Spinning Fiber, Spinning World: Ensuring World Renewal by Making Fiber
Maureen Meyers
New South Associates, Inc.
At the Mississippian Carter Robinson site in Lee County, Virginia archaeologists uncovered evidence of fabric production during the thirteenth century (Meyers 2011, 2017, 2025; Ritchison et al. 2025). This includes weaving (standing loom posts; heddle remnant); dying (large pots; blackberry remains); sewing (bone needles); adornment (shell, shell beads, drills) and spinning in the form of at least two spindle whorls as well as small bowls and ceramic wrist distaffs (Figure 1; Figure 2).
Figure 1. Spindle Whorls from Carter Robinson; white limestone quarter (left); red hematite incised (right)
Fabric and fabric production can be hard to identify archaeologically. Fabric itself doesn’t often survive in the archaeological record, and tools to make fabric, like spindle whorls, are frequently misidentified as gaming pieces. When a hole is present in an artifact that otherwise looks like a gaming piece, the object more likely was used as a spindle whorl, and its presence provides evidence of an important women’s activity: textile production. Spindle whorls vary in size and shape, a direct result of the intended function of yarn (Neff 1996). Nineteenth-century ethnographic documentation of spinning in the Southeast noted women in Virginia used their thighs to spin both animal and vegetal sources (Smith in Arber 1907). Adair (1775:454) states women gathered buffalo hair and “spun it as fine as they can.” Although yarn rarely preserves, known fragments suggest different fibers were used to create a range of products. Buffalo hair is a coarse fiber and was likely used for heavy mantles or blankets. Spanish moss, slightly less coarse, was used to create skirts, whereas rabbit and milkweed, finer fibers, were used to make clothing for special use.
Drooker (1992; 2000) researched spinning in the Mississippian period by analyzing cordmarking on over 1500 saltpan vessel sherds from the Wickliffe Mounds site in western Kentucky. The saltpans were made in molds, and fabric was placed between the mold and clay, leaving impressions on the vessels. The sherds indicated that as the Mississippian period emerged, the twist direction of the corded fabric impressions changed from “S” to “Z”. Simultaneously, a larger number of marked ceramic disks, probably used as whorls, were found, highlighting women’s role in fabric production, emerging techniques and potential connections to cultural belief systems.
Alt (1999) suggests the decorations on the disks represent a spider’s web. In Cherokee mythology, Grandmother Spider, a weaver, travels to the Upper World where she puts a bit of the sun on her back. She then returns to This World, thereby ensuring life. The change in cordage spin direction may also be tied to Mississippian ideas about world renewal. For example, Kozuch et al. (2017) suggest that conch shells were preferred in the Mississippian Black Drink ceremony because they turned right, (like a “Z” twist), or clockwise—an essential component of world renewal.
One of the spindle whorls from the Carter Robinson site is made of red hematite, with a hole in the center and an ‘X’ carved into it (see Figure 1). A second spindle whorl is made of polished white limestone and was cut into quarters (see Figure 1). The circle and cross motif, found in Southeastern iconography and known from shell, stone and ceramic artifacts, represents This World, the four directions, and the center. The red hematite spindle whorl may represent the fire or sun, with the carved ‘X’ a visual of the cords of the four corners holding the three worlds together. Or as Alt suggests, a spider’s web, hearkening back to the Grandmother Spider creation myth. The second whorl of white limestone is split into fourths, possibly representing one corner of This World in the World belief system. The Carter Robinson site itself sits at the edge of the Mississippian world, and these spindle whorls may be a material embodiment of the world corner. The material and design of the two spindle whorls found at the site suggest that women making fabrics was central to maintaining world order according to Mississippian belief systems.
Figure 2. Ceramic wrist distaffs.
References Cited
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