JANE FELTHAM

PERUVIAN TEXTILES

CARINGBAH
HIGH SCHOOL
LIBRARY

SHIRE ETHNOGRAPHY
G0 17
 Cover photograph
A woman weaving warp-striped cloth on a backstrap loom near Cuzco. She is
inserting a long shuttle into the shed. On the ground in front of her lie a weaving
sword and a spindle. Another weaving sword, heddle rod and shed rod can be
seen in the loom.
(Photograph: Rosalie Gotch.)

In memory of Lynn Feltham

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data:

Published by
SHIRE PUBLICATIONS LTD
Cromwell House, Church Street, Princes Risborough,
Aylesbury, Bucks HP17 9AJ, UK.

Series Editor: Bryan Cranstone

Copyright © Jane Feltham, 1989.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage
and retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
ISBN 0 7478 0014 6

First published 1989

Printed in Great Britain by

C. I. Thomas & Sons (Haverfordwest) Ltd,
Press Buildings, Merlins Bridge, Haverfordwest, Dyfed SA61 1XF.
 Contents
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4
PREFACE 5
CHRONOLOGY 7
1. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE 9
2. MATERIALS AND TOOLS 16
3. TECHNIQUES 25
4. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF PERUVIAN TEXTILES 42
5. THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERUVIAN WEAVING 45
6. DRESS ANCIENT AND MODERN 53
7. TEXTILES AND SOCIETY 61
8. MUSEUMS 68
9. FURTHER READING 70
INDEX 71

Acknowledgements
Space does not permit me to thank individually all those who
have contributed to this book by their ideas, suggestions and in
smoothing my path, especially those working in museums. I
should like to give particular thanks to the staff of the
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Bolton Museum and
Art Gallery, the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, the Cambridge
University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the
Liverpool Museum, the Manchester Museum, the Pitt Rivers
Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. In the United
States the staff of the American Museum of Natural History and
the Textile Museum have been most helpful. Finally, my special
gratitude to Rosalie Gotch, Jonathan Hill, Rodrick Owen, Anne
Paul and James Vreeland.
 List of illustrations
. Map of the Central Andes page 8
Llamas near Puno page 10
Chima mummy bundle page //
Wooden doll from Nazca, with tie-dyed textile page 12
Family from Charazani, Bolivia page 14
. Cotton spinning on the north coast page 17
- Wool spinning in the south highlands page 18
. Workbasket with spindles and raw cotton page 19
- Cotton saddlebag being woven on the north coast page 20
. Seventeenth-century representation of a vertical loom page 22
- Bolivian woman weaving on a horizontal ground loom page 23
. Bolivian man preparing to weave on a treadle loom page 23
. Diagram of different joins in tapestry weave page 24
. Slit tapestry weave from the central coast page 26
. Reinforced tapestry from the south coast page 26
North coast tunic with discontinuous warps and wefts page 27
. Diagram of discontinuous warps and wefts page 28
. Supplementary warp and weft weave from the central coast page 29
. Brocaded fish from the central coast page 30
. Backstrap loom warped for double cloth page 31
- Double cloth from the central coast page 3/
. Gauze weave from the central coast page 33
- Openwork fabric from the central coast page 33
. Coca bag from the central coast page 34
. Diagrams of gauze weave, twining, looping and cross-knit loop stitch page 35
. Painted cloth from the central coast page 36
. Warp ikat saddlebags from Bolivia page 37
. Pile cap with corner tassels page 39
. Small tabard from the north coast, sewn with metal fish page 40
. Complementary-warp weave border and fringe from the central coast page 40
. Sampler from the central coast page 4/
Coca bag from Bolivia, showing several techniques page 43
. Slit tapestry weave with two-way design from the central coast page 44
. Preceramic twined cotton cloth from the north coast page 46
. Two garment borders from Paracas page 47
. Cross-knit loop-stitch border from the south coast page 48
. Interlocking tapestry weave page 49
- Openwork fabric from central coast, depicting cat page 50
. Inca tapestry page 51
- Colonial tapestry page 52
. Seventeenth-century representations of indigenous dress page 54
. How Paracas garments might have looked page 55
. Brocaded headband from the north coast page 56
Matching brocaded loincloth from the north coast page 56
. Matching brocaded mantle from the north coast page 57
. Bolivian woman wearing a warp-patterned overskirt page 58
- Bolivian woman wearing regional dress page 58
. Seventeenth-century representation of spinning and plying page 63
. Feather head-dress from the north coast page 63
. Modern festive attire worn by mestizos page 65
. Tapestry woven for tourists, from the south highlands page 67
 Preface
The study of Peruvian textiles belongs properly to the twentieth
century for, although the Spanish chroniclers were impressed
with the sumptuous garments they saw, they did little to preserve
them or to record how they were made. During the Colonial
Period weaving on indigenous looms declined, notably on the
coast, since there was no longer an outlet for the kind of cloth
that such looms had produced in the past: the Inca and local
nobility had adopted Spanish dress and native rituals involving
textile offerings had been forbidden. Highland Indians continued
to make cloth for their own personal use, but no one except its
makers valued it.
Then, in the nineteenth century, travellers from Europe and
North America visited the new South American republics and
published descriptions of their antiquities, including textiles,
which they had obtained from pothunters or from their own
amateur digging on the easily accessible coast around Lima. Their
finds were donated to Western museums and exhibited. In the
last quarter of the same century German archaeologists like
Wilhelm Reiss, Alphons Stiibel and Max Uhle undertook
scientific excavations at Ancén and Pachacamac and published
detailed drawings and photographs of the textiles they found in
mummy bundles. These and other publications, together with the
museum exhibits, aroused public interest since examples of Old
World early textiles were rare. During the twentieth century, as
archaeology and anthropology expanded in the Americas, the
provenance of these archaeological textiles was better
documented and temporal, areal and iconographic differences
became apparent, enabling the development of ancient weaving
to be outlined. Interest in ethnographic textiles was slower to gain
momentum until the late 1960s and the advent of mass tourism,
by which time it had been realised that studies of contemporary
methods of spinning, dyeing and weaving could elucidate those of
antiquity.
The dry climate of the Peruvian coast has preserved ancient
textiles from graves of most prehistoric periods. Unfortunately,
however, there is little indigenous weaving on the coast today,
except for a few cotton articles produced in the far north of Peru
and Ecuador. Therefore one must go to the highlands of these
countries and to Bolivia, where such weaving still flourishes, in
order to examine contemporary techniques. On the other hand,
the damp climate of the highlands has not preserved ancient
6 Peruvian Textiles

textiles, so our best clues to the development of weaving in that

zone are certain pieces from coastal graves that are entirely of
wool and whose structure and designs relate them to the modern
highland weaving tradition. By comparing the products of both
zones, and the ancient with the modern, we are able to fill in the
gaps in our knowledge of the history of Peruvian weaving.
For the purposes of this book, the Peru of the title refers to that
part of the central Andes conquered by the Incas and called by
them Tawantinsuyu. Thus, it excludes the tropical forest in the
east of the modern republic of Peru, but includes parts of Chile,
Argentina, Bolivia and Ecuador. This area is the homeland of the
modern Quechua-speaking and Aymara-speaking Indians. It is
divided into coast and highlands. The former refers to the narrow
strip of desert running along the shore from the Gulf of
Guayaquil to the Atacama Desert in north Chile and to the
interior of valleys with westward-flowing rivers, from sea level to
1500 metres (5000 feet). Land above this altitude is known as
highlands.
I have chosen to deal with a long timespan, from 8500 BC to
the present, because the modern textiles are heirs to pre-
columbian traditions despite the obvious cultural changes
brought about by the Spanish conquest and industrial society.
Moreover, only in Peru is it possible to trace the history of cloth
production from its earliest beginnings to the present. Because
of this wide areal and temporal coverage, I have concentrated on
loom-woven textiles and made only slight mention of braiding,
looping, knotted netting and other techniques. The interested
reader can pursue the study of these in one of the books listed
for further reading. Two other points should be noted. Unless
stated to the contrary, wool refers to camelid wool, that is the
spun hairs of the llama, alpaca and vicuna, a group of South
American mammals related to Asian camels; the warps are
orientated vertically in the figures and warp measurements are
given first in the accompanying captions.
 Chronology
The prehistory of the Central Andes is usually set in a framework
of periods developed by North American archaeologists. In
general horizons occur when a single art style spread to many
areas. Intervening periods are when local styles flourished.
12000
Early Preceramic Man living in Central Andes as hunter and
gatherer.
4000 BC
Late Preceramic Domestication of plants and animals.
2000 BC
Initial Period Introduction of pottery and heddle loom.
1400 BC
Early Horizon Spread of style associated with stone carvings
at Chavin de Hudantar.
400 BC
Early Intermediate Moche, Nazca and Tiahuanaco become
Period centres of importance.
AD 500
Middle Horizon Spread of style associated with stone
carvings at Tiahuanaco via site of Wari.
AD 900
Late Intermediate Expansion of Chimu kingdom on the coast.
Period Rise of the Incas in the highlands.
AD 1476
Late Horizon Inca conquest of central and south coasts.
AD 1532
Colonial Period Arrival of Spaniards. Conquest of Peru.
Rapid depopulation of coast and some
parts of highlands.
AD 1824
Republican Battle of Ayacucho frees Peru and Bolivia
Period from Spanish domination.
present
 Peruvian Textiles

