<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Women in European Skirts
<p>The modern and contemporary women of the north coast and offshore islands of Panamá, the Guna (previously Cuna or Kuna), incorporated the European scissors and machine-made cloth in the 19th century to make a remarkable new “traditional” blouse. It mixes European-style gathered sleeves and yoke with a unique type of “cut-work” in which layers of cloth are pierced to reveal many colors and create intricate designs. Such a blouse, and the cutwork panel itself, is known in the Guna language as a <span><span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>dulemola</i></span>.</span></p>
<p>The <i>dulemola</i> panels in this blouse feature two women dancing together; however, they are not shown wearing the traditional Guna wrap-around skirt, but rather flaring European-style ones. It becomes clear that there are many levels to the interaction of local Guna and imposed outsider influences in these supremely creative compositions.</p>
<em>Dulemola</em> (Women's Blouse Panel) with <em>Paliwiduru</em> (Eagle Spirits)
<p>Writing is incorporated into this contemporary cut-and-sewn <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>dulemola</i></span> made by the Guna people from the northern coast and Caribbean islands off Panamá. In the top center a version of the letters “IHS” can be seen, the monogram abbreviated from IHΣΟΥΣ, Greek for “Jesus.” However, it is important to note that the Christogram is shown backwards. The other imagery in this piece helps to explain why this might be so. Although they may look like Christian angels, the two winged, kneeling figures flanking the letters also have eagle heads and deer antlers. The Guna call these spiritual beings <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>Paliwiduru</i></span> and they believe that they call the soul of the recently deceased out of his or her body, instructing it on how to begin its afterlife journey. Thus, the artist of this piece has combined Christian elements with those of the ongoing indigenous religion.</p>
<p>The letters for Jesus, whom the missionaries have told the Guna they will meet after death, are probably shown reversed to indicate that the scene with the <i>Paliwiduru</i> is taking place on the Other Side, in the Land of the Dead. In indigenous American cosmology, the afterlife is a reversed realm relative to the world of the living. Since the scene is looking from the point of view of “the Beyond,” the name of Jesus is written backwards. Although the missionaries and colonists imposed their system of writing and religion on the Guna, indigenous people incorporated it into their pre-existing worldview. European-style letters, and angels in Heaven are eclipsed by the overriding traditional concept of the <i>Paliwiduru</i>.</p>
<p><i>Dulemolaguna</i> (Blouse Panels) with Spiral Patterns</p>
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Mother Bird Feeding Chick
Guna aesthetic masterfully balances maze-like linear designs with figuration. The image of a mother feeding her baby bird is barely distinguishable from the spiraling black and red forms. However, larger areas of black for the birds' heads and the two bits of white for eyes help the viewer to comprehend the two animals. The left-hand one is smaller and its wings face downward, its feet to the right. Its beak is piercing the open triangular one of the large mother bird, who stands upright. Yet look away from the heads for a moment and you may lose the birds in the exciting tangle of lines and spirals. This is a deliberate technique, perceptually challenging and artistically sophisticated.
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Abstract Coral Patterns
This blouse panel represents the all-important coral reef that used to thrive in the San Blas Islands where the Guna live, but is now endangered. The piece renders coral as an abstract pattern of branching, pointed elements. It aptly communicates the ideal profusion of these sea animals, tiny invertebrates that secrete limestone around their bodies. Ideally, among the coral's branches algae thrive to feed lobsters, turtles, and the other sea life central to Guna existence and economy.
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Fish Among Coral Reef
Some images of the coral reef may be as illusionistic as this, showing how the same subject has many interpretations by different artists. Gracefully swimming fish, a seahorse, and a hermit crab appear very lifelike. The artist has even foreshortened the large fish in the lower right corner to show it swimming out from a bunch of coral. Like others, Guna artists experiment with styles they see in global culture. This openness to a wide range of inspiration for textiles is actually true of many indigenous American peoples, contrary to a stereotype of "traditional" conservatism. They also seek to fulfill tourist expectations, and many U.S. and European travelers come from artistic traditions that value naturalism.
