Appropriated Threads: The Unpicking and Reweaving Imported Textiles

The Silk Route has become synonymous with the movement of knowledge that accompanies the trade of objects. Many of the textiles discussed here were not traded along the Silk Route, but all are representative of the associations that are made with this artery of cultural exchange. The examples cited arrive from a range of cultures and geographies: Indonesia and Nigeria, the Southwest United States and New Zealand. From these vastly different regions, using a variety of materials, weavers painstakingly unpicked yarns from woven fabrics for use in other weavings. The term ‘raveled yarn’ refers to threads that have been unpicked from a piece of woven cloth and rewoven into another. This paper attempts to determine the reasons behind what seems in the twenty-first century to be such a laborious undertaking. Unpicking fabric to remove flaws, examine the structures involved or possibly recycle precious threads is common. But rarely does the contemporary designer work with materials of such inherent value that time is not considered more valuable. Historically, the reasons for unpicking yarn have been both aesthetic and economic. Penelope’s ruse to stall time by unpicking her daily weaving each night may be one of the earliest examples. Certain cities developed reputations for deconstructing fabrics for thread such as the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra along the Silk Road which was devoted to the unpicking and reweaving of silk to local fashions. On a more intimate level the instinct to recover threads from woven materials appears in an example from the other side of the world where slave women and girls in the southern United States are thought to have unwound threads from their owner’s discarded stockings and fabric remnants so that they could use the thread to stylishly wrap around their own hair. As early as 1730 a Danish envoy in Africa wrote, “Opoku bought silk taffeta and materials of all colours. The artists unravelled them so that they obtained large quantities of woolen and silk threads which they mixed with their cotton and got many colours.” In 1817 a British envoy wrote of chiefs “in a general blaze of splendor” who “wore Ashantee cloths, of extravagant price from the costly foreign silks which has been unravelled to weave them in all the varieties of colour, as well as pattern.” In Documents on the Portuguese in Mozambique and Central Africa it is written: Now, the Moors once more make in this land quantities of cotton, much of which is gathered here; they spin it and weave it into white cloth and, since they do not know how to dye, or because they do not have dyes, they take blue painted cloths from Cambay, unravel them and gather the thread into a ball and, with their white weave and with the other they make them painted, from which they obtain a great sum of gold

OMIP contribution to CMIP6: experimental and diagnostic protocol for the physical component of the Ocean Model Intercomparison Project

The Ocean Model Intercomparison Project (OMIP) is an endorsed project in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6). OMIP addresses CMIP6 science questions, investigating the origins and consequences of systematic model biases. It does so by providing a framework for evaluating (including assessment of systematic biases), understanding, and improving ocean, sea-ice, tracer, and biogeochemical components of climate and earth system models contributing to CMIP6. Among the WCRP Grand Challenges in climate science (GCs), OMIP primarily contributes to the regional sea level change and near-term (climate/decadal) prediction GCs. OMIP provides (a) an experimental protocol for global ocean/sea-ice models run with a prescribed atmospheric forcing; and (b) a protocol for ocean diagnostics to be saved as part of CMIP6. We focus here on the physical component of OMIP, with a companion paper (Orr et al., 2016) detailing methods for the inert chemistry and interactive biogeochemistry. The physical portion of the OMIP experimental protocol follows the interannual Coordinated Ocean-ice Reference Experiments (CORE-II). Since 2009, CORE-I (Normal Year Forcing) and CORE-II (Interannual Forcing) have become the standard methods to evaluate global ocean/sea-ice simulations and to examine mechanisms for forced ocean climate variability. The OMIP diagnostic protocol is relevant for any ocean model component of CMIP6, including the DECK (Diagnostic, Evaluation and Characterization of Klima experiments), historical simulations, FAFMIP (Flux Anomaly Forced MIP), C4MIP (Coupled Carbon Cycle Climate MIP), DAMIP (Detection and Attribution MIP), DCPP (Decadal Climate Prediction Project), ScenarioMIP, HighResMIP (High Resolution MIP), as well as the ocean/sea-ice OMIP simulations

Synthesis and Electronic Structure Determination of Uranium(VI) Ligand Radical Complexes