River Amazon

¢Quitarrero Cave

eChavin

‘
1
x \
so
ee \
\, \
N Ancon eHuancayo \
Lima) Fachacamac ‘

Asia Wari )
“ayacucho a
eCuzco ; BOLIVIA
Paracas ©

\
\ eCharazani
Pur 4
Taquil@<e ‘Lake Titicaca
Island .
\GStianvanace

7
“La Paz

Potolo
Region Tarabuco

Atacama
Desert

0 100 200 miles

Mand

0 100 200 kilometres

_ |

1. Map of the Central Andes showing the places mentioned in the text. Inset is a map of
South America showing the extent of the Inca empire (dashed line) and the Chimu
kingdom (dotted area). The area round Lima is known as the central coast, that around
Moche as the north coast and that around Nazca as the south coast.
 1
The land and the people
The Andes form the backbone of the western South American
republics. From barren foothills, a few kilometres from the shore,
they rise steeply to over 6500 metres (21,000 feet). Numerous
short rivers flow westwards from the continental divide, provid-
ing fertile oases for human habitation amidst the stony desert of,
the coast. To the east of the divide are the longer north-flowing
tributaries of the Amazon, wending their way through lofty
plateaux and high valleys. Altitude influences climate and
modifies the effect of being close to the equator, creating greater
diurnal differences in temperature than seasonal ones, all of
which determine the kind of crops that can be grown. Potatoes
are important at high altitudes, up to 4000 metres (13,000 feet)
above sea level. Lower down, around 2000 metres (6500 feet),
come maize, squash and beans, and in the warmer valleys the
sweet potato, peanuts, cotton and tropical fruits. Stock rearing
has always been important in the highlands; huge flocks of llamas
and alpacas once roamed the tableland around Lake Titicaca.
These have dwindled in many areas to be replaced by sheep, and
llamas are rarely used as beasts of burden, as they were in
precolumbian times.
The grandeur of coastal and highland scenery can obscure the
real hardships for those who live there. The Andean peasant of
both zones has always been dependent on water in the right
amount and at the right time. If the winter rains are late or
sparse, there will be insufficient water in the irrigation ditches
and crops can fail. Too much rain may cause mudslides and the
burial of an entire village. Some soils are fertile enough to yield
two harvests a year with irrigation, but many Indians are forced
to live on the poorer, marginal soils.

The prehistory
People entered the New World across the Bering Strait, then a
land bridge from Siberia, towards the end of the last ice age. The
most reliable radiocarbon dates for their presence in the central
Andes range from 14,000 to 12,000 BC, by which time they were
living in small bands in rock shelters like Guitarrero Cave in
north Peru. They lived by hunting deer, camelids and small
rodents and by gathering roots and berries. By 6000 BC
temporary fishing camps had been established on the coast and by
10 Peruvian Textiles

2500 BC there were permanent villages at Huaca Prieta, Ancon

and Asia. Their inhabitants cultivated squash, beans and chile
peppers and supplemented their diet with fish and shellfish.
Pottery was unknown, although textile production was well
established, but based entirely upon cotton and bast fibres.
Gradually settlements expanded into coastal valleys, which were
uncultivable without some form of irrigation. By 1800 BC there
were ceremonial centres in both coast and highlands and pottery
appears as a well developed craft, which was probably introduced
from elsewhere.
From then on features that are peculiarly Andean develop:
ceremonial centres consisting of massive platform mounds or an
intricate labyrinth of rooms, agriculture based on intensive
cultivation and storage of maize and the potato, animal husban-
dry based on camelids, highly developed metallurgy in gold,
silver and copper, ancestor worship, a system of corvée labour
and the keeping of records by means of knotted strings known as
quipus. Projecting backwards from Spanish chronicles, we can
deduce that most villages had a chief who was often subordinate
to a more powerful one elsewhere. Some villages held land,
2. Llamas roped together and resting near Puno, Peru. The llama and its close relative, the
alpaca, are domesticated camelids. Their pelts come in a variety of colours ranging from
white to shades of brown and black. Domestication encouraged the breeding of white
animals since their wool can be dyed in more colours.
— gare Lo eee eae pes
wer a a “ge — hin %e
< oo i ae *
hi: < —_Si <. ai -
me Be
- 4
The land and the people 11
3. A mummy bundle, said to
be Chimt. It has been wrap-
ped in many yards of cloth
and padded with raw cotton
and leaves. Its outer wrap-
pings are warp-striped tex-
tiles commonly found in the
Late Intermediate Period.
Small bags filled with coca
leaves and seeds of other
plants hang from a strap
around its waist. (Courtesy
of the Bolton Museum and
Art Gallery. Photograph: F.
Davies.)

fishing or grazing rights in other areas. For example, a village

near Lake Titicaca might hold lands higher up, suitable only for
grazing, some around the lake for growing potatoes and some in a
warmer valley for growing maize and avocados. At the same time
certain coastal peoples engaged in active trade, bartering salt and
fish for highland products such as wool, metals and turquoise.
Other aspects of Andean society are the preoccupation with
life after death, seen in the burial of the dead either in tombs
constructed in their own houses or in special ritual chambers. The
bodies were accompanied by abundant grave goods, such as
textiles, pottery and food, which were renewed periodically. The
dead were venerated for a long time and consulted by their living
relatives on various matters. On certain festivals important
12 Peruvian Textiles

4. A wooden doll
from Nazca, probably
a talisman. It is wrap-
ped in plain-weave
wool cloth dyed by the
plangi method in red,
dark blue, dark green,
gold and white. Prob-
ably late Middle Hori-
zon. Height 25.5 cm
(10 inches). (Courtesy
of the Liverpool
Museum, National
Museums and Galler-
ies on Merseyside.)

deceased ancestors were dressed in new clothes and paraded

around the locality, a custom that survives in the dressing of local
saints’ statues in indigenous clothing and parading them around
the village. On their arrival in Cuzco, the Spaniards were
horrified to find retainers fanning one of the long-dead Inca
emperors, dressed in all his finery and seated on a stool. The local
shaman was also important. He or she held special status in each
village and gave advice on future events, potential enemies and
successful harvests. Sometimes the shaman spoke on behalf of a
huaca or sacred object, which could be an unusually shaped rock,
a dead ancestor or a particularly large maize cob. These huacas
were worshipped and received offerings of cloth, which were
buried or burnt. Some of them gained more than local fame and
were believed to foretell the future. Pachacamac, near Lima, is
one example, for pilgrims from all over Peru flocked there
regularly to pay homage at his shrine.
The Incas were one of several tribes struggling for power in the
Cuzco area. By the mid fifteenth century, through a combination
of superior warfare, skilled diplomacy and luck, they were able to
The land and the people 13
gain the hegemony of the region from Lake Titicaca north to
Abancay. They seem to have been led by men of organisational
and military genius: firstly Pachacuti; then his son Topa Inca,
who conquered the powerful coastal Chim kingdom; then
Pachacuti’s grandson, Huayna Capac, who extended the territory
to Ecuador. The heirs of the last-named emperor, Atahualpa and
Hudscar, were quarrelling over the succession when the
Spaniards arrived in 1532. Francisco Pizarro, leading only about a
hundred men, was able to take advantage of this quarrel and the
divided loyalties of the various subject tribes and swiftly made
himself master of Peru.

The Colonial and Republican Periods

For some thirty years after the conquest Peru was torn apart by
quarrels between the conquistadors themselves. During this
period the coastal population declined by two-thirds, partly
owing to civil strife, partly through newly introduced European
diseases and partly because of the ill-treatment of the Indians by
their new masters, who forced them to work in the mines, treated
them as beasts of burden, tore down their shrines, burnt their
ancestors’ bodies and expropriated their lands. By 1565 the
succession of viceroys appointed by the Spanish Crown was fully
in control and most indigenous rebellion had been suppressed.
The dispersed Indian population was concentrated into Euro-
pean-style towns and villages laid out on a grid pattern.
Administratively most of the old Inca Tawantinsuyu became the
Viceroyalty of Peru (the word Peru arising from a Spanish
misunderstanding about the name of the country) until the battle
of Ayacucho in 1824, when Simon Bolivar and republican forces
assured the final independence of the Spanish-American
colonies. The land was subsequently divided into two countries,
Peru and Bolivia. During the last century of Spanish rule there
were rebellions on the part of the Indians, culminating in the
revolt of Tupac Amaru in the 1780s. However, this rebellion was
crushed and the Indians played little part in the wars of
independence.
Liberation from Spain did not improve their lot. A form of
tribute was still exacted from them until the end of the nineteenth
century. Moreover, the rise of large coastal estates dedicated to
the growing of cash crops for export created a labour force of
wage-earning peasants working land they did not own. In the
highlands land can be owned by individuals or communities, who
share it out between their members, each receiving according to
14 Peruvian Textiles

