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Brief History of the Spinning Wheel Development Plan
Reprinted with permission - Wayland Combe Wright
The Role of the Spinning Wheel
The First Six Spinning Wheels
Experience with ADESMO:
Common Problems with NGOs:
Our Aproach:
Club Regina:
Building a Workshop:
THE
ROLE OF THE SPINNING WHEEL:
The Spinning wheel development plan started when Aruna
and I realised that the use of wool was disappearing from
the Huichol Sierra and that a good spinning wheel could
play a key role in an effort was made at re establishing
the use of real wool. Since we are both enthusiastic
about wool in all its aspects we were very concerned when
we discovered what was happening.
We arrived in Puerta Vallarta in June of 1991 where we
met a Huichol selling bead work in the street, his name
was Rosendo. We rapidly became friends. He invited us to
visit his family in the Sierra where we met his
stepmother, Silvina, who makes beautiful double cloth
pouches with all manner of intricate traditional designs.
We found that she spun her wool with no more than a hand
held spindle that she rolled against her leg. This is an
extremely slow method of producing wool. Weaving fine
designs in double cloth is a highly skilled art that is
unavoidably time consuming, but the result is worth the
time and effort. Spinning is the skill of drawing wool
out in an even constant manner and then twisting it and
winding up the twisted yarn. Spinning need not be be done
slowly on a spindle, the same result can be obtained when
it is produced rapidly with a spinning wheel.
The skill of spinning is in the consistent drawing out of
the wool, not in the winding up which is a purely
mechanical process. A person who spins using a spinning
wheel draws the wool out by hand as before, and controls
the twisting, but now the process of twisting the wool
and winding it on to a bobbin is mechanised by the use of
a simple foot powered treadle machine that leaves both
hands free to draw the wool. That is why an efficient
spinning wheel can accelerate the process of spinning
wool so much without changing the nature of the finished
product which remains as "hand spun wool" .
Observing the process by which the Huichol produce
pouches of hand spun woollen yarn we saw that the time to
make a pouch could be reduced by more than half by the
use of an appropriate spinning wheel. We saw that very
few Huichol weavers were working with wool, nearly all
were using acrylic yarn.
With weaving, as with any other craft where the cost of
the input of time and skill is very large compared to the
cost of the materials, there is a law that says "For
the best returns for his efforts the craftsman must use
the best possible materials" just another way of
saying " You can't make a silk purse from a sow's
ear". This old English proverb comes from the cloth
trade and is especially true of hand weaving which is so
labour intensive. In the case of a Huichol woman weaving
a pouch the equation would go something like this:
- Weaving a
pouch from acrylic yarn without using a
spinning wheel:
Raw materials............ $2.00 U.S.
Time spent spinning...2 hours ( even
acrylic yarn has to be plied)
Time spent weaving... 10 hours
Total time.......................12 hours
Selling price..................$8.00U.S.
Profit................................$6.00
U.S.
Earning per hour...........$0.5 U.S.
- Weaving a
pouch from wool using a spinning wheel:
Raw materials............ $1.00 U.S.
Time spent spinning...4 hours ( with a
spinning wheel)
Time spent weaving..12hours ( slower
because wool is a little more difficult
to weave than acrylic yarn. )
Total time.......................16 hours
Selling price..................$25.00U.S.
Profit................................$24.00
U.S.
Earning per hour..........$1.5 U.S.
In the above example the weaver is earning 3 times as
much by using a spinning wheel, and it's worth noting
that $1.5 U.S. currently represents a wage of almost 100
pesos a day which is considered a good pay in the city,
and excellent pay for the Sierra.
Thus it was that we saw what a great potential the
spinning wheel had for a people such as the Huichol. With
that realisation it was very easy to promise Silvina that
I would make her a spinning wheel, but that promise, so
quick to make, sealed my fate for the next few months.
THE
FIRST SIX SPINNING WHEELS
We moved to La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, a small fishing
village 30 kilometres north of Puerto Vallarta, in the
state of Nayarit. The capital of Nayarit is Tepic, three
hours further North. The state government in Nayarit has
a department dedicated to the development of the crafts,
and since the majority of craftsmen in this state are
either Huichol or Cora, this department is mostly
concerned with these two ethnic groups. It so happened
that the person who ran this department was building his
house in La Cruz de Huanacaxtle, and since this is a very
small town, it was inevitable that sooner or later we
would meet. When we did meet, he became interested in the
spinning wheel idea and asked us to make 5 for his
department, and even put down a deposit so that I could
buy materials and get started. With local help, I found a
wood that steam bent well, and obtained enough of it to
make the wheels. The village carpenter lent me his
workshop and lathe, and although the equipment was
incredibly rough and ready, by dint of extensive
improvisation in the space of about 3 months I made the 6
spinning wheels. The sixth wheel I proudly presented to
Silvina, the other 5 went to Tepic.
