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Fringed Belts on Wide Hips

© Ann Garner

We moderns, who go dressed in textiles almost constantly, consider fringes as decoration to be added to a garment or household furnishing, not as a serviceable piece of textile work. But the oldest fragments of textiles are simply strings from fringes and tassels from the Stone Age. Because archeologists have discovered statues that show how these fringes were worn by fertility goddesses, we know how the fringed belts were worn. We can also see that they were not used as basic modern clothing is used: to cover the more private parts of human anatomy. On these figures of fertile females, the fringes hung from a belt, the longer fringes hanging over the buttocks of the females in an apron effect. The Stone Age figures were clad only with the fringed belt with a backwards apron, seemingly unconcerned about their otherwise nude condition.

The question of why fringes then come to mind. Why the association with fertility? And why did the fertile females wear the fringes not to cover their frontal nudity but wore their aprons "backwards?" I offer my own possible answers to these questions below:

Why Fringes?

At that early stage of human technology, textiles consisted of strings that were simply tied together. The loom had not been invented so cloth as we know it -- a network of threads crossing each other at right angles -- could not be made. The inspiration for humans beginning to spin wool fiber into strings probably came from sheep. As a wild sheep's wool coat begins to shed and be replaced, the animal often rubs back and forth on low branches of trees. The back and forth motion causes the wool to be spun into strong yarn. During a shedding season , yards and yards of naturally spun yarn can be gathered from a thicket where the sheep spent time. Even my domestic sheep leave the lower branches of my shrubs and trees garlanded with this kind of yarn. Since they are of a breed which does not naturally shed fleece -- rather they are sheared for the wool -- they leave far less of the heavy yarn on the trees than would a large herd of wild sheep.

Humans who lived in the area where such yarn had been deposited could then gather the strings, tie them together and use them as lacings for hide garments or actually make them into belts with fringes, nets, rope and any other kind of textile goods that could be made by tying knots. The fringed belts actually somewhat resemble a partial grass skirt.

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