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Caribbean Spiny Lobster
The Guna free dive down as far as eighty feet to catch the Caribbean spiny lobster (<i>Panulirus argus</i>), or rock lobster, shown in the blouse panel. Spiny lobsters resemble "true" lobsters and are edible, except they have very long antennae and only females have small claws on their back legs. Bright orange in color, with many spiky dots, this animal is well captured by the artist's use of the orange top cloth and the many elaborately cut-through color segments on its body and tail. The serrated edges on the triangles in the main body are particularly apt versions of the animal's bumpy surface. This type of edge is the most challenging to make, and indicates the hand of a skilled textile artist.
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Multi-Headed Snake
<p>The fantastical multi-headed snakes take their place among the many subjects of Guna <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>dulemolaguna</i></span><i> </i>that relate to Nature, but not in direct imitation. The undulating and interlocking lines of orange and red create a sense of snake bodies without explicitly delineating individual ones. All available space teems with additional serpentine shapes and curls cut into the maroon top cloth to reveal the layers below in typical <i><span style="text-decoration:underline;">dulemola</span> </i>fashion.</p>
<p>However, a newer innovation is the embroidery embellishing the heads, concentric lines of stitches echoing the circular black-and-white eyes. Embroidery is quick, relative to the arduous work of cutting and stitching the design, and it adds another surface layer. Thus, embroidery is not an intrusive element, but rather follows the already established tendencies creatively invented and explored by Guna women artists.</p>
<p>Furthermore, multi-headed animals are a staple of shamanic art. Snakes in particular figure prominently in visionary experience and those with two or more heads have been called Vision Serpents, often appearing in the ancient art of Central and Mesoamerica. Shamans go into trance and witness wise and terrifying animals such as snakes, that give them advice on how to cure their patients. Thus, this <i>dulemola </i>delves deeper into the spiritual worlds in which most Guna still wholeheartedly believe.</p>
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Panama Canal and Bridge of the Americas
<p>The <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>dulemola</i></span> at left celebrates the famed Panama Canal that joined Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, allowing ships and cargo to move much more efficiently around the planet. The canal actually rejoined the oceans that had long ago been one body of water, until the volcanoes in southern Central America connected to form a solid landmass, changing the global climate. The “Panama Effect” meant that cold water and winds circulated differently around the Atlantic, which became saltier, among many other phenomena. This isthmus also became a land bridge for animals from bears to llamas that migrated between North and South America.</p>
<p>In this blouse panel the ship on the blue waters is shown entering the Pacific end of the canal under a bridge, the Puente de las Américas, or Bridge of the Americas. The artist has added local seabirds and tropical foliage, but most interestingly fills in the available “sky” with the traditional spiral patterns of the “grandmother” <span style="text-decoration:underline;"><i>dulemolaguna</i></span> (earlier, or more fundamental geometric compositions <a href="/items/show/55">here</a>, <a href="/items/show/4">here</a>, <a href="/items/show/56">here</a>, and <a href="/items/show/57">here</a>). This creative composition encapsulates the wonderful layering of modern and traditional imagery that exists in Guna <i>dulemolaguna</i>.</p>
<em>Dulemola</em> (Blouse Panel) with Scene of Churches
<p>The <i><span style="text-decoration:underline;">dulemola</span></i><i> </i>panel features two churches, a subject that is obviously not “traditional” since the Guna religion was and continues to be shamanic and nature-based. Yet, according to <i>dulemola </i>artists, equal-armed cross shapes stand for the top lashed cross-bars of local thatch structures called <i><span style="text-decoration:underline;">palapas</span></i>. Indeed, the two on the church roofs take the symmetrical cross shape (a universal symbol representing the World Tree and the four directions) and occupy the same relative position as in a <i>palapa</i>. Below them, however, are Christian crosses that are characteristically longer in the vertical direction. Thus, these four crosses, perhaps further alluding to the four cosmic directions, subtly combine indigenous and imposed religious symbols. <br /><br />The Guna are familiar with the various missionary groups who first entered Panamá as early as 1699, but did not take hold until the 19th and 20th centuries. The Panama Canal Zone, being American territory for nearly a century, increased the influx of American missionaries of all denominations. By the 1950’s the Guna were a focus of the Southern Baptist Home Mission and today Mormons are a common sight in the San Blas Islands. The Guna maintain a basic tolerance for various religions, though their own religious practices are still paramount. Indeed, what may be an abstract tree between the two churches could refer to the Guna traditional orientation toward the spiritually alive Earth as more central than the churches introduced by outsiders.</p>