I can't help
wondering if finger braiding is not such a basic technique, that it could
have been invented in more than one World area at the same time, like
weaving.
I have no knowledge of the history of finger braiding, but there has been for many years in Canada a similar discussion on the techniques of fingerweaving. As no serious historical study was done when European culture hit the native cultures, we have no definitive information, but it is interesting that in the same area you find a history of fingerwoven sashes (ceintures flechees) both in the native tradition and in the French tradition. Some historians say the French brought fingerweaving to the area and that it was not done by the natives before they absorbed the technique from the French; others say both cultures had developed the same tradition on their own and that the native people started fingerweaving using French sash designs due to market forces, as they could sell them or trade them more easily. It sounds like a similar thing could have happened with the Chinese/Pakistani/Moroccan example you give.
My next thought was, is finger braiding the fore-runner of plaited, i.e. bobbin-lace? There may have come a time when there were simply not enough fingers for the number of threads needed, or weighted bobbins may have been easier to work than finger loops.
There are so many different ways to work with the hands and with simple tools to create braids and cords that I find it hard to think that any one of them, by itself, would be *the* fore-runner of plaited lace. And, plaiting is a simpler technique than looped finger-braiding, so I would think it more likely that plaiting came first before they thought of using loops.
Just my 2 cents
Adele, who has torn herself away from "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" just long enough to answer her emails...
North Vancouver, BC
(west coast of Canada)
- To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
