Anthropology Event

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You can't live without  your FIBER

Brent Ladd of Purdue University demonstrates the traditional craft of extracting fibers from native plants.  In fact it is a hands-on demonstration: he will bring lots of plants, and you can learn the skill yourself by doing it.  Why would someone want plant fibers?  Think of survival!  People until recently got materials for the making of baskets, clothing, houses, and cordage from plants. Cordage?  Yes, rope and string!  What is so SEXY about string?  With string our ancestors could make nets that might catch several hundred fish or rabbits.  (Yes, this may have been a women's activity and they may have participated in the hunt).  You can't make a teepee or wigwam without having some way to tie the willow branches together -- see this in our Native American garden sturctures on campus, or in the picture of them below. In the Far East today bamboo scaffolding over 20 stories high is lashed with string.  After this lecture you may find yourself crushing and trying to extract the bast fibers (phlome) from almost every weed you can find. Brent will demonstrate and teach basic fiber extraction, twining of cordage, and perhaps tying of nets.  More neat cordage stuff at: http://www.abotech.com/Articles/Edholm01.htm

There will be an Anthropology Club Meeting in the same room immediately after the event.

Call Clarke Johnson at 981-5601 for more info on event.   Click for campus MAP

 

For more events, visit the IUN Anthropology Home Page