Page:The American Indian.djvu/89

Rh one must suspect some reactionary influence. Returning to our subject, it is clear that the loom and upward weaving is a development of the South, presumably the area of intense maize culture, and that from there it was diffused around the north coast of South America and down the east side. Also the spindle method of spinning is definitely associated with the loom, though in one instance its distribution is wider.



Space forbids going into details as to the quality of the product. From early accounts it appears that there was a remarkably high development in the Andean region. It seems that at the time of the Spanish Conquest the textile art was the chief social interest and that the whole governmental machinery was directed toward the encouragement of its production. Thus taxes, fines and tributes were levied in fine cloth. As to the qualities, we have not only the testimony of early observers, but in the desert burial grounds of Peru we have immense storehouses of prehistoric cloth preserved completely in the original forms and colors. Recent studies of