Someone in a post on BlackBishop's thread last night made a comment that the origin of hammocks has been lost to time. My response to him was deleted, so I thought I would start a new thread on that topic.
Alexandra Aikenhenvald, Languages of The Amazon (2012, Oxford University Press, p. 64) provides this definition:
- HAMMOCK (first attested in English in 1555) 'a hanging bed, consisting of a large piece of canvas, netting, etc. suspended by cords at both ends; used especially by sailors on board ship, also in hot climates or seasons on land', from Spanish hamaca (first attested in 1519), from Taino of Santo Domingo. This form reflects the Proto-Arawak root -maka 'stretch of cloth; clothing; hammock' and a dummy prefix (h)a- (this makes it unlikely that the form was borrowed from a Carib language).
Irving Rouse, The Tainos: Rise and Decline of the People Who Greeted Columbus (Yale University Press, 1992) describes hammocks twice:
- "Although some chief's slept on wooden platforms, most people used hammocks (hamaca) made of cordage (fig. 4, bottom) (page 9).
- taino-hammock1.jpg
- "The Spaniards admired the quality and artistry of the Tainos' canoes (canoa) and their weaving of cotton into hammocks (hamaca). They added both these items to their own cultural inventory, then transmitted them to other parts of the world." (p. 170)
William Curtis Farabee, The Central Arawaks (University of Pennsylvania, The University Museum Anthropological Publications Vol IX, 1918) is really fascinating. They are linguistically related to the Tainos. I will summarize:
- Waiwai shaman can cure people by blowing on their hammocks.
- They make their hammocks from tree cotton, that they spin by hand. Women prepare the fibers for the hammock and weave the hammock, usually in teams of two; men prepare the fibers for the suspension.
- When women give birth, they do so from their hammock. the hammock is cut lengthwise in the middle, she sits astride, and the midwife receives the child underneath.
- Children are kept in a hammock until they are able to sit up, and it is carried by the mother like a bandoleer.
- When a man dies, he is buried in the floor of his house. A grave is dug beneath his hammock and he is lowered into the grave by loosening the suspension.
- When a young man visits a young woman in her hammock, that is the consummation of marriage.
- People live in large communal houses with hammock posts separating family areas.
- Couvade: when a child is born the father must rest in a hammock for a month, do no manual labor, and not eat any solid food during this time.
Irving Rouse, The Art of the Taino from the Dominican Republic (University of Florida Smathers Library, 1985) also had this neat image:
GT.PT1.SL3.SO1.png
If you have any other neat info about the originators of hammocks, post it here.
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