   Pentagonal bipyramidal uranyl complexes of salen ligands, N,N’-bis(3-tert-butyl-(5R)-salicylidene)-1,2-phenylenediamine, in which R = tBu (1a), OMe (1b), and NMe2 (1c), were prepared and the electronic structure of the one-electron oxidized species [1a-c]+ were investigated in solution. The solid-state structures of 1a and 1b were solved by X-ray crystallography, and in the case of 1b an asymmetric UO22+ unit was found due to an intermolecular hydrogen bonding interaction. Electrochemical investigation of 1a-c by cyclic voltammetry showed that each complex exhibited at least one quasi-reversible redox process assigned to the oxidation of the phenolate moieties to phenoxyl radicals. The trend in redox potentials matches the electron-donating ability of the para-phenolate substituents. The electron paramagnetic resonance spectra of cations [1a-c]+ exhibited gav values of 1.997, 1.999, and 1.995, respectively, reflecting the ligand radical character of the oxidized forms, and in addition, spin-orbit coupling to the uranium centre. Chemical oxidation as monitored by ultraviolet-visible-near-infrared (UV-vis-NIR) spectroscopy afforded the one-electron oxidized species. Weak low energy intra-ligand charge transfer (CT) transitions were observed for [1a-c]+ indicating localization of the ligand radical to form a phenolate / phenoxyl radical species. Further analysis using density functional theory (DFT) calculations predicted a localized phenoxyl radical for [1a-c]+ with a small but significant contribution of the phenylenediamine unit to the spin density. Time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) calculations provided further insight into the nature of the low energy transitions, predicting both phenolate to phenoxyl intervalence charge transfer (IVCT) and phenylenediamine to phenoxyl CT character. Overall, [1a-c]+ are determined to be relatively localized ligand radical complexes, in which localization is enhanced as the electron donating ability of the para-phenolate substituents is increased (NMe2 > OMe > tBu)

Pensar el otro

Los Huni Kuin, a los que antiguamente se les conocía como Cashinahua (Kaxinawa en Brasil) son uno de los pueblos indígenas más apreciados de las tierras bajas de América del Sur y ciertamente de los más estimados por los interesados en la etnología amazónica. Varias generaciones de intelectuales y artistas han sido seducidos por la belleza de sus pinturas corporales y de su adornos de plumas, la sofisticación de sus rituales, los enigmáticos "Inka" que pueblan su mitología y, más recientemente, por la originalidad y complejidad de sus sistemas clasificatorios y sociales. Este libro tiene el gran mérito de tomar como el hilo conductor las propias concepciones mismas de los Huni Kuin, su sistema de pensamiento, las categorías con las que aprehenden el mundo, organizan su universo social e interaccionan con su entorno. Como toda buena etnología, este trabajo parte de las representaciones indígenas para hacerlas comprensibles a un público proveniente de horizontes culturales diferentes. Desde esta óptica, PENSAR EL OTRO constituye un éxito total. Tenemos ante nosotros un libro que expone ideas complejas sin desfigurarlas, que nos hace familiar el pensamiento Huni Kuin, sin ocultar nada de su misterio y complejidad. Después de haberlo leído, se cierra el libro con un real sentimiento de plenitud. Agradecemos sinceramente al CAAAP y al IFEA por ofrecer esta oportunidad a los lectores hispanohablantes. Philippe Erikso

Les trois mondes du Santo Daime

A partir d’une de ces « nouvelles » religions nées au Brésil, le Santo Daime, l’auteur montre toute la complexité des rapports entre une modernité économique et politique, qui offre des conditions particulières à la naissance du mouvement, et le mouvement lui-même qui, d’un contexte d’enracinement à l’autre (local, national, international), module ses rites et ses discours en fonction des attentes de son auditoire, et se positionne à la fois contre, dans et hors d’une certaine modernité

Paroles chassées

The Speech Chase : Kashinawa Shamanism and Chiefdoms The author examines the social communication of the Kashinawa in three areas : meat exchange, marriage and speech. He defines a communications structure which involves exchange, balance and reciprocity and confronts it with an informational structure which is non reciprocal and asymetrical. The chief and the shaman who are to be found not at the center but at the outskirts of the Kashinawa system form the active border of this society.Paroles chassées. Chamanisme et chefferie chez les Kashinawa. L'auteur étudie la communication sociale chez les Kashinawa dans trois domaines : l'échange de viande, le mariage et la parole. Il définit une structure de communication qui suppose l'échange, l'équilibre et la réciprocité et l'oppose à une structure d'information non réciproque, non symétrique. Le chef et le chamane, qui dans le système kashinawa, se retrouvent non pas au centre mais au bord, constituent les frontières vives de la société.Palabras cazadas. Chamanismo y liderazgo en la sociedad kashinawa. El autor estudia la communicación social de los Kashinawa en très dominios : el intercambio de carne de caza, el matrimonio y la palabra. Define una estructura de comunicación que supone el intercambio, el equilibrio y reciprocidad y la opone a una estructura de información que no es ni reciproca ni simétrica. El jefe y el chaman, que no se encuentran en el centro sino en la periferia del sistema kashinawa, constituyen las fronteras vivas de la sociedad.Deshayes Patrick. Paroles chassées. In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 78 n°2, 1992. pp. 95-106

Robert Jaulin, un ethnologue engagé

Deshayes Patrick. Robert Jaulin, un ethnologue engagé. In: Journal de la Société des Américanistes. Tome 84 n°1, 1998. pp. 289-291

Mathématiques et mankala

P. Deshayes—Mathematics and Mankala. How the introduction of a mathematical component has revealed some of the non-essential aspects of the game concept.Deshayes Patrick. Mathématiques et mankala. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 16, n°63-64, 1976. pp. 459-460