Threads of Time: Tradition and Change in Indigenous American Textiles

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  • Tags: Introduction

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Since ancient times, Maya women have worn a wide, rectangular blouse known as a huipíl over a wrap-around skirt. This mid-20th century one comes from the famous market town of Chichicastenango.A three-part huipíl such as this would have been…

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This brocaded cloth features a supernatural pelican-man. Still bright after over five hundred years, scarlet highlights the standing figure’s face and the many little pelicans that sit on his arms and emerge magically from/as his body. The two…

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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”…

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Writing—recording information in a format that others at the time and later can decipher—was accomplished by the Inka Empire of South America using thousands of knotted string devices known as khipu. In the Carlos collection there are two other…

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A writing device—fulfilling the communicative purpose of recording and transmitting knowledge among trained individuals over time—the Inka khipu can take a number of forms (a mono- and polychrome example). In the ways that a handwritten poem…

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It may seem odd that the distinctively Inka mode of writing in knotted threads would survive the Spanish invasion and colonization. Indeed, in 1581 the khipu was officially outlawed, although its use went underground and has not completely…

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Writing is incorporated into this contemporary cut-and-sewn dulemola 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…
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