacture these cloths, three shuttles are employed, and as yet no successful attempt has been made to imitate them on the power loom. The bordered cloth weavers do not suffer from the direct competition of machine-made piece-goods, and the depression in their branch of the industry is due to changes in the tastes of the people.* In the