i . = : : " “ © ey a me

5. A family from Charazani, Bolivia. The husband wears a knitted cap under his felt hat
and a plain poncho. The wife wears a traditional headband under her hat and
warp-patterned carrying cloths over her shoulders. (Courtesy of J. Hill and Dover
Publications.)
The land and the people 15

his needs. However, crop yields can be low since the best land has
been expropriated by wealthy Creoles. Furthermore, as plots are
divided up for inheritance, land shortage has driven many to seek
work in coastal cities.
The modern Quechua and Aymara
Contemporary Andean Indians are generally divided into two
groups according to the language they speak, either Quechua or
Aymara. Both languages are similar in structure and may have
sprung from a common parent some thousands of years ago.
Quechua, the language of the Incas, is spoken in the highlands of
modern Peru and Ecuador and was imposed by the Incas in
certain regions of Bolivia. Aymara is generally spoken in Bolivia
and parts of northern Chile. In modern Peru it is spoken in some
areas east and west of Lake Titicaca. It was once more
extensively spoken, particularly in the centre and south of Peru,
but was displaced by Quechua several hundreds of years before
the Inca conquest.
There are many similarities between the cultures of the people
speaking these languages. Both groups use indigenous looms to
make textiles for themselves and for tourists. For themselves they
weave clothes, blankets, carrying cloths, sacks and saddlebags.
For the tourist they weave belts, ponchos, bags and coverings and
knit a variety of garments. Knitting with two needles is a recent
development, for this technique was unknown to the pre-
columbian Indians. Instead most textiles were loom-woven and
can be divided into two kinds: warp-patterned weaves and
weft-patterned weaves. The former survived throughout the
Colonial Period and form the basis for decorative ponchos and
carrying cloths manufactured in the highlands today. The latter
found their highest expression in the tapestries woven through
much of Peruvian prehistory, and which did not last through the
eighteenth century. Some precolumbian techniques, such as warp
ikat, have survived only sporadically, while others, such as gauze
weaves and painted cloth, have disappeared from the repertoire.
16
2
Materials and tools
Peruvian peasants have always used the simplest of tools. The
spinning and weaving equipment found in precolumbian graves
closely resembles what is still in use today. Canes, both solid and
hollow, served as loom bars and heddle sticks; loom posts and
weaving swords were made from the wood of local trees, as were
some of the larger shuttles. Needles for sewing and darning came
from cactus spines or were made of copper. Small combs of
wooden prongs bound with cotton were used to beat down the
weft, and the warps were picked up with bone tools made from
camelid metatarsals. After the Spanish conquest, some new
materials and tools were introduced, such as sheep’s wool, silk,
linen, the treadle loom and the spinning wheel. In the nineteenth
century came aniline dyes and, in the twentieth, synthetic fibres.
All of these, however, have merely been incorporated into the
time-honoured methods of cloth production, and perhaps only in
the case of aniline dyes can the new be said to have superseded
the old.
Methods of processing animal and vegetable fibres can differ
slightly from region to region, so that there are exceptions to the
following general account which summarises ancient and modern
practices.

Spinning
The major fibres of precolumbian Peru were cotton and
camelid wool. The cotton, Gossypium barbadense, is thought to
have been introduced as a primitive domesticate into northern
Peru from southern Ecuador some time in the fourth millennium
BC. It is a hardy plant, more resistant to drought than modern
hybrid strains, and has longer fibres. It occurs naturally in six
colours: white, grey, tan, medium brown, reddish brown and
dark brown. Nowadays its cultivation and processing are confined
to the north coast of Peru around Morrope, but in precolumbian
times it was grown as far south as northern Chile.
According to James Vreeland, indigenous cotton can be
harvested continuously for up to six years after planting. The
seeds are removed from the bolls by hand and the resultant wads
of cotton are beaten with sticks until the fibres are evenly
distributed. They are then folded and rolled into a cylinder which
is attached to a vertical post or a wooden tripod. The spinner sits
on the ground nearby with her spindle across her thigh. With her
6. North coast cotton spinners still use the ancient tripod to which they attach the beaten
fibres. This woman from Morrope holds the spindle horizontally across her thigh and .
.draws out the fibres with her left hand while rotating the spindle with her right hand.
(Courtesy of the Vreeland/Sican Archive.)
left hand she draws the fibres from the bottom of the cylinder,
twisting them and rotating the spindle with her right hand. As a
sufficient length of thread is formed, it is wound around the
spindle, which requires no whorl. Representations of spinning on
precolumbian coastal pottery show that a similar method was
used then. Chronicles also state that the spindle was twirled in a
small bowl resting on the ground. Such bowls are often found in
the baskets of weaving tools that accompany mummies.
Wool, with its longer fibres that give greater friction when
rubbed against each other, can more easily be spun by the
drop-spindle method. The chief sources of wool for the ancient
Peruvians were the two domesticated camelids, the llama and the
alpaca. Llama wool is coarser and greasier than alpaca wool and
is consequently used for heavy-duty articles, such as mats, sacks,
saddlebags and cordage. The alpaca is a smaller, shaggier animal,
with softer, longer hairs, although the coarsest alpaca wool will
intergrade with the finest llama wool. Another wild member of
the same family, the vicufa, has even finer hairs which were
much prized by the Incas. According to the chronicles, these
animals were captured during special hunts and sheared. No
18 Peruvian Textiles

commoner under the Incas was allowed to wear vicuna wool

cloth, this being a privilege reserved for the emperor and the
nobility. Today the vicufa is a protected animal and the
manufacture of garments from its hair is forbidden.
Alpacas are sheared between December and March. Their
wool is spun by women and young girls as they go about their
daily chores. It is not usually carded. Instead the fibres are pulled
out by hand and arranged parallel to one another to form a
roving. This may be wound around the forearm or on to a forked
wooden distaff. The spindle is a smooth stick with a wooden
whorl. The spinner makes a small length of yarn by twisting
together some fibres with her fingers. She attaches this to the
spindle, which she twirls and drops, while drawing out the fibres
from roving with the thumb and forefinger of her other hand. As
the yarn is spun, it is wound on to the spindle. Sheep’s wool is
prepared and spun in a similar way. A few communities in the
central highlands use the spinning wheel, but its disadvantage is
that the spinner has to stay in the same place all the time and
cannot engage in other activities.
Some of the earliest textiles in the Andes come from the hard
fibres, chiefly from Furcraea occidentalis, a cactus plant that
resembles the agave, with narrow, sharp-pointed leaves that can
yield fibres up to 50 cm (20 inches) long. Other plants were also
7. Highland women spinning wool with a drop spindle. Their black skirts with a red
border, warp-patterned shawls and flat pancake hats are typical of the Cuzco region. The
two boys wear brown, warp-striped ponchos over European-style trousers and sandals of
tyre rubber. (Photograph: Rosalie Gotch.)
a
Materials and tools 19

hd Chk bh Lid. “i U. MA of. ii “. ne ce

lid.

SN ESE
SNE a
ee

8. The interior of a reed workbasket with balls of yarn, spindles and raw cotton. Such
workbaskets are common in coastal graves. In the centre of one spindle is a small bead,
often called a spindle whorl, but its probable function was to prevent the thread from
slipping off the spindle. Spindle length about 22 cm (8 inches). (Courtesy of the Pitt
Rivers Museum, Oxford.)

utilised, including a bast from a kind of milkweed, Asclepias

species. The leaves or stems were probably soaked for a long
period and then beaten to release the fibres, which were spun by
being rolled between the palm of the hand and the thigh, a
procedure known all over South America. In preceramic times
the bast was plied with cotton, but it was used on its own in
fabrics made from a single element, such as looped pouches and
fishing nets.
During spinning, fibres may be twisted either to the left or to
the right, resulting in spirals that resemble either the letter Z or
the letter S. Single yarns are usually plied together with a heavier
spindle, in order to make a stronger, more even thread, and this
ply is nearly always done in the opposite direction to the initial
twist. The direction of spin and ply have varied over time and
place and can be important in identifying the provenance of
certain textiles. Wool, both then and now, is almost always
Z-spun and S-plied. The direction of the spin of cotton varies. In
the highlands today woollen yarns spun with an S twist are called
llog’e and deemed to have magical properties. They may be spun
only on special occasions, such as for cloth offered to Pacha-
 72 id
big PFA HEN thes
Pos

4 Hi | Hy 10 dia

9. A woman from Ferrefiafe on the north coast of Peru weaving a cotton saddlebag on a
backstrap loom. The shuttle lies on the ground to her left. She grasps the heddle stick with
her left hand and the shed rod with her right. The weaving sword is inserted in front of
these, just behind the piece already woven. The precolumbian north coast preference for
warp-striped fabrics with paired warps and wefts still prevails among these artisan weavers
of native cotton. (Courtesy of the Vreeland/Sican Archive.)

mama, the earth goddess, and as a protection against sickness.

Travellers wear //og’e-spun yarns around their wrists as a talisman
against harm on a journey.

