Some Interesting SoCA Cordage
The court battle had been lost by the People. The Cupa were to be evicted from their ancestral home, the place known today as Warner’s Hot Springs, in early May 1903. On the day of the eviction, the federal Marshall sat astride his horse supervising the loading of the wagons. This was not the Marshall’s first visit to Cupa; the photographic evidence is subtle but convincing. A white edge projects from beneath the saddle, a saddle blanket protects the Marshall’s horse from the rubbing of the saddle. The white of yucca fibers is unmistakable.
The Federal Marshal had bought a saddle blanket on his earlier trip to Cupa. Cupeño saddle blankets were well known and respected for their durability, light weight, and for their property of allowing superior air circulation between saddle and horse. Even B.D. Wilson in his 1852 report refers to these as a “sweat-cloth for the saddle, from the maguey [Aztec for agave] fiber, called a coco..." The sand of the semi-desert landscape sifted through the fibers of a coco blankets, making them highly desirable. A wool blanket collects the particles of sand between tits fibers, turning the blanket into a kind of sandpaper that will leave abrasions on a horse. A coco allowed the sand to sift out, reducing the abrasions to the horse's skin and providing good circulation for air. More air circulating between horse and saddle means a healthier and happier horse. In ranching oriented Southern California good saddle blankets were invaluable and the cocos from Cupa were renown. At the turn of the century such a blanket cost one dollar, the same as an afternoon’s soak in the mineral rich waters of the hot springs at Cupa. Whether the blanket was made of yucca or agave depended on where the maker was located. If they lived on the sea side of the coastal ranges, then yucca was abundant and the primary plant fiber. If the maker lived east of the coastal mountain ranges then the blankets were more likely to be made of agave, which thrives in the deserts. Both plants are members of the lily family but each occupies a different climate.
One photo from the Southwest Museum collection shows a saddle-blanket weaver at his loom at Cupa. He is seated at a simple upright tapestry loom with, what appears to be, an yucca fiber cordage warp or vertical element. The weft, or horizontally oriented fibers, is yucca cordage, too, of a slightly larger diameter and not spun so tightly as the warp. Obviously, there was no need for saddle blankets before the arrival of Europeans, for the horse had been extinct in North America for millennia. But upright looms were in use since time immemorial and cordage was older than looms.
Mary Watkins, the government teacher at Mesa Grande Reservation at the turn of the century sent some yucca blankets to Constance Goddard DuBois, an Indian rights activist and amateur anthropologist living in Connecticut. DuBois used these as props for her public lectures on the arts of the “Mission Indians” and their desperate plight. DuBois showed lantern slides taken at the reservations of San Diego County and sold juncus baskets and yucca and agave “rugs” to support the makers, profits were sent back to Mary Watkins who used it to feed the old, the ill, and the indigent when the government failed to provide rations.
Agave and yucca fibers were relied upon when hard use was planned as with house-post ties, sandals, cargo nets, bow strings, and cactus harvesting bags, which were netted bags dragged through the sand to remove the spines from cactus fruit and pads. Agave and yucca cordage lasts and lasts. A pair of sandals made by SuSanna Klietch, a Kwaaymii woman from Laguna Mountain in San Diego County, at the turn of the century are still as tough and pliable as they were when they were new. The fibers resist becoming brittle for decades, although over time the bright white mellows to a deep rusty gold.
Donna Largo, a Cahuilla basket maker, and negative
reinforcement taught me how to harvest yucca, a member of
the agave family. Donna was taught by her
basket-maker friends from Arizona how to use yucca in
baskets. She coached me over the phone about how to
get at the central, cone-shaped cluster of tightly-packed,
new, white leaves and I would go and try to follow her
instructions. It was hard. Yucca is absolutely
unforgiving. If the needle-like tips of the stiff,
blade-shaped leaves didn’t stab me, the finely serrated
edges of the leaves would razor cut my arms and knuckles.
But gradually, with Donna’s patient, amused encouragement,
I learned to move my body in concert with the rigid
structure of the plant. As silly as it seems, I
learned to trust that the plant would always maintain the
same form and that I could approach confidently by
pointing my toes and inserting my leg between the blades
and stepping down, just so, to get near the cone. I
learned to move at the waist and to turn my hands so they
just fit between the blades, to smoothly wiggle my fingers
into the heart and to release the cone with a twisting
snap. It requires focus and an intimate knowledge of
the tolerances of the plant to escape injury.
