Straw Bag Loom

This is a tool used for weaving a straw bag. A group of two to three people wove a straw bag with this tool by twisting pieces of straw into a thin rope before fixing the rope onto the instrument as the warp and weaving it with pieces of straws as the weft. In a two-person group, one person took charge of sleying the reed and the other weaving it with a shuttle. In groups of three, the third person would feed the pieces of straw into the shuttle. The tool has a rectangular frame made of thick, heavy pieces of wood; or one cross bar at the bottom, two logs erected obliquely at both ends of the bar, and a beam (circular piece of wood) placed horizontally at the end of the two logs. It generally consisted of a base, a cross bar, pillars, a beam, a beater, a reed, a hanging pole, and a shuttle. The most significant advantage of this tool is that it enabled the mass production of straw bags for preserving and storing crops. Sacks or straw containers that had been widely used previously had been made by hand, which required a great deal of time and labor. In contrast, the prevalence of this instrument increased productivity while retaining the functional aspect of sacks or straw containers, thereby reducing time and labor.