Dyeing
Cotton was dyed before spinning and wool after spinning. A
variety of dyes was used and a number of different hues obtained:
as many as 190 have been counted in the ancient textiles from
Paracas and Nazca. Wool takes colour better than cotton, which
could be dyed only in shades of blue, red and brown. Most dyes
came from local plants. For example, the molle, chilca and taro
trees of coastal valleys gave shades of yellow; blue came from the
indigo plant and red from a madder-like plant known as
relbunium. Purple could be obtained from the secretions of a
shellfish and another red came from the cochineal beetle, which
lives on the prickly pear cactus. Colour was also affected by the
mordants used, the most common of which were alum and urine.
There was also an iron-based one, which has often rotted the
yarns.
Materials and tools 21

The dyeing processes of antiquity probably resembled modern

ones. One method from Bolivia is to soak the wool in both hot
and cold water and then dry it, in order to eliminate any air
pockets which could cause uneven colour saturation. Water is
then brought to the boil in an earthenware pot and the mordant,
usualiy a powdered alum, is mixed in until it has dissolved. Next
the crushed dye plants are added and the mixture stirred and left
to boil for several hours until the desired colour is obtained. At
this point the wool is immersed in the dye and simmered for half
an hour. The pot is removed from the fire and the wool is left to
soak overnight. The next day it is taken from the bath, rinsed in
clear water and dried in the sun. The procedure varies slightly
according to the kind.of vegetable dyes and the mordants used.

Weaving
The backstrap loom is considered to be typical of the Andes,
although other types have been used since antiquity. Its popular-
ity stems from the fact that it is simple to make and can be easily
dismantled and transported. Nowadays narrow warp-patterned
belts and straps are woven on it, but it can be used for the wider
webs of ponchos and mantles. Its disadvantage lies in the fact that
the breadth and sometimes the length of the web are restricted by
the nature of the loom, for it would be extremely tiring to weave
anything wider than the span of one’s arms, and therefore the
maximum width of the web is about 75 cm (30 inches).
To set up the loom, the warps are usually wound around two
posts in a figure of eight. Each post is then replaced by a heavy
cord which is lashed to a loom bar. One loom bar is attached to a
vertical post or to a peg on the wall. The other loom bar is
attached to a belt which passes around the weaver’s waist. By
leaning backwards or forwards the weaver can adjust the tension
of the warps as he or she desires. One shed is formed by the
winding of the warps in the figure of eight, the other by picking
up the alternate warps, that is those in the lower layer of the first
shed, with small loops of cotton known as leashes, and attaching
them to a heddle stick. Pulling the stick upwards brings the lower
layer of warps to the top and creates a second shed. In order to
weave elaborate patterns other sheds can be created by picking
up the warps with a bone tool or by making more leashes.
For some time archaeologists were puzzled as to how the very
wide webs of some precolumbian shirts were woven. These can
measure as much as 250 cm (98 inches) wide and would have been
most easily woven on some kind of vertical loom. The chronicles
aah Peruvian Textiles

had reported their existence, but there was no archaeological

evidence for any until 1958, when excavations at Pachacamac
revealed a blackware vessel with a vertical loom modelled on its
top. The loom consists of two upright posts connected by an
upper cross-beam, from which the warps hang. Such a loom has
also been reported ethnographically from among some southern
communities. It too consists of two upright posts with a
cross-beam set across the forked ends and another beam lashed to
the base. It is set up in an outside courtyard close to a wall and the
whole is wide enough for two weavers to sit comfortably side by
side.
Another kind of loom found today in the highlands is the
four-stake, horizontal ground loom. This consists of four small
posts wedged into the earth with the loom bars lashed to them
about 25 cm (10 inches) from the ground surface. As with the
vertical loom, its tension is fixed from the start but can be

LENIERSEVAARION
; Pp
|
pron tenbrabos yug eiroymall
halales yrsy > an 6b
ba pale plas te otey ne ori [as Je
hunag neagee ©
mt bo

10. Guaman Poma, a seven-

teenth-century chronicler, de-
picts an elderly Indian man
working at a vertical loom. He
is using a bone pick to separate
groups of warps. The Spanish
caption reads: ‘In the villages
of this kingdom the friars are
so bad-tempered and so strict
that they beat the Indians to
make them work and there is
no escape for them.’
11. (Left) A woman from the Potolo region of Bolivia, weaving a poncho on a horizontal
ground loom. She is using a bone tool to pick up the warps needed for the pattern. To her
right is a long shuttle. (Courtesy of J. Hill and Dover Publications.)
12. (Right) A man from the Potolo region of Bolivia, drawing out the warps on a treadle
loom to be attached to a post behind him, in preparation for weaving bayeta cloth.
(Courtesy of J. Hill and Dover Publications.)

modified by the addition or subtraction of extra weaving swords

and shed sticks. It is particularly used for warp-patterned weaves
among the Aymara. No direct archaeological evidence exists for
the use of this loom in antiquity, but it was probably known along
with the other two types.
The Spaniards introduced a fourth type, the treadle loom,
which was used in textile workshops during the Colonial Period.
It was worked chiefly by men, as it is today in the highlands,
where a coarse woollen cloth known as bayeta is woven on it.
Bayeta is warm and hard-wearing and peasants make plain skirts,
trousers and jackets from it.
Most weaving probably took place in the exterior courtyards of
dwellings, as it does today on all types of loom mentioned. In the
three indigenous looms, the warps are not attached to the loom
24 Peruvian Textiles

bars, but to a thick cord which is lashed to the bar. Thus they do
not have to be cut in order to remove the finished cloth from the
loom: the result is a four-selvedge fabric. On the backstrap and
horizontal looms weaving begins at one end with the insertion of
a thicker weft for two or three shots. These wefts are known as
heading cords or loomstrings and they set the width of the web.
The weaving progresses for several centimetres of plain or
patterned cloth, at which point it is abandoned. The opposite end
is then begun in the same manner and continued until the part
already woven is reached. The last few shots of weft have to be
made with a darning needle, since the shed is too small to allow
the passage of a large shuttle. In the case of warp-patterned
weaves such a procedure leads to patterning irregularities known
as the terminal area. This can be spotted in both ancient and
modern textiles, since it is always a few centimetres away from
one of the end selvedges.

a) Interlocked Tapestry b) Slit Tapestry Weave

Weave

c) Dovetailed Tapestry d) Double Interlocked

Weave Tapestry Weave

13. Diagram to show the different methods of dealing with discontinuous wefts in tapestry
weave.
 25

3
Techniques
Woven cloth consists of two sets of elements: warps (the
longitudinal yarns) and wefts (which interlace the warps, usually
at right angles). In ancient Peru the majority of textiles were in
plain weave, either of one colour or with a simple stripe, check or
plaid design. Plain weave refers to a structure whereby the first
shot or passage of the weft passes over and under one or more
warps and the following shot reverses the procedure, that is those
warps that lie above the weft in one row will lie below it in the
next. Most of these surviving plain-weave specimens come from
the coast and are made of cotton. Some are woven in a
balanced-count weave, with the warp and weft given equal
prominence, that is the same number of warps and wefts per
centimetre. The majority, however, are warp-faced, where the
warps outnumber the wefts, usually covering them entirely, so
that the latter appear as faint horizontal ridges. As a variation,
one can find the warps paired, the wefts paired, or both warps
and wefts paired. The Chimt weavers favoured paired, single-ply
warps and other areas experimented with one or the other during
the very early periods.

Tapestry
Tapestry is considered to be a weft-faced weave executed in a
variety of colours to form some design. In addition, the wefts are
discontinuous, that is they turn back along their path at certain
points in order to create blocks of colour or outlines in
accordance with the needs of the design. The warps are
completely covered by the wefts and appear as faint vertical
ridges. Although tapestry is commonly executed with wool wefts
on cotton warps, examples of all-cotton tapestry are known,
particularly for the earlier periods when wool was not widely
available over all the coast. Some highland tapestries are entirely
of wool, such as those tunics and mantles from Tiahuanaco that-
are found in northern Chile.
There are several techniques for dealing with the boundaries
between wefts of different colours. Sometimes these boundaries
appear as long slits, when each weft is turned back around its
marginal warp along the direction in which it came. These slits
can form part of the design if, for example, there is a stepped
pattern. However, very long slits weaken the structure of the
14. Slit-weave tape
diagonal lines of the pattern, but the longer ones have been sewn up. Total fragment is 29
by 15 cm (11 by 6 inches). (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
15. Reinforced tapestry in which red, blue, yellow and black wool wefts are woven over
cotton warps with extra cotton wefts to strengthen the fabric. South coast. Middle
Horizon. Total fragment is 130 by 63 cm (51 by 25 inches). (Courtesy of the Pitt Rivers
Museum, Oxford.)
fi f : sgl Res %,
ee
 Techniques 27

cloth and were wholly or partially sewn up after weaving. One

method of retaining the sharp outlines of slit-weave tapestry is to
reinforce the cloth by a finer weft which runs through the total
width of the fabric at intervals, so that for every two wool wefts
there would be an invisible one of fine cotton. Different coloured
shapes in slit-weave tapestry can be outlined in a contrasting
colour with wefts that do not run perpendicular to the warp.
These are known as eccentric wefts because of their oblique or
curved passage, and they too may help to strengthen slit-weave
tapestry. Otherwise, wefts of different colours can be linked
during their passage. This linking can take place between warps,
when it is known as interlocking, a technique that is characteristic
of highland tapestries. Double interlocking occurs when one weft
passage links two wefts of the adjacent colour, forming a ridge on
the wrong side of the fabric. This technique is relatively rare in
Peruvian tapestries but found on the south coast during earlier
periods. A further method is dovetailing, when wefts of different
colours turn around a single warp, which they can do singly, in
pairs, or in threes to give a toothed effect.
In precolumbian and modern Peru the ends of the different
colours were finished off by being invisibly darned into their
corresponding colour area, so that both faces have an equally well
finished appearance. In the past, however, wefts were sometimes
floated across the back of the tapestry to the next area where they
were to be used, giving a right and a wrong side to the fabric. This
was a common practice on the south coast during the Late
Intermediate Period.
\f*

