Furthermore

 

Cowichan knitters spin wool three different ways: with a Salish spindle and whorl, with a converted sewing machine, and with a homemade spinning machine. The spindle and whorl are rarely used today: There are five known types of Salish spindles (Marr 1979:67). The version used exclusively by the Cowichan people was very large and was used for spinning two ply mountain goat wool and dog hair for weaving. The spindle was a tapered shaft approximately four feet long. The whorl, which rested one-half to two-thirds of the way down the shaft, was about eight inches in diameter. Coast Salish spindle whorls were often highly decorated, and many fine examples can be found in museum collections... Neither the large mountain goat wool spindle nor the smaller sheep's wool spindle are much-used today; the majority of spinners prefer to use machines. After missionary teachers instructed their pupils in the use of a European spinning wheel, it was adapted to produce the large quantities of thicker yarn needed for knitting and for much of the Salish weaving. (Margaret Meikle, Cowichan Indian Knitting, Museum Note No. 21, UBC Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver, 1986:1-11;emphases supplied).

  Leaving the south-west in early Indian days, you might have travelled for thousands of miles in any direction, except south, without seeing any weaving. Weaving was a northwestern speciality, for weaving was very unusual in America north of Mexico. You would not find a real loom anywhere until you got to the Puget Sound country. Students of Indian history find that one of their most interesting problems is this one of loom weaving among a few northwestern groups. They are all Salish and they are gathered on two sides of the present Canadian border. They wove in wool. Ruth Underhill, Ph.D. in her "Indians of the Pacific NorthWest, 1945" refers to the Salish blanket - "only a few of which are left anywhere in the country. There was not much use of colour until the Whites brought yarn in trade. Then a few women in Canada began making colour ed designs and our Klallam and Cowlitz tried it also. A few really beautiful blankets were made in fine yarn and magnificent colour. However, there was no one to encourage them to make these for sale, as Indians are encouraged in the south west. They found that they could get Hudson Bay blankets with far less trouble and so they gave up the art some seventy-five years ago. If that had not happened, Salish blankets might have been as famous as those of the Navaho."(Oliver N. Wells, SALISH WEAVING: PRIMITIVE AND MODERN, As Practiced by the Salish Indians of Southwest British Columbia, Frank T. Coan, Sardis, 1969:3). The Loom - Two basic types of loom were used by the early Salish Weavers and are still in use. The two-roller loom - as illustrated by Paul Kane in the well-known picture, and the single bar loom, commonly referred to as a three piece loom. Each of the types have had variations noted in their construction, both in the past and as used today. The two-bar loom was developed by the Pueblo Indians between 1100 and 1300 (P. 47. Pueblo Crafts). Whether the Salish tribes were using the loom at that time is not known. Some believe the single bar loom was in use prior to the two bar loom, which developed from it. It is known, however, that both types were in use among the Salish and other North West tribes when the Europeans first came to the NorthWest. (Oliver N. Wells, SALISH WEAVING: PRIMITIVE AND MODERN, 1969:12;emphases supplied). Certainly Salish blankets are nowhere near as well known as those of the Navaho, nor indeed are they even as well known as the Hudson Bay blankets that largely replaced them. But was this and the near replacement of Salish weaving by monochomatic knitting purely incidental?

 
www.spirasolaris.ca/sbb4g1dv.html