The Illusions of Work

“The intelligence of a woman equals that of seventy weavers and that of a weaver equals the intelligence of seventy schoolteachers.”—Ibn Al Janzi.

One of the most curious linguistic facts is the connection of weaving with falsehood.…and social organization.

We “spin a yarn.” When we refute a lie (“a tissue of falsehoods”), we “rip it to shreds.” We speak of a falsehood as “woven out of whole cloth.”

The connection becomes somewhat clearer when we find it in rather unrelated languages. In Greek a weaver is “yphantis”, and the root of the word is the basis of our word phantasy. “Weben” in German means to stir about or to plot something as well as to weave. The Russian uses “plesti” for weaving, braiding, rhyming, and telling stories. In Finnish we have “kankuri”—weaver; “kangastaa”—a loom; “kangastus”—a mirage, while “punoa” means to braid and also to concoct a scheme. We see the same thing in Latin where “contexo” (from texo—I weave) means “I invent or devise something.” The same is true of Spanish “tejer”—to weave, discuss, devise. Even in Turkish we have “igmacr”—spindle, bobbin; “igmacrfal”—deception, and “örgü”—plaiting; “örgüt”—social organization; while Hungarian presents us with “szövetni”—to weave; “szövetség”—union, alliance. “Tessitore” in Italian is a weaver or a deceiving intriguer. Even our word History, which should be truth itself, comes from a Greek word for adorning or embellishing something, and both derive from “histos”—a web, warp, or loom.

A thought of concealment would seem to be the unifying bond between the poles of textile work and illusion making. Our English word “mantle” means a cloak or veil (Latin mantelum—a covering, something that hides something), and it is linked to “mantic” meaning prophetic or mysterious and “mania.” Freud gave an excellent clue to the solution of the problem in his essay on women in the New Introductory Lectures:

“People say that women contributed but lit