Fibrecraft in New Zealand: Some Social and Economic Aspects

Abstract

Fibrecraft is a broad term for the twisting or pounding of fibres into useful or decorative articles. It's as old as humanity - to gather whatever animal or vegetable materials are at hand to make clothing and armour, harness. food baskets, animal traps, shelters, and sailors' needs, and so forth. Decoration and originality follow. These help make endurable the tedious time this all takes, and they are the only way the craftsperson can claim to be more than a slave and a cipher. In New Zealand two main streams exist -the Maori one based on flax and the European one based on wool. Neither of them is any longer driven by necessity. The wool based one never was a necessity with us. Its late and untidy beginnings were due to the Industrial Revolution, which left the peasant skills to wither away. When they were reborn, it was as chosen tasks of middle-class leisure. I think the Scandinavians were the first to experience and articulate this formula.