16. Diagram to show the structure of

discontinuous warps and wefts. Here the
two colours are joined by interlocking, but
other methods, such as dovetailing, could
be used instead.
28 Peruvian Textiles

Discontinuous warps and wefts

One unusual technique is where the warps as well as the wefts
are discontinuous. This occurs on fabrics that appear to have a
kind of patchwork design, although the whole web was woven as
one on the loom. The pieces are usually in a balanced-count plain
weave and must have been woven on some kind of frame loom.
The main warps were set up as usual from one loom bar to the
other. They were crossed at intervals by a series of wefts known
as scaffold wefts, which were normally of a finer yarn than the
wefts of the fabric. These scaffold wefts would have been held
taut by being fastened to the sides of the frame loom. From them
hung other shorter warps for the length required for their part in
the design. They were interlocked with adjacent upper and lower
warps of different colours. The cloth was then woven, with the
weft colour varying according to the warp colour and interlocking
with wefts of adjoining sections. After the fabric was completed,
the scaffold wefts were withdrawn. The American Museum of
Natural History in New York possesses a small loom which
demonstrates this warp set-up, with the scaffold wefts still in
place.

Supplementary warps and wefts

A common technique in ancient and modern Peru is to create
a design by floating extra warps or wefts over the ground weave.
If this is done without disturbing the basic structure of the
weave, the additional warps or wefts are known as supple-
17. Tunic in plain-weave cotton in shades of brown and white with a yellow wool fringe.
The design is created by means of discontinuous warps and wefts and shows long-billed sea
birds whose heads are orientated vertically within a step fret pattern. North coast. Late
Intermediate Period. 47 by 131 cm (18% by 51% inches). (Courtesy of the Textile
Museum, Washington DC.)
 mentary warp and weft floats forming a
18. The two faces of a small cloth with supple cotton. Central coast. Late Intermediate
design of stepped crosses . Blue and white
Horizo n. 45 by 25 cm (17% by 10 inches) . (Courtesy of the Trustees of the
Period/Late
Victoria and Albert Museum.)

-count or a warp-
mentary. The background is either a balanced by means of
faced plain weave. If the pattern is made inter vals and follow
supplementary warps, these occur at regul ar
of the back grou nd cloth, but
the general order of interlacement rn. Supple-
it to form the patte
on occasions they float over the weav e and are
mentary warps are continuous throughout the other hand,
On_
placed in position during warping. discontinuous. If the
y wefts can be conti nuous or
supplementar of the cloth when not
former, they can be floated along the back
wrong side to the fabric; or
required, giving an obvious right and in the negative on the
else they can create the same design
they are usually inserted
reverse of the cloth. If discontinuous,
weft for part of the way and
along with the passage of the main
30 Peruvian Textiles

19. Detail of fish bro-

caded by means of dis-
continuous sup-
plementary wefts in
blue and white cotton
and brown wool on
white plain-weave cot-
ton. Probably central
coast. Late Intermedi-
ate Period. (Courtesy
of the Birmingham
Museum and Art Gal-
lery.)

are worked backwards and forwards until the design is achieved.

If this technique is carried out on the loom, it is called
brocading. If it is done off the loom and the needle pierces the
yarns of the weave, it is best considered embroidery.

Complementary warps and wefts

A more elaborate technique for producing warp-faced
patterns is one whereby warps of two different colours are set up
in two complementary sets that are both necessary to the
structure of the fabric. In other words, there is no background
cloth against which the design is created. Instead, each warp has
its counterpart on the opposite face of the cloth and the design
springs from the interlacement of the weft with these two sets.
For example, as the weft passes over a warp of one colour, it
must pass under its reciprocal warp of the other colour. Thus a
design is created with the colours in reverse on each face and the
fabric is double-faced. If each set of warps is coequal in this
20. A backstrap loom from the
north coast of Peru. Probably
Late Intermediate Period. Dou-
ble cloth is being woven in
brown and white cotton with a
design of cats and step frets. The
cloth is lashed to the loom bars
by cords that pass through the
loom strings. Two heddle sticks
and one shed rod can be seen in
the warps. Size of the textile is
25 by 20 cm (10 by 8 inches).
(Courtesy of the Trustees of the
British Museum.)

21. Brown and white cotton dou-

ble cloth with a design of sea
birds and a step fret border. The
two surfaces can be seen where
the brown has frayed. The rever-
sal of the motif along diagonal
lines is an important feature of
ancient textiles. Central coast.
Late Intermediate Period.
Warps are horizontal. 21 by 33
cm (8! by 13 inches). (Courtesy
of the Cambridge University
Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology.)
32 Peruvian Textiles

manner, they are known as complementary warps. The same

kind of structure can be found on weft-faced fabrics with
reciprocal sets of wefts. Complementary-warp weave has always
been a popular method of creating designs in the highlands,
where patterned warp stripes are interspersed with plain warp
stripes on various garments (figures 30 and 32). In antiquity
complementary-weft weave was popular on the coast as a border
for tunics or mantles.
Double cloth
Double cloth has a long history going back to the Early
Horizon. Two separate layers of warps are required. These are
set up on the same loom, one on top of the other, each with its
own heddle stick and shed rod. Each layer is of a different colour’
and has its own weft of the same colour. Two webs are woven in a
balanced plain weave and the design is formed by the warps and
wefts of one colour crossing from one layer to the other, thereby
interconnecting the webs at certain points. When the cloth is
removed from the loom, one can feel the two webs and the
sections where they interconnect. A variation of this technique is
known as tubular weaving and has been used to produce strong
bag and girth straps. Again there are two layers of warps set up to
produce a warp-faced cloth, but the weft is single and spirals
round from one surface to the other so that the resultant cloth
would be a tube but for the fact that the warps are interchanged
between layers and warp colours not needed for the pattern are
left floating between the two layers of the fabric. Such a
technique is also found on the warp-patterned stripes of certain
Bolivian ponchos and mantles.
Gauze weaves
Gauze refers not to a light, filmy material, but to the kind of
weave used to produce a slightly openwork fabric, where the
warps are crossed at regular intervals and eventually return to
their original position, each crossing being secured by the passage
of the weft. A simple crossing of left over right warps, in pairs,
will give such an openwork effect, however heavy the yarn. There
are more complicated sets of crossings by which intricate patterns
may be woven. Gauzes were normally made of white cotton or
fine wool and were further embellished with embroidery or
tapestry.
A technique sometimes confused with gauze is that of
openwork, where warps and wefts are deliberately omitted or
bunched together SCARINGBAPPS like a mesh, with
HIGH SCHOOL
LIBRARY
22. (Left) Gauze weave combined with embroidery in cream cotton to give a design of sea
birds along diagonal lines. Central coast. Late Intermediate Period. Warps are horizontal.
aa by 39.5 cm (10% by 15% inches). (Courtesy of the Birmingham Museum and Art
allery.)
23. (Right) Openwork fabric of white cotton with rectangular and triangular spaces
ornamented with embroidery. The design shows monster men with the major figures
reversed along vertical lines. Probably central coast. Late Intermediate Period. 23 by 18
cm (9 by 7 inches). (Courtesy of the Liverpool Museum, National Museums and Galleries
on Merseyside.)
square, diamond or triangular spaces. Usually the spaced wefts
are knotted with half hitches around the spaced warps to make a
stronger fabric and to keep the spacing even. Designs of cats or
birds were often embroidered on this background. The best
examples are from the central coast and were made in fine white
cotton.
Embroidery
Embroidery has been used in different ways throughout
Peruvian textile history: a maximum effect was achieved with a
minimum of stitches. In the Early Horizon it was a major means
of creating elaborate designs, but by the later periods it was used
merely to finish a garment. The best known embroideries are
those from graves in the Paracas peninsula; these were executed
in a counted stem stitch, with the needle going over four threads
and under two. When thg ghrgacds.
kat tg-the same side of the
Ma ae
wy oat

es AK
34 Peruvian Textiles

24. Coca bag in

warp-faced plain
weave with warp
stripes and a chev-
ron design in yellow,
black and red wool.
There is buttonhole-
stitch edging in the
same colours. Cen-
tral coast. Late
Horizon. 17 by 16
cm (6'4 by 6 inches).
(Courtesy of the
Trustees of the Vic-
toria and Albert
Museum.)

