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69-10300

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Disi (hammock) (Cashinahua)
Diuns' wife B, Cashinahua People (Peru)
Disi (hammock) (pre-1968)
cotton
85.5 x 140.0 cm
Kenneth M. Kensinger Field Collection
69-10300

This is a disi, or hammock, woven by a Cashinahua woman only identified by the collector as Diuns' wife B. Disi are woven by women in a range of sizes, from large ones used for sleeping, accommodating one or more people at night, to smaller resting hammocks that are used for daytime naps. This disi is even smaller, as it is a child's resting hammock. HMA files from this accession include notes from Kenneth M. Kensinger, a linguist who lived among the Cashinahua in 1950s and 60s and who collected this hammock amongst other pieces on behalf of the Haffenreffer Museum, where he recounts that
"Cotton is the only fiber employed by the Cashinahua for weaving textiles. Each woman grows the cotton for her own use and its the only plant in the garden over which she has exclusive control. The woman harvests it, spins it, dyes it, and weaves it into cloth. Dyes are derived mainly from natural sources; plants, roots, and bark are gathered by the woman when they can be found close to the village, or she may ask her husband to gather it while he is hunting in the forest."
These records also include reference to the association of specific fabric designs with certain moieties. In museum notes from a 1972 conversation with Kensinger, he stated "You can recognize moiety membership from the designs uses and can recognized individual women [presumably as the makers or weavers] by their particular style." This disi, featuring a pattern identified as "dakati disi keneya bakenen" with a pink, red, and blue plaid and two bands of an interlocking linear pattern that is distinctive in this collection, is associated with the B moiety as identified by Kensinger. You can see another example of a child's resting disi, also collected by Kensinger but from a different moiety, in the Penn Museum's collections.