Naturally, we felt very pleased with ourselves to have
managed to fulfil our promise, but when we realised how
much time and effort and money was involved just in
delivering these machines and training their new owners
we realised that our work had in reality had only just
begun. Making the spinning wheels was just the tip of the
iceberg. Handing over a spinning wheel to a Huichol woman
is a bit like handing a car over to someone who has never
seen one before. There has to be an instructor there with
enthusiasm and patience, who can prove that the thing
really does work and that it's worth the effort.
During the next year and a half I was only able to get to
the Sierra 4 times, and each time there would be a
problem with the wheel. This helped me a lot to improve
the design of the wheel, but it made progress intolerably
slow.
I had been looking for financial support from one of the
NGOs that work in the Sierra. Unfortunately very few
people understand how a spinning wheel works, they think
that the wool is spun mechanically as on some kind of
spinning jenny and that the wool is therefore left
without a 'soul' or something. All a spinning wheel does
is take a lot of the grind out of spinning, the wool is
still drawn out by hand, a job that takes a lot of
concentration and skill. The wool is still hand spun. I
was criticised for wanting to change the indigenous
peoples' traditional way of life, not a criticism that
makes much sense to any person who knows that before the
Spanish arrived, there were no sheep, not to mention
cattle and horses. The colourful Huichol costumes, bead
work and yarn paintings which seem to be so much a part
of Huichol culture to day, are actually relatively recent
developments. They are all based on materials and
techniques that the Huichol have adopted and
'Huicholified'. The only thing that can be considered
truly Huichol is the colourful and exuberant expression
which is in real danger of being overtaken and
overwhelmed by the surrounding Western culture.
EXPERIENCE
WITH ADESMO:
ADESMO stands for 'Associación para el Desarrollo
Ecológico de la Sierra Madre Occidental' , and this
organisation run by Juan Negrin and his wife Yvonne
focussed their efforts on the Huichol. They started a
carpentry workshop and two weaving workshops, one in San
Andres (now closed) and one near Santa Caterina (still
functioning occasionally). They invited me to teach the
carpenters at the carpentry workshop to make spinning
wheels and they offered to pay my costs.
I made two month long trips to the carpentry workshop,
the first to prepare the carpentry workshop for making
spinning wheels, the second to teach each of the four
carpenters to make a spinning wheel. Each carpenter
succeeded in making himself a fine spinning wheel, but
despite my best efforts we were unable even to get to the
next step which was to for the carpenters to make a batch
of spinning wheels by themselves, much less start showing
people how to make the best use of their machines. It was
an arduous task fraught with major difficulties, and when
ADESMO finally ran out of funds 6 months later this
project came to a definitive end.
COMMON
PROBLEMS WITH NGO'S:
I have worked with several 'Non Government Organisations'
while I was living in Central America, ( I was 4 years in
Costa Rica and 2 years in Nicaragua ). All had major
problems of one type or another.
These are some of the common difficulties that these
types of organisation can suffer:
- Orientated to the
'good of the community', which is excellent, but
without accepting that it is the success of the
individual worker that will make the project
successful. Very few organisations are really
aimed at the individual who is going to ask the
rather mercenary question : 'what can I make
doing this, will a I be able to feed my family?'
Projects are abandoned when workers can't make a
living, though ideological issues may hold them
together for a while and make the break up
slower.
- The person in charge
of these projects sometimes falls into one of the
following categories:
a) Sometimes the person in charge is politically
orientated and connected, but without the
foggiest idea about practical matters (though,
unfortunately, he may think he is).
b) Sometimes the person in charge is a young
student fresh from university, idealistic and
overflowing with good ideas but without the
practical experience that it takes to for someone
to successfully implement them.
c) Sometimes the person in charge is simply a
person employed to do the job and is doing it in
a 9 to 5 fashion, without the essential drive and
enthusiasm that it takes to get something new off
the ground.
- The funding can have
too many strings attached, or is just too
cumbersome. The man in the field knows what is
needed and needs to have a free hand to
improvise, but whoever is raising the funds has
the last word on policy and wants endless
paperwork to prove where all the money has gone.
If the two roles are not performed by the same
person a conflict can exist. Often the fund
raiser is looking for impressive results and
photographs and fame. The man in the field may be
looking for more lasting effects.
We have seen too much hard
work offered in vain. Being aware of these pitfalls, we
are looking for an approach that would lead us to a more
successful outcome.
OUR
APPROACH:
After having lived in Mexico for almost 3 years doing a
variety of things but always orientated towards the
Spinning Wheel Project we decided to build a solid base
for ourselves from which we could act with a larger
degree of independence. We started a company called
Hikuri Impresiones S.A. de C.V.