After the leaves are harvested the fibers have to be released from the other plant tissues. It is impossible to remove the fibers by cutting them out; the plant material must be removed from the fibers by another method. A wooden club and anvil can be used to bruise the flesh of the more succulent agaves, then the leaf tissue can be scrapped away leaving the long strands of fiber behind. This has the disadvantage of splashing agave juice everywhere and certain agaves can cause temporary blindness if their juice gets in the eyes.
Retting is another method used to release the fibers in which the green leaves are submerged in water until fermentation and bacterial action strip the soft flesh away, leaving the hard white fibers behind. Because the leaves rot, the process is very stinky, and retrieving and rinsing the fibers was best accomplished by using dams and diversions. Cupa was the perfect place for such fermentation vats, because using warm water shortens the time it takes for fermentation to occur and for bacteria to strip the fibers. The water there was handily moved by flumes to regulate temperature and mineral content of laundries and baths. Although they are not mentioned in the historic record, it is not unreasonable to think the Cupa also diverted water for retting, because fibers can be released in great numbers by retting. The size of the saddle blanket making industry indicates that some way of processing large masses of fibers was used. Scraping fibers by hand is too slow to produce the masses of fibers needed.
Once the fibers have been separated and cleaned, they are spun into a cord and by introducing a few new fibers at a time the cord can be lengthened without increasing its diameter. Histories tell that the fibers of milkweed and hemp were typically rolled on the thigh when producing cord like the modern cordage makers do, but the Southwest Museum photo shows women spinning agave cord using a kind of spinning wheel in which one person cranks the handle to twist the cord and another adds the new fibers to the cord as it twists, a mechanism which increased production of cordage. All of the cordage used in Southern California was plied, that is, two or more lengths of cord were twisted together into one thicker, stronger cord.
Agave made a good material for bow strings. It is strong and long, two highly valued traits. The longer the fibers are, the fewer ends of fibers there are in a given length of cord. This is important because every end has the potential to fray; the longer the fibers the fewer the frayed ends. The fewer the frayed ends the softer the cloth that results. Silk is smooth and strong, as is polyester, because instead of producing fibers three or four feet long, as in a yucca plant, the fibers of silk and polyester can be two miles or more long.
Sandals were usually reserved for travel away from home where hot or sharp rocks threatened pain or injury. Like the saddle blankets, two types of cordage are required to make sandals. One type, loosely twisted half an inch thick serves as a soft and non-slippery sole. The other is a tight, strong, thin cord used for straps and for lacing the sandal. Anyone who has walked in sand with shoes on can appreciate what a masterful strategy it was to allow gravity to remove the sand from your shoes as you walked, especially in Southern California where sand is abundant.
Cordage was strongly associated with rabbits. Lusciously-soft rabbit skin blankets were made of two types of cordage. First, each pelt was cut into a single long strip. The strips were twisted into long, soft cords covered all around in soft rabbit fur. The furry cord was then stretched vertically in rows, over the beams of a loom to form the warp, the same size and shape as the finished blanket. To secure the strips together to form a blanket, soft but durable cordage was woven over and under the strips of fur. This cordage would be made of hemp or milkweed fibers, but never of Agave which produces a rougher and stiffer cord. These blankets were used as capes and bedding by everyone in Southern California.
Constance Goddard DuBois collected a rabbit skin blanket for the Museum of Natural History in New York at La Posta in 1903. It was one of the few left in the country. It is sad to know that dollars became more important for survival than a blanket and many were sold to collectors to prevent starvation. A single rabbit skin blanket required pelts from many animals. After the People were confined to Reservations and prohibited from burning they were no longer able to take enough rabbits to make blankets. Traditionally, rabbit hunting was a community activity. It was prepared for by allowing certain areas which had perimeters cleared of brush to overgrow. The thickets made ideal homes for rabbits who found abundant food and protection from predators in the dense, shrubby growth.
A fine, strong, dark net was used for rabbit hunts; only two feet in width it was several hundred feet in length and it was typically made of human hair. The isolated clump of brush teeming with rabbits would be encircled at ground level with the dark net. When all was ready, the rabbits would be panicked by setting the center of the brush on fire or by lobbing rocks into the brush. The terrified rabbits would try to escape and in their fright would run right into the black net, set to entangle them. The plied human hair was too strong for the rabbits to break through and their enormous ears prevented them from backing out and so they were caught, heads popped through the nets. Many rabbits were taken at once in this fashion. Then everyone had freshly roasted rabbit to eat and enough to dry and put away against hard times. Growing children could have larger blankets, new couples could have wedding beds, and the quality of life was improved for everyone.