needle all the time, the effect is one of a twill weave. As a

variation, however, the rows of stitching can be counterpaired,
with the thread kept above the needle on one row and below it on
the next, which gives a different texture to the cloth. A double
running stitch was also used to create designs, particularly during
the Inca period, when it was used zigzag to finish the bottom of a
tunic, which was further bound in buttonhole stitch, as were the
edges of Inca bags.
Possibly the most interesting of the precolumbian stitches is the
cross-knit loop stitch, which resembles crossed knitting on two
needles in a stocking-stitch manner. However, it was made on a
single needle by taking the loop around the crossing of the loop of
the previous row. It can be executed vertically or horizontally on
the fabric itself to form an embroidered area, used as a tubular
edging to garments or worked into a fabric in its own right.
Outstanding examples are the mantle borders of birds, flowers
and agricultural deities worked in multicoloured wool in this
stitch and dating from the Early Intermediate Period (figure 36).
To form the body of the figures, a small hank of vegetable fibres
was used as a support and the design was built up in rows of
stitches around it.
Twining :
Before the invention of the heddle loom, twining a pair of wefts
Techniques 35

around fixed warps would have been as quick a method of cloth

manufacture as darning the weft over and under each warp. In
this case the warps were not set up in a figure of eight because no
shed control was needed. Instead they were wound around fixed
loom bars in a cylindrical fashion. They were probably turned
arounda horizontal cord set midway between the bars, each loop
placed in the opposite direction to the previous one, so that when

il

iif IV
25. Diagrams of various techniques. (i) A simple gauze weave with the second of every
pair of warps crossed over the first and held down by the weft. (ii) Weft twining: (a)
twining in a Z direction; (b) twining in an S direction; (c) the two kinds paired to give a
chain-stitch effect. (iii) Simple loop stitch. (iv) Cross-knit loop stitch.
36 Peruvian Textiles

the cloth was finished the cord could be pulled out, leaving a
four-selvedge fabric. Twining started at one side of the warps
from the centre point of a doubled weft, which would be
interlaced with the warps in an S or Z manner, that is crossing the
right end of the weft over the left end, or vice versa. Patterns
were made by colouring the warps or wefts, crossing the warps in
different directions, counterpairing the wefts or changing the
spacing of warps and wefts.
Painting
The painting of cloth goes back to the Preceramic Period, when
certain pigments were rubbed on to the warps or the finished
cloth. By the Early Horizon designs were painted on plain-weave
cotton fabrics, probably with small animal-hair brushes. Pigments
were limited to browns, greys, reds, blacks and an occasional blue
or purple. They were probably made from ground minerals mixed
with water and some resinous substance to make the paint adhere
better. Designs were first outlined in black and then filled in with
colours. By the later periods some repetitive motifs seem to have
been stamped on the cloth by using a carved gourd as the stamp.

26. Painted cloth of

warp-faced, plain-
weave, brownish cot-
ton. The design repre-
sents amphibian-like
creatures and birds
painted in a greenish
brown pigment. 34 by
22 cm (13% by 8%
inches). Central coast.
Late Intermediate
Period. (Courtesy of
the Manchester
Museum.)
Techniques 37

ear
eG

red
27. Two saddlebags with a simple geometrical design in warp ikat. White, black and by
cm (37
sheep’s wool. Tarabuco, Bolivia. Twentieth century. 94 by 40 and 102 by 36
15% and 40 by 14 inches). (Courtesy of J. Hill and Dover Publications.)

These late painted cloths have an overall pattern of fishes, birds

the
and local coastal deities. The technique continued into an
Period, from which a few altar cloths with Christi
Colonial
religious scenes painted on them survive.
38 Peruvian Textiles

Tie-dyeing
Forms of tie-dyeing go back to the Early Horizon, but neither
the ikat nor the plangi method was well developed in Peru. Warp
ikat was used to make geometrical designs, mostly variations of
stepped crosses. In this technique, which is found on warp-faced
textiles, the warps are dyed in the required design before weaving
commences. Certain portions of the warp are tightly bound to
prevent them from taking colour when the skeins are immersed in
the dye bath. Patterns can be made in several colours, provided
that the lighter colours are dyed before the darker ones.
Nowadays the technique is found on saddlebags, ponchos and
shawls from various Andean countries.
The plangi method is used to dye designs on cloth that has
already been woven (figure 4). Again the portions of the design
to be left in reserve were tightly bound so that they did not
become saturated with the dye. This technique was used for
patchwork-type cloths from the central and south coasts. Small
patches were woven by the discontinuous warp and weft method
described previously. They were disassembled and each piece
dyed in a different colour combination, usually in reds, greens,
purples and blues. The separate pieces were then reassembled on
the loom. The designs were mainly small circles arranged in a
lozenge.

Other techniques
Cloth can also be made from a single element or yarn that is
worked into itself like modern crochet. Mention has been made
of cross-knit loop-stitch borders. Pouches, hats and bags were
also made by this technique, as well as by simple and knotted
looping. The latter technique was used for all kinds of nets.
Braiding with a set of yarns, where any one can play the part of
warp or weft, was elaborated to produce slings and headbands,
usually with a lozenge or chevron design. Sprang, or the
interlinking of a set of elements, was used for hoods, caps and
small bags.
There were many techniques for embellishing cloth, one of
which gives a pile surface. Such a surface is found on small
squarish hats and on animal figures worked in tapestry-weave.
The hats are worked in loop stitch with square knots set close
together. In every other row along the sides of the hat an extra
weft was caught into the knots to form a small loop, which was
later cut to give a plush effect. In the tapestry-weave animal
figures loops were made between each warp by the weft during its
 Techniques 39

&

28. Pile cap with corner tassels. The sides and crown are worked in a brown wool loop
stitch and the sides are embellished with pile tufts of red, green, blue, yellow and black
wool. Designs are based on Tiahuanaco iconography. Probably south coast. Middle
Horizon. Height 8 cm (3% inches). (Courtesy of the Birmingham Museum and Art
Gallery.)
passage from one side of the web to the other. The looping was
repeated every row, or every other row, as required, and left a
furred surface whose loops were often left uncut.
A garment or wall hanging could be sewn with ornaments such
as tassels, pompons or spangles of perforated metal, shell, bone
or stone, which sometimes completely covered the original.
Today in Charazani, Bolivia, small beads are threaded to the weft
at the end of one shot and before the beginning of the next to give
a beaded border to belts and straps. The feathers of tropical
forest birds made a spectacular adornment. They were attached
to the cloth in rows by bending the ends of the quills over a thread
and fastening them down with another thread which was knotted
around the bend in each feather. The threads were stitched down
to the fabric so that the rows of feathers overlapped. Designs of
animals and deities were worked out in different colours for
tabard-like garments and high-crowned hats (figure 49).
40 Peruvian Textiles

29. Small tabard, possibly a child’s. Plain-weave cream cotton with yellow metal spangles
shaped like fish and bells. The fish are reversed at the shoulder line. Probably north coast.
Late Intermediate Period. 38 by 51 cm (15 by 20 inches). (Courtesy of the Manchester
Museum.)
30. Detail of a garment border in red and cream wool with white cotton wefts just visible.
The sea-bird design is woven in a complementary-warp weave (the warps are horizontal)
and the separately woven red wool fringe has been sewn to the border with a neat
hemming stitch. Band width is 5 cm (2 inches). Central coast. Late Intermediate Period.
(Courtesy of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Other techniques 41

One of the most popular finishes for all periods has been the
fringe, which is often made separately from the main fabric and
attached by an overhand stitch. Warps were set up for the desired
length of the fringe and a few shots of weft were inserted. The
warps were then removed from the loom and the free ends left to
twist or they were cut. Sometimes groups of warps were given an
S or Z twist to provide a thicker fringe. More elaborate fringes
were made from small tabs which could be worked in tapestry,
cross-knit loop stitch or buttonhole stitch.
Some well used garment fragments have been patched and
darned. Such darning can be crude, with no attempt made to
match up colours or threads, which is surprising in view of the
Peruvians’ advanced weaving skills. Either fine objects came into
the hands of those who could not sew well and they were unable
to mend them properly, or else sewing skills were not prized in
antiquity. Nowadays a torn piece may be rewoven rather than
darned or patched, much like our invisible mending.