Our first initiative was to print T shirts. Working with
a small group of very good Huichol artists we chose a
number of their pictures and Aruna, who is a very good
graphic artist, separated each of them by hand into 8
colours. I made an eight colour printing machine and a
gas powered drying unit, and we started printing T
shirts.
For each shirt we sold we paid a commission to the
artist, later on we bought the copyrights outright of
some of the less used pictures. Initially Aruna and I
were living and working in a house lent to us by a
friend. We did everything, buying a few T shirts at a
time, printing them, and taking them into Puerto Vallarta
to sell. A year later we were able to rent a larger
building and not long after, employ a person to help us
print. Now, four years later, we a are a group of 14
people busy printing T shirts and textiles in general,
starting from computer designed graphics and on to camera
work, screen making, and with three printing machines we
producing a wide variety of custom work apart from the
Huichol designs which we have always printed. Our
intention was to build a solid financial base from which
we could finance the Spinning Wheel development. However,
although we were able to grow reasonably rapidly, that
was at the cost of re investing everything we made back
into the company, and at least up till last year, that is
to say, after three years of hard work, our little
company was still walking a financial tight rope with
nothing extra that we could put into the spinning wheels.
It was at this point, in January 1996, that Club Regina
offered to help us by paying for the first 12 spinning
wheels in advance, at $2000 pesos each ($250 US ) that is
a total of $24,000 pesos.
CLUB
REGINA:
Club Regina sells time share, and one of the ways they
attract customers is with theme shops. They opened 'The
Huichol Collection' on the water front in Puerto Vallarta
as a combination Huichol museum and shop. Later they
opened two more theme shops, one in Cancun and the other
in Cabo San Lucas. In relation to these shops they wanted
to publicise a project that would help the Huichol help
themselves. For this reason they were interested in the
Spinning Wheel Development Plan.
BUILDING
A WORKSHOP:
When we received the money we at once set to work. We
started by pouring the concrete for the carpentry
workshop, then as construction proceeded I began making
the larger machines, the shaper, the circular saw bench,
and the lathe. All these I made extremely solidly, with
an ample power supply, and above all, the capacity to
work with a high degree of precision.
However, with the building, the buying of electric motors
and other basic pieces of equipment, we spent the $24,000
in little over a month. From then on we could only
proceed as our T shirt company made more money. Also,
since at that time I was running the printing workshop
and doing the computer graphics, I was limited in how
many hours per day I could put into the spinning wheels
so I worked evenings and weekends to make the new
equipment.
The good thing was that we had had plenty of experience
in the field with the spinning wheels, and I had evolved
the Mark IV version, even more robust and easy to use.
The difficulty was the cost of the equipment and the time
it was taking. We needed to think in terms of producing
many spinning wheels in series so as to keep the cost
down, not just 12 spinning wheels. To produce consistent
quality we needed not only industrial grade machinery,
but also a series of cast aluminium moulds, a steel table
with 32 clamps, and a whole series of smaller jigs to
help make the bobbins, flier units etc. all of which we
had not only to invent, make, but also develop and
refine. Unfortunately, not every brainchild is an instant
success.
We had only one way to go, even though it was painfully
slow, and that was complete each task properly and with
calm. Each new task to complete loomed up ahead of us
like a mountain to climb, but climbing it, instead of
reaching the top of course, the next higher mountain
became visible.
Needless to say, Club Regina soon became very impatient
with this kind of progress. When they ordered T shirts
from us, we can fill that order, even if its a big one,
in two weeks, but they couldn't ever understand that we
couldn't produce a dozen spinning wheels after months of
apparently hard work. We actually had to print, many,
many thousands of T shirts to make the money we were
using to proceed with the spinning wheels, and that same
process of printing all those shirts was absorbing most
of my time.
The most difficult and time consuming job of all for me
was producing new T shirt designs, since that was largely
my responsibility. There was a surrealistic moment when
we got an order for 4 new designs to be created and
printed with in a couple of weeks together with a special
plea for at least one spinning wheel. In the height of
the busy season there were 3 months when there was barely
time to sleep yet alone make progress with the spinning
wheels.
Nevertheless, we did made progress whenever we could.
During the course of just over a year we personally
invested almost $200,000 pesos in setting up the spinning
wheel manufacturing workshop, including building a little
house on the roof for Huichol women to come and live in
while they are learning to spin. The first five wheels
were completed on May 26, 1997. Once our carpenter had
learnt how to use the new equipment, we found a second
carpenter to help him. We have no doubt that with two
carpenters we can increase the speed of production to an
average of one completed spinning wheel every 3 or 4
days. Already we are more concerned with what we are
going to do with so many wheels.
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