Note 6 — Dress and Ornament
Reading edition
(7) A rather special form of belt (Plate 15, Fig. 3) used mainly for visiting and dancing; made and worn by both men and women. The belt is made out of a hank of loose separate strands between 4 and 5 feet long, tied together with string or bark cloth at two opposite points, so as to form a belt of between 2 feet and 2 feet 6 inches in length. For better description I would liken it to a skein of wool, as it looks when held on the hands of one person for the purpose of being wound off into a ball by someone else, but which, instead of being wound off, is tied up at the two points where it passes round the hands of the holder, and is then pulled out into a straight line of double the original number of strands, and so forms a single many-stranded belt of 2 feet or more in length. It is fastened round the waist with a piece of bark cloth attached to one of the points where the hank has been tied up.6