31. Samplers have always

been used for practising
techniques, designs and
their layout. This one has
been deliberately shaped
inwards by increasing the
weft tension. The thicker
heading cords can be seen
at both ends. Fish, cat and
bird motifs have been bro-
caded on the lower half
with discontinuous sup-
plementary wefts. Above
the loose warps the brocad-
ing resembles tapestry.
Red, blue, gold and beige
wool on white cotton. Cen-
tral coast. Late Intermedi-
ate Period. 37 by 29 cm
(14% by 11 inehest, (Cour-
tesy of the Trustees of the
Victoria and Albert
_ Museum.)
42
4
The characteristics of Peruvian textiles
Certain recognisable characteristics set Peruvian cloth apart from
other indigenous weaving traditions. In the first place, fabrics
were not tailored. They left the loom in a rectangular shape and
two or more webs were sewn together to make a garment. Warp
selvedges are indicated by the heading cords; weft selvedges are
plain and only rarely reinforced by bunching the final warps
together or by pairing them.
In precolumbian Peru, however, a few garments were roughly
shaped on the loom. This was done by increasing and then
decreasing the weft tension, which resulted in the hourglass shape
of some breechcloths. To make a piece wider, new warps could
be added as the weaving progressed; to make it narrower,
existing warps could be paired and then cut, as in the case of
certain bags which were narrower at the top than the bottom.
The terminal area has already been mentioned. On finely
woven cloth it may be difficult to discern, so carefully have the
last few shots of weft been inserted with the needle. On modern
textiles this area stands out because the patterning in the warp
stripes becomes fuzzy. Some weavers maintain that this is done so
as not to produce a perfect piece of cloth, with the implication
that this would offend their deities. In a modern shawl or carrying
cloth the two webs are reversed when sewn together, so that one
terminal area is at the bottom and the other at the top.
Usually three webs 40-60 cm (16-24 inches) wide were needed
for an ancient mantle and two webs for a tunic. These webs were
sewn together with a simple overhand stitch or occasionally with a
figure-of-eight stitch. For a patterned garment identical webs had
to be woven and some forethought given to the matching of the
motifs. Sometimes these do not exactly match each other in the
finished garment, which suggests that the size and spacing of the
motifs were worked out by eye rather than by counting each warp
and weft.
For a tunic two webs were stitched together along the weft
edges, leaving a centre gap for the neck. The sides were sewn to a
convenient distance from the shoulder in order to leave room for
the arms. Some tunics were given sleeves, which were small
rectangles folded in two and inserted into the armholes. Bags
were made from a single piece of cloth that was folded in half and
sewn up the sides. .
- An important feature of both ancient and modern textiles is the
The characteristics of Peruvian textiles 43

32. A coca bag made from a carrying cloth or shawl. Warp-faced plain weave with two
warp-patterned areas. The outer two stripes in each triad are in complementary-warp
weave and the inner stripe is in supplementary-warp weave. The strap has been woven at a
later date and is in supplementary-warp weave with both faces visible on the right. The
terminal area can be seen in the centre. Black, white, red and pink sheep’s wool. Bolivia.
Twentieth century. 31 by 33 cm (12 by 13 inches).

use of several techniques on a single garment. The main pattern

may be achieved by supplementary wefts with some embroidery.
A border of tapestry weave or complementary-weft weave may
be added and the edge bound with cross-knit loop stitch to which
fringes, tassels or pompons are attached. In some pieces the wefts
can become warps, which can be subsequently woven in a
different pattern. Furthermore, similar designs can be rendered
in a variety of techniques. For example, some of the figures in this
book show the same stylised sea bird executed in tapestry weave,
discontinuous warps and wefts. gauze, complementary-warp
weave and double cloth.
At the same time, certain motifs recur throughout Peruvian
textile history. From the Preceramic Period onwards there is
abundant use of geometrical designs such as step frets, volutes,S
and Z shapes. Humans and animals have always been popular: in
antiquity these were cats, fish, birds and snakes; nowadays, they
44 Peruvian Textiles

tend to be horses, bulls and llamas. Overall patterns of a single

repeated motif were usually executed with supplementary wefts
or in double cloth. A pictorial effect could be created with
tapestry or painting, but the result was usually a symmetrical
composition.
For webs needed for tunics the design was sometimes woven in
reverse when the shoulder line was reached, so that it did not
appear upside down on the back of the wearer. Otherwise motifs
were reversed along diagonal or vertical lines, or interlocked
from opposing angles. In this way part of the design was always
visible to an onlooker from the right way up.
In the ancient textiles colours tended towards the darker hues
of their range and often contrasted vividly with one another. In
the Paracas embroideries as many as eighteen colours can be
found on a single mantle and each small figure can show from
nine to thirteen colours. In these early periods, the combination
of reds and blues is striking; in the late periods, the golds, greens,
rose-pinks and browns harmonise well in certain tapestries. In the
modern textiles the occasional juxtaposition of bright colours,
such as magenta and green, can be jarring. To offset these clashes
narrow toning stripes are placed between contrasting colours to
provide a transition between them.

33. Fragment of cloth in slit-weave tapestry. As viewed, with the warps horizontal, it
depicts diagonal rows of sea birds. If it is rotated 90 degrees so that the warps are vertical
the birds become stylised cats. Red, gold, green and white wool wefts on cotton warps.
Central coast. Late Intermediate Period. 35 by 12 cm (14 by 5 inches). (Courtesy of the
Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
 45

5
The development of Peruvian weaving
Preceramic Period, 12,000-2000 BC
The earliest textiles, dating from 8600 BC, were found in 1969
in excavations at Guitarrero Cave in the north highlands of Peru.
Fibres from Tillandsia, a bromeliad, Furcraea, a kind of agave,
and some grasses were interlinked, twined and looped to make
baskets and pouches. These early fragments may not be true
cloth, but they document the first tentative steps towards cloth
production, which probably had its origins in twined basketry.
By the beginning of the third millennium BC the inhabitants of
coastal fishing villages were making twined textiles, sometimes
plying one cotton single yarn with one bast single yarn, probably
because cotton cultivation was still in its infancy. Designs were
made by crossing the warps and depicted condors, snakes, crabs
and human figures. Some woven cloth is also found in plain
weave, with warp stripes or with designs made by floating the
warps over a plain weave background. Colour variation was
obtained by contrasting the natural colours of the cotton or by
rubbing a red pigment over the yarns. A few yarns were dyed
blue. These early twined textiles are in a fragmentary condition
and were probably burial wrappings.
Initial Period and Early Horizon, 2000-400 BC
The invention of the heddle stick to raise the second shed
meant that weaving was no longer a laborious task akin to
modern darning, but an efficient method of cloth production.
This invention took place at the beginning of the Initial Period
and led to the demise of twining. However, techniques like
looping and sprang continued to be used for bags, pouches, hats
and turbans. There was considerable experimentation with the
yarns used. On the north coast cotton was consistently S-spun
and, instead of being plied, two single yarns were used for the
warp and sometimes for the weft. On the south coast warps and
wefts were eventually S-spun and Z-plied. On the central coast
both Z-spun and S-spun yarns were used.
The earliest tapestry comes from the central coast and dates to
the Early Horizon. It is all cotton and depicts a condor head with
wefts dovetailed around a common warp. It is during this period
that wool became available in greater quantities on the south
coast, but not on the central or north coasts. A few wool yarns
 ae : ae an ‘ ay ” 3S Be ties

34. Detail of a preceramic twined textile from Huaca Prieta in the Chicama valley, Peru.
The warps are paired and the twining is in a Z direction. (Courtesy of the American
Museum of Natural History, New York.)

have been found as decoration on the weft selvedge of cotton

textiles from the preceramic site of Aspero, but there is no
sustained use of wool on the central and north coasts until the
Early Intermediate Period. It is likely that camelids were first
domesticated around Lake Titicaca in the south highlands, and
therefore it is logical that wool should appear earlier on the south
coast than elsewhere. Unfortunately, we know nothing of the
early development of wool textiles in the highlands but there
must have been a strong tradition of spinning, weaving and
dyeing there by the beginning of the Early Horizon.
All techniques of fabric construction known to the ancient
Peruvians were in existence by the end of this period. These
include double cloth, triple cloth (where there are three intercon-
nected layers of fabric), discontinuous warps and wefts, some
early wool tapestry and warp wrapping, where the design is
created on the warps before weaving by wrapping them in
coloured yarns. The earliest painted textiles are from Carhua,
south of Paracas. The cotton cloth is painted with representations
of deities from Chavin de Hudantar, with fanged mouths, snake
appendages and eyes with crescent-shaped pupils. The most
spectacular cloth, however, comes from graves excavated in the
Paracas peninsula in the 1920s by the Peruvian archaeologist Julio
César Tello. These graves contain bodies seated in baskets and
wrapped in several large shrouds to form a bundle. Interspersed
with the shrouds are sets of embroidered garments and articles of
 The development of Peruvian weaving 47

personal adornment. The embroideries, which are worked in

wool on cotton cloth, depict mythical monsters or shamans
wearing animal masks and clutching a sacrificial knife in one hand
and in the other a trophy head (a human head severed from its
torso). Early Paracas embroideries were executed in a style which
emphasises the angularity of the figures. Later embroideries
utilise more colours and resemble the creatures found on Nazca
pottery. Their makers were the first to use wool extensively and
to realise its potential for creating designs.

