Weaving has occupied the human experience Athena, the weaver among the gods, was offended
since practically the dawn of human exis- by Arachne’s boasting, challenged her to a weave-
tence. There is no known record of the first weaver, off — and lost. Athena humiliated Arachne and
or why she decided to weave. Perhaps she observed drove her to take her life, but later, showing remorse
birds making nests or spiders weaving webs, and for her behavior, she revived Arachne and changed
decided to mimic the patterns she observed in her into a spider.
nature, making a basket to carry food from one Some of the earliest documented accounts trace
place to another by gathering and interlacing reeds. the origin of ceremonial Kente weaving to early
The first physical evidence of woven cloth was traditions in the West African kingdoms that thrived
found in a burial ground associated with the ancient between A.D. 300 and 1600. The Ashanti, who live
Greek colony of Pantikapaion, now the modern-day in what is now Ghana in West Africa, are known for
city of Kerch in the Ukraine. It is believed that these their mastery of this colorful, strip-woven cloth.
fragments date back to the fourth millennium B.C. According to legend, the first man to weave — it
Ancient mythology abounds with references to was mostly men who wove for centuries — learned weavers and their cloth. Spider Woman — not the the art by watching a spider at work.
Marvel comic book character, but the Navajo deity considered the original spiritual weaving teacher
— is said to have provided the thread that drew the
Diné, or Navajo, from the third world to the fourth, the world of time and physical being. Scholars believe that the Navajo people learned to weave from the Puebloans sometime in the 16th century.
In Greek mythology, the peasant Arachne
believed she could weave better than the gods.
Photography by Getty Images
Weaving as Necessity Throughout history, most people knew how to weave. In fact, until the Industrial Revolution — the great divider between the time when we knew how stuff was made and modern times, when most don’t have a clue — people made their own clothes, or at least participated in some way in making them ( buying the cloth from a weaver, taking it to a seamstress,
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