BY L. M. O'NEALE, E. BACON, C. W. GEMMER, R. V. HALL, I. W. JOHNSON, C. M. OSBORNE, M. B. ROSS ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Vol. 9, No. 2 ANTHROPOLOGICAL RECORDS Editors : E. W. Gifford , R. F. Heizer , R. H. Lowie , R. L. Olson Volume 9, No. 2, pp. 133-156, 1 map, 8 figures in text, plates 1-9 Submitted by editors March 8, 1948 Issued February, 1949 Price, 50 cents UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES CALIFORNIA CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON, ENGLAND MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED

The study presented here was one of a series planned by Professor Lila M. O'Neale, Associate Curator of Textiles in the Museum of Anthropology. The fundamental idea was to make use of the wealth of material in the collections of the Museum of Anthropology, particularly its pre-Columbian Peruvian textiles, as source material for study and analysis by advanced students. Professor O'Neale's sudden death on February 2, 1948, means that, although the paper was completed and in the hands of the Board

The Chincha collection, excavated in 1900 by Dr. Max Uhle during the Peruvian expedition financed by Mrs. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, is catalogued under two lot prefixes: 4- and 16-. Specimen numbers with the prefix 4- indicate that the precise provenience as to site and grave is known. The cloths in this lot have been previously analyzed and a preliminary report has been published. [1] The cloths in the 16- lot, as is explained in the report on the pottery, [2] did not identify perfectly with entr

Complete dimensions can be taken on eighteen Chincha specimens in lots 4- and 16-. As figures 1 and 2 show, these dimensions cluster around two sets of proportions: the eleven cloths represented in the diagram in figure 1 are squarish; the seven in figure 2 , with a length-to-width proportion of approximately two-to-three to one, are rectangular. Four of the squarish cloths are formed of two separately woven breadths of material. All the rectangular cloths are single breadths. Measurements of th

There are three times as many weavings with complete widths as with complete lengths; 60 as compared to 20. Clues to the wrappings or blankets of which these breadths were sections are frequently furnished by traces of stitchery and broken threads on the side selvages. As shown by table 2 and figure 3 , the five narrowest complete breadths (Group 1) are within a range of 4 to 12 inches. Narrow widths can be woven most rapidly on the backstrap loom. Complete breadths in Group 2 (18 specimens) fal

All yarns are initially spun as single plies. In the ancient Peruvian textiles, there are evidences of preferences for single-ply yarns or at least the use of them even in fabrics we should consider called for heavier elements. The Chincha domestic cloths are good examples. We made yarn analyses on half of the total number of cloths in the study. All but ten of the fifty-seven examined were woven with single-ply warp and weft elements and of these ten, only one coarse cloth had 2-ply warps and w

In general, the Chincha weavings are smooth and closely woven (pls. 3 , b , and 4 , b ). There appears to have been little or no interest in varying the textures by employing yarns of different weights, although the usual irregularities to be noted in lengths of hand-spun yarns are also evident in these. Counts taken on the warps and wefts per inch give a fair indication of the textures, but these are to a degree dependent upon the spinning. Figure 5. Scatter diagram of thread counts per inch. F

Any form of repair technique in Peruvian textiles is rare. Many of the materials show wear and occasionally coarse stitches are put through the cloth to draw the edges of a tear together; otherwise there is little to suggest concern with prolonging the life of a garment. In a series of Chincha domestic cloths there are eleven patched specimens but not one trace of reweaving as in darning techniques. Apparently the unusual number of mended cloths interested the collectors in the field for, althou

The only colored decoration on the Chincha domestic cloths is in the form of stripes. This section presents an analysis of the types found on thirty-odd specimens. Stripes in this sample group either border the edge of the cloth or make an allover pattern. With the exception of four cloths, the stripes are warpwise of the materials; these four have stripes both warpwise and weftwise, and thus may be classified as plaids. Edge stripes occur in combination with an allover strip pattern in specimen

Fifty-odd yarns, samplings from the striped and plain cloths of the Chincha lots, were matched against the printed samples in Maerz and Paul's Dictionary of Color . [8] We found yarns corresponding to thirty-two samples representing five of the eight color groups. We found no dyed yarns in these cloths for colors in the yellow-to-green, the blue-to-red, and the purple-to-red groups. Only four yarns out of three hundred and fifty matched in a previous study, [9] corresponded to colors in the purp

Analyses of over a hundred plain-weave cloths in the Max Uhle collection from Late-period sites at Chincha form the material of this report. The utilitarian character of most of the cloths is conspicuous. A few plain-weave fabrics undoubtedly belong to garments of the better type, although these specimens, too, are without decoration except for stripings. Measurements and textures suggest that some weavings may have been mantles or other large wrappings. All the intact ends have the customary Pe

EXPLANATION OF PLATES (Numbers preceded by 4- and 16- are University of California Museum of Anthropology specimen-catalogue numbers.) Plate 1 Chincha doll (4-4116) dressed in scrap of plain-weave material. Height overall, 7 inches. Head, a knob wrapped with fiber; black human hair folded over top and drawn in at neck with fiber string. Body composed of 2 tortoras separated to form legs; all elements wrapped with fiber and with one extra "toe" applied to each foot. Arms of wrapped tortora with f