The intimately personal tool of each woman is her millet-hoe, which has already been described.[91] But the pride of the woman of each household is the loom belonging to that household. The construction of this loom can be better understood by looking at the accompanying illustration of a Taiyal woman at her loom than by detailed description. Broadly speaking, the loom is of the Indonesian type, but the trough-like arrangement--the hollowed-out log, around which the warp is wrapped--seems to have been evolved in Formosa alone; I do not know of its occurring elsewhere in Indonesia, or in Melanesia or Polynesia. The textile that is woven on this loom is made from a sort of native hemp, which grows in the mountains. The only colouring matter obtainable for dyeing the hemp is the juice of a tuber also indigenous to the mountains. This tuber somewhat resembles a very large and rather corrugated potato. The dye obtained from this tuber is of chocolate colour. It is the custom to weave the textile in stripes, uncoloured and dyed strands alternating. The effect is not displeasing, and the material is very strong, lasting for years, and withstanding almost any strain.[92] None of the tribes, however, are satisfied with the subdued shade which their native dye gives; and most of them have for years obtained, through barter, cheap Chinese blankets of brilliant crimson, which they carefully ravel, and with the yarn thus obtained they add fanciful designs in the weaving of their cloth. Much ingenuity is displayed in these designs, which often express a sense of the genuinely artistic, as well as the merely fantastic.[93] Besides the cloth that is woven on looms, the women also make net-bags, by means of a bamboo shuttle and mesh-gauge, not unlike those used by American Indian women of the western plains--only the shuttle and mesh-gauge of the latter are made of wood instead of bamboo. These bags are of two sizes, the larger for carrying millet and other provisions, the smaller just large enough to hold a human head. It is often upon bags of this latter kind that the greatest amount of time and of ingenuity is expended. Every warrior has one of these bags. Next to his knife, it is his most treasured possession, one which he always takes with him when going upon a head-hunting expedition. If successful, the head of his enemy is brought back in it. [Illustration: AUTHOR IN THE DRESS OF A WOMAN OF THE TAIYAL TRIBE.] A woman who is not a good weaver or maker of bags is held in contempt by the other women, as well as by the men; and as previously stated--in the chapter dealing with RELIGION--it is believed that such a woman after death will not be able to cross the bridge which leads to the land of happiness--that occupied by her more skilful sisters and by successful head-hunters. This feeling seems especially strong among the Taiyal people.