the text
indicates the existence of one heddle: "The warp is decussated by
means of a horizontal rod and leashes." Dr. Washington Mathews figures
several Navajo looms with heddles, _Third Ann. Rep. Bureau of
Ethnology_, p. 291; Ancient Peruvians also used them, as shown by Dr.
Max Schmidt, _Baessler Archiv, I. pt. 1_, and so on practically _ad.
lib._ But to work an upright warp-weighted loom with heddles is
attended with great practical inconvenience, and this difficulty has,
no doubt, been one of the chief causes of the complete discardance of
this class of loom.

In spite of the evidence in favour of the existence of warp weighted
looms, the Director of the Hermannstadt Museum, Dr. v.
Kimakovicz-Winnicki, sees fit to deny their existence. He found that
in some parts of Transylvania the peasants use wooden pyramids (see
Fig. 18) similar to the Roman warp weights for winding the thread
from the spindle on to the shuttle. For this purpose sockets are
bored into the thin or top end of two pyramids, which are placed
just so far apart that a spindle can rest horizontally with one end
in the socket of one pyramid, and the other end of the spindle in
the socket of the other pyramid, and the thread in being wound off
on to the shuttle causes the spindle to revolve in the sockets. From
this he argues that what we have hitherto taken to be warp weights
are not warp weights at all (_Spinn-u. Webewerkzeuge_, Wuerzburg,
1911), and having denied these articles to be warp weights he gets
over the difficulty presented by the illustration of Penelope at her
loom, by attempting to prove that what we take to be a loom is no
loom at all but a _flechtrahm_, _i.e._ plaiting frame! He then
attempts to pull to pieces the idea that the Scandinavian loom in
the Copenhagen Museum is a loom and condemns it as unworkable. There
can be no doubt about his meaning as he defines his terms. The
principle of weaving (_Weben_) he describes "as the absorption of
two groups of parallel material elements (warp and weft) at right
angles to each other, and the principle of plaiting (_Flechten_) as
the absorption by itself in one plane of one group only of material
element, (warp)" and he gives diagrammatic illustrations showing
clearly what he means (_op. cit._ p. 31).[I] Judging from his
remarks one must conclude he has not seen a primitive loom of any
sort, and were it not for the official position he holds, his
remarks would not need answering.

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