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Native American Cordage Technology - Page 3

© Tara Prindle

Use two small bunches of fibers that are of different length. Hold the ends of two strands of fibers in your left hand. Drape their other ends over your right thigh. Roll the strands down your thigh using the palm and thumb of your right hand so that the strands 'S.' twist up. At the end of this roll, release the hold of your left hand on the fibers and allow the strands to 'Z.' twist in the opposite direction. Sometimes a quick reverse roll of the left hand on the twisted cord will help to tighten the ply. I find that this back roll tends to tangle the loose lengths of fibers.

Thr Key to makin even cordage is to continually splice in a new strand of fiber every couple of inches, well before the existing strands start to run short. Splice in a length of fiber by laying the new piece along the shorter of the two original strands. Twist the new and original fiber together as one strand and continue rolling the cordage. Do not attempt to splice the butt end of added nber with the butt end of an original strand. Even Even if you can manage to ply two butt ends together this makes a very weak area in the cord. Each ffme a new piece is splked in, leave an inch or so of the new fiber projecting from the plied cord, these can be trimmed off when Use cord is finished..

C-1994-1999 Tara Prindle.

You can see a great series of instructional gifs or a short film on Native Cord making at: http://www.nativetech.org/cordage/index....

as well as other Native American fiber tech at: http://www.nativetech.org

Tara tprindle@nativetech.org

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