King, Mary Elizabeth 1983 (Sprang in the Paracas
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61 I first met Anne Blinks 30 years ago, in the early '50's, in Washington, D. C. The Blinkses were residing temporarily in Washington, and Anne came to the Textile Museum to find something to occupy her time. I was then a young Museum Assistant. Irene Emery, who had only recently been hired as Curator of Technical Studies, immediately seized upon Anne's offer of her time and skills and set her to weaving examples of fabric structures. Irene's "samples" were all woven with the same weight and ply of white string (although I seem to recall a problem in getting what she wanted) and to the same size. They were then painstakingly lit and photographed to provide the illustrations for her Primary Structures of Fabrics (1966). I have no idea how many of the illustrations were woven by Irene herself and how many by Anne, but I do remember Anne toiling over the loom in what was then the museum library. Anne was always fascinated by odd techniques, and I also remember her struggles with a vantsom mitten and her interest in sprang. Irene shared her interests, which led to many lively technical discussions. In the "acknowl edgements" portion of Primary Structures, Irene gave "Special thanks . .. to Mrs. Anne Blinks, who took an enthusiastic and active part in several ~ aspects of the investigation . ... " (1966:xiv). Sprang was something that interested all of us, and later, when I was working on my dissertation, Textiles and Basketry of the Paracas Period, lea Valley, Peru (1965), we set up a sprang frame, of sorts, in Irene's office. Some of the Peruvian sprang, notably that from Nazca, is extremely complicated, being double oblique twining! In my spare time, I would play with the sprang frame, trying to achieve this wonder. One day I succeeded! The only problem was that I didn 't know how I had done it, and I could never do it again. Fortunately, Peter Collingwood (1974:202ff and PI.43) has since worked it out and gives detailed instructions. This article, then, is for Anne, on her 80th birthday, with love and admiration. Portions of this article are abstracted from my dissertation (King, 1965). SPRANG IN THE PARACAS PERIOD OF PERU BY MARY ELIZABETH KING Sprang is a fabric consisting of a single set of elements. In the manufactur ing process, these elements are fixed at both ends to a frame. In his work, The Techniques of Sprang, Peter Collingwood (1974:31 ) notes, "As an inevitable result of the warp being fixed at both ends, corresponding but contrary move ments of the threads appear simultaneously at its other end." Sprang can also be done on a circular warp. Working from the center, the fabric builds from ~ both ends toward the middle. While the work is in progress, the elements are held in place by a series of sticks. The fabric produced is often lace-like open work, but it can also be compact and braid-like. A characteristic of sprang is the finish line or "meeting" line which usually consists of a chained row at the center designed to hold the elements in place. Occasionally, the fabric is cut at this point and knotted. 62 The word, sprang, is Scandinavian. According to Collingwood (1973:34 ), sprangning "... originally meant any openwork textile." Sprang is now used, in Scandinavia, to refer to the processes Emery (1966:69) calls "frame inter linking", "oblique frame interlacing", and "oblique frame twining". It tends also to be used in English for the fabric itself, for which the correct term would be sprangning. I will use sprang as a collective term for these frame-made structures and use Emery's terms for the individual techniques. In any case, sprang, especially the form Emery calls frame interlinking, appears to have a long known history, with a series of dates in the first millennium B.C. in both the Old and New Worlds. Unfortunately, unless the "meeting" or finish line is present, sprang cannot be distinguished from ordinary interlinking, oblique interlacing (braiding or plaiting), or oblique I twining. Interlinking and oblique interlacing both appear very early in most areas, but they certainly cannot be definitely said to be sprang. The origins of sprang are, of course, lost to us. Since textiles are so very perishable, it is unlikely that we will find many examples earlier than those we now have THE dating from about 8000 B.C. in both Old and New Worlds. In neither case is SOUTH sprang one of these earliest known techniques. (OAIY Since a frame is necessary for the production of sprang, it probably cannot OF be counted among the earliest techniques known to man. These are almost PERU certainly those that require no tools or apparatus other than human hands and perhaps something, such as a tree or bush, to which to tie a suspension cord. Once the concept of a knotted cord was mastered, the way was paved for more complicated structures. The single element techniques -linking, looping, and ., knotted netting - must almost certainly be the earliest, perhaps together with C~,nc~ . 