This... concept that I'm working that this post has to do occurred to me this morning after modeling the new skirt for my husband. It's pretty rad by the way.
My mind being the rabbit hole racer that it is took off like a shot on the concept of sewing. Now for those who didn't know it, I've always had an extreme interest in archaeology and experimental archaeology. The later is what a lot of the living history enthusiasts should actually be classified under in my humble opinion. My mind doing canyon jumps like it does from time to time hit remembered that sewing is most likely one of the oldest home making skills second only to probably leather working. As in someone had a bunch of skin scraps that they couldn't afford to waste and the first scrap blanket was born.
The two probably go hand in hand farther back than what we can currently imagine. With waning and waxing ice ages, massive volcanic eruptions that turned day into night for weeks on end, bold migrations into cooler climates that had more food animals but the nights could freeze you..... our ancestors would have needed to craft from whatever they could protective clothing. Weaving most likely didn't start to occur until our ancestors were better able to comprehend fiber and probably followed on the heels of sewing and skin working by only a couple hundred years by my best guess. Before all that was the advances in our tool making allowing us to more efficiently use a dead animal. Sewing and using skins more efficiently was only a natural progression.
It's estimated that one branch of our genetic lineage, the Denisovan's (first found in Siberia's Denisova Cave) were using sewing needles as far back as 50,000 years ago. The article talking about this amazing find is here at Atlas Obscura.
It most likely wasn't until roughly the 14,000's BCE before things like embroidery, crocheting or knitting might have begun to show up in their most earliest forms. Most likely the first embroidered piece of fabric was a mistake. Crochet and knitting were probably due to bored ancient humans trapped in the caves by long periods of foul weather.
Now we're going to put a pin in this train of thought and go back to the paganism for a bit.
Many people when they think sewing, knitting or any of those thread related activities and paganism, will inevitably come up with some very cutesy things utilizing these skills as means to express themselves or express a concept that they find beautiful and that rings true for them in their practice.
Many practicing pagans are exceptionally crafty (in the physical sense).
Many pagans also venerate or even worship the ancestors.
Ancestor adoration comes in many forms and some major cultures in the world (many of which are in Asia) have been shaped extensively by it.
In terms of genetics, we all share the same ancestors whether some fucktards like to admit it or not. Everything that binds those ancestors together into who we are is on our skin, under my fingertips as I type, the food we eat daily, the water we drink.
The first crafts or skills to manifest were surely sewing, leather working, tanning and cooking.
What if....we as Pagans in our search to connect with our ancestors on a practical and meaningful level has been in front of us all along?
What if it's not the incense that smells of old trees or a young (in terms of genetic history) translation of the Book of the Dead?
What if it's not the empty seat at the Dumb Feast?
What if it's not been the pictures in old albums and family legends told when feasting with friends?
What if the means to literally be connected with every branch of our genetic ancestry right back to even the first upright great apes has been at our finger tips the entire time?If we were to take every single pagan and line them up, every one of them would have something that they posses a crafting aptitude for. Within that aptitude is the possibility of connection with our ancestors.
In every baby blanket crocheted or knit, one carries on the tradition of gifts to the new mother to help her even the odds of the new baby making it through a cold night. Every button stitched back, every tear closed, every meal cooked and shared, every dress or pair of pants... we move our hands in the same ways as our ancestors.
By the sheer practice of these skills, those nameless ones find themselves with a sense of immortality.
Despite all of our technological advances and our baby steps towards goals like colonizing the Moon and Mars and farther, we still every day take off the one thing that could truly stand out as being the first sign of our humanity: clothing.
We may not have made that favorite t-shirt from the plants fibers with our own hands but every time we put it on, somewhere in the past an ancestor's gleam of inspiration is there as the beginning.
So my Pagan String theory is this:
It may feel modern, but you've allow yourself the right perspective you can still look over your shoulder and see that person holding up two pieces of skin and the idea in their head forming of how to connect them.
We, in our every day supposed hobbies, connect in the most literal way possible with our ancestors every time we pick up tool and thread and material.
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