Browse Items (25 total)

This Guna blouse panel takes on a Christian subject: the Madonna and Child. She is identified by her cross necklace, which is embroidered like her intricate veil and the patterns on her clothes. The use of embroidery began in the late 20th and early…

This dulemola depicts six big and four little horses. Along the centerline are a flower (below) and a clover (above), plants that horses eat. Horses do love clover, though it is not native to the Guna’s tropical environment; however, neither are…

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…

The fantastical multi-headed snakes take their place among the many subjects of Guna dulemolaguna 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…

Multiple cats can be seen in this ingenious dulemola composition — two smaller ones in profile nestled within the overall orange outline of a larger third one in the center. In another reading, the larger cat could be seen frontally with its tail…

The dulemola 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,…

The dulemola 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 dulemola artists, equal-armed cross shapes stand for the top lashed…

Guna blouse panels are made from machined cloth and commercial thread first introduced by missionaries and now widely available. However, the elaborately cut and sewn patterns are only possible using the sharp scissors the missionaries also brought…

This contemporary dulemola features multiple small pieces of cloth sandwiched between the black top cloth and the orange base one, maximizing the number of colors of the twenty-eight spiral patterns. They are subtly subdivided by the clever way the…

Commercial products, such as the Trix™ cereal rabbit mascot which debuted in 1959, have crept into contemporary dulemola creativity. The icon of this sugary children’s cereal was a trickster figure always trying to steal the cereal from children and…