0 those techniques made with a single set of elements, such as interlinking, oblique interlacing and oblique twining. Although the case cannot, of course, be proven, two-single-element constructions, such as looping and linking on foundation cords, may precede the two-sets-of-interactive element techniques such as twining. Once a frame is required, sprang would easily proceed from known set-of-element techniques. Thus one might expect it to follow closely ~~~ on the advent of twining. , ;.,',."'''''',.. ., The earliest known examples of interlinking definitely made on a frame are from the Danish Bronze age (ca. 1400 B.C . ) and consist of a cap and a hairnet. , ~~ .. There are also European Iron Age examples, and later, Coptic examples from ,. C.. oQ ..... "IIO Egypt. Most, if not all, of these early pieces are hairnets, caps or bags. More +.. ""., recent historic European examples also include stockings, mittens, collars, cuffs, belts and sashes, garters, carrying bands, borders, and even skirts and ·, jackets (Collingwood 1974:37ff). - · " ' ,o,o ".,~ In the New World, the earliest certain examples of sprang are from the Middle Paracas period (ca. 200-100 B.C.) of the South Coast of Peru, Engel " " ~" (1963:38) has claimed to have examples of sprang from the late Preceramic Central Coast site of Asia (ca. 1100 B.C. ) in Peru. He does not, however, seem to understand the technique, and some of his technical identifications are highly dubious. He states that cylindrical bags, with a starting point in the bottom center, are sprang, though they are probably cross-knit looping, One example has an interlinked rim. Other pieces (for example, Engel, 1963: Figs . 64, 65, 87) could be sprang, but neither in his illustrations nor descriptions is a finish line indicated. His description of sprang is as follows: "In loom-plaiting, sets of yarns are plaited together according to the desired pattern" (Engel, Figure 1. The South Coast of Peru, 1963:38). showing location of sites. (after Wallace (1962 and 1982 personal communications) found one example of Sawyer, 1966). sprang at the South Coast site of Cerillos, not in his earliest levels, but in the La Isla (ca . 500-300 B.C.), or early Paracas, level. This may be the earliest known example in the New World. It has a simple geometric design in inter linking. The center finish line is present. Although it is possible that the use of sprang dates to the Preceramic period, it might also have arisen in the Chavin period from a base of Pre ceramic interlinking. 63 Examination of Engel's materials by a textile specialist should prove the point. Sprang has been well known from Paracas since the early 1930's. O'Neale(1937:197 and 1942:161-162) described two "headdresses" from Paracas Caverns as "twined" and of "orange wool". She did not illustrate these headdresses in full, but she included sketches of the design of one, interlocking snakes and fish motifs (MN 8430; Fig. 11 ), and of the technique (MN 8430; Fig. 10). They are clearly of oblique interlinking rather than twining. D'Harcourt also illustrates MN 8430 (1962:PI. b ) and describes it as " .. plaited of brown wool in accordance with the technique by which the yarns are fastened at their ends and twisted together" (1962:161). I have notes on a sprang fragment in the collections of the Museo Nacional de Antropologia in Lima (MNAA13!l52), which is of gold-tan wooL but it was too fragmentary to determine its shape or function. It was also, however, from the Paracas Caverns. The original site of Paracas, from which the above pieces came, is located on the neck of the Paracas Peninsula, on the South Coast of Peru (Fig. 1). Julio C. Tello, who began to excavate the site in 1925, found two types of graves. On the basis of these, he established a Paracas culture, which he divided into Paracas Cavernas and Paracas Necropolis. The former produced a wide variety of techniques, while the latter is known chiefly for its elaborately embroidered garments. The textiles were found wrapped around seated bodies in "mummy bundles". There is a time difference between these two Paracas phases. Cavernas is now considered to be Middle Paracas (ca. 200 B.c.-100 B.C., or Ocucaje 9); while Necropolis is late Paracas (ca. 100 B.C.-A.D . 1, or Ocucaje 10 and Nazca 1). Other Paracas phases and sites have since been identified. One of them, the site of Ocucaje, on the Hacienda Ocucaje about 25 km south of the city of lea, was first visited by Max Uhle in 1901 (Uhle, 1914).