35. Detail of two garment borders from Paracas. Wool stem-stitch embroidery on a
plain-weave background with a cross-knit loop-stitch border and a fringe. Above is a feline
monster in dark blue, green and yellow on a red background. Below are double-headed
intertwined serpents in red, green, yellow and brown on a blue background. South coast.
Early fivrizon to Early Intermediate Period. (Courtesy of the Bolton Museum and Art
Gallery.
 48 Peruvian Textiles

Early Intermediate Period and Middle Horizon, 400 BC-AD 900

These periods saw the rise of tapestry weave executed in wool
wefts on cotton warps as the chief means of creating patterns on
coastal textiles. As wool became more plentiful on the central
and north coasts it was used for more and more of the textile.
Tapestry is an effective way of using up small lengths of wool,
which could be dyed in a wider range of colours than cotton and
so enhanced the pictorial qualities of the fabric. On the south
coast tapestry borders were made for the neck slits and armholes
of tunics. Designs were geometrical or depicted mythical animals
in blues, yellows and pinks with a black outline. There were long
fringes to garments and cross-knit loop-stitch borders became
very elaborate. Embroidery lost its pre-eminence and deities
formerly embroidered in stem stitch were now painted on cotton
cloth.
On the central and north coasts cotton tapestry continued
alongside wool tapestry until well into the Early Intermediate
Period. Various kinds of tapestry weave occur, although the slit
method eventually became dominant. Popular designs were
double- or multiple-headed snakes, fish and fish deities, super-

36. Detail of a cross-knit loop-stitch mantle border showing birds pecking at flowers, in
red, blue, yellow, green and pink wool. South coast. Early Intermediate Period. (Courtesy
of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.)
37. Details of a garment fragment in tapestry weave with interlocking joins and some
dovetailing. The design motifs are based on Tiahuanaco iconography. The garment would
have been worn with the warps horizontal. Black, gold, red, white and pink wool.
Provenance unknown. Middle Horizon. (Courtesy of the Cambridge University Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology.)

natural beings and geometrical motifs, particularly the interlock-

ing step fret.
At the beginning of the Middle Horizon a new style reached
the coast of Peru. It can be traced to the site of Tiahuanaco in
Bolivia and is thought to have reached coastal Peru via the site of
Wari in the central highlands. This style is found on pottery,
‘tunics and hangings that reproduce the motifs of Tiahuanaco,
such as the central figure on the Gate of the Sun, attendant
winged messengers, pumas and condors. These tunics differ from
coastal ones, for the warps lie horizontally across the chest of the
wearer, rather than vertically, and the two webs were sewn
together down the warp edges. Some tunics found in northern
Chile, and thought to be from the actual site of Tiahuanaco, were
woven in one piece, with the neck slit achieved by making the
warps discontinuous. These hangings and tunics were made in
interlocking tapestry weave rather than the slit-weave tapestry of
the coast. Their colours are vivid shades of red, gold, brown, blue
and black. Motifs are elongated and compressed and sometimes
elements of the typical Tiahuanaco face are split up and
50 Peruvian Textiles

38. Openwork fabric in white cotton with rectangular spaces and additional embroidery,
which depicts a cat. Central coast. Late Intermediate Period. 17 by 18 cm (6% by 7
inches). {Courtesy of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.)

recombined in small rectangles. By the end of this period these

motifs were being painted on to cotton cloth.
Late Intermediate Period and Late Horizon, AD 900-1532
Much of the cloth in Western collections comes from these
periods. Tapestry was still important and on the coast slit-weave
tapestry regained its prominence, depicting birds, fish, cats,
interlocking snakes and dignitaries or deities with elaborate
head-dresses. Overall designs tended to be achieved with
brocading via supplementary wefts. On the central coast around
Chancay gauze weaves and double cloth became popular. On the
north coast rich geometrical patterns in brocaded double cloth
gave way to tapestry showing small men with crescent head-
dresses surrounded by monstrous birds with trophy heads. Chimu
weavers specialised in sewing feathers, gold and silver spangles,
beads and tassels to their garments.
The Inca conquest brought changes leading to a certain
standardisation of cloth production, probably because of the
creation of textile workshops manned by specialist weavers.
Tapestry was still the most valued technique. The finest tapestry
a

The development of Peruvian weaving 51

was known as gompi cloth and the coarser plain weave used for
peasant clothing and everyday articles was known as awasca.
Tunics from Inca graves are of several recognisable types. Like
the earlier Middle Horizon ones, they were woven in interlocking
tapestry weave with the warps running horizontally across the
chest and were usually woven in one piece. On both bags and
tunics motifs are geometrical and very neatly executed.
Colonial and Republican Periods, AD 1532 to present
The Spaniards were quick to realise the importance of textiles
to the Indians and lost little time in turning this fact to their own
advantage. Textile workshops known as obrajes were set up to
weave various kinds of cloth for the new Creole population.
Some of the former Inca textile workshops continued to weave
tapestry hangings that incorporated birds, animals, flowers and
Spanish coats of arms. However, by the end of the eighteenth
century such hangings were no longer fashionable and tapestry
weaving had virtually died out. In the obrajes, bayeta was woven
with sheep’s wool on the newly introduced treadle loom. In the
meantime Indians continued to produce warp-patterned weaves
39. Fragment of cloth in plain weave with tapestry-weave bands for which the warps are
paired. This piece, with its typical Inca design of stepped crosses, shows the high technical
standards of the period. Red, yellow, white and brown wool on a dark blue wool
background. Provenance unknown. Late Horizon. 18 by 28 cm (7 by 11 inches). (Courtesy
of the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.)
52 Peruvian Textiles

for their own clothing, both ceremonial and everyday. The better
pieces, destined for festive occasions, were handed down from
generation to generation.
Nowadays patterning on cloth is still achieved via com-
plementary- or supplementary-warp weaves, with warp-faced
double cloth popular in Bolivia. Braids for slings continue to be
made and such finishing devices as embroidery, fringes and
tassels are still in use. With the introduction of aniline dyes,
colours have become very bright with particular emphasis on
shades of red and magenta. Often the motifs are worked out in
white or black against a coloured ground. Stripes prevail rather
than overall patterns, because they suit the nature of warp-faced
textiles. The motifs incorporated within these stripes consist of
human and animal figures, some grossly distorted, others
fantastic. Geometrical designs are also found, most of which hark
back to the precolumbian periods, for example volutes, small
hexagons, crosses, triangles, diamonds and S shapes. However,
the bindings on the edges of shawls, bags and ponchos are now
woven in a float weave with lozenge or chevron motifs rather than
made in cross-knit loop stitch.

40. Tapestry hanging

woven after the Spanish
conquest. It may have co-
vered the back of a choir
seat. Various coloured
wool wefts with a red
background weft on cotton
warps. The curvilinear
designs and the central
bishop’s symbols reveal
Spanish influence. Proven-
ance unknown. Colonial
Period. 62 by 53 cm (24%
by 21 inches). (Courtesy of
the Trustees of the Victoria
and Albert Museum.)
 53

6
Dress ancient and modern
Precolumbian dress
The Spanish chronicles give us detailed descriptions of Inca
clothing, but for the earlier periods we have to rely on
archaeological evidence in the form of the textiles themselves and
of sculpture and ceramics that depict garments worn by both
sexes. The most complete textiles come from burials, both looted
and scientifically excavated. Although some of these garments
were made especially for the dead (because they show signs of
being unfinished or their proportions make them unwearable),
certain tunics must have been worn, as demonstrated by dirt
marks around the neck and armholes. Occasionally tunics seem
to have been remade from other pieces. Furthermore articles
could .be ‘killed’ before being placed in a mummy bundle.
Breechcloths were tied in one corner and hangings were
deliberately torn before being buried as an offering. At the same
time the fact that one finds both fine and coarse clothing patched
and darned shows how much even the simplest article was valued.
The emperor Atahualpa’s garments were carefully kept and
annually burnt so that no one could get hold of a piece and use it
to cast an evil spell upon him.
From Paracas on the south coast and the Chimt kingdom on
the north coast we find matching sets of male garments with the
‘same design appearing on a loincloth, mantle, tunic and turban.
The Paracas burials contain several such sets. A complete
costume consisted of a loincloth, wrap-around skirt attached by
ties, sleeveless tunic, small poncho, a headband or turban and a
large mantle worn draped over the shoulders. No footwear has
been found in these burials, although presumably people wore
some kind of sandal like those of later periods. The mantles,
which averaged 275 by 130 cm (108 by 51 inches), were usually of
plain-weave cotton or cotton and wool and embroidered with
rows of figures. The same figures could be repeated on the
borders which ran along both lengths of the mantle and turned
part of the way along each width to form two diagonally opposed
L shapes that never meet. These figures could also be repeated on
the border of other garments. The tunics were sleeveless but
short and wide so that they covered the upper portion of the arm
like a cap sleeve. They were usually given elaborate fringes
around the armholes. For the headband, feathers were attached
 NAMILLA (
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41. Different forms of indigenous dress, as portrayed by the chronicler Guaman Poma:
(top left) south coast dancers with elaborate feather tunics and head-dresses; (top right)
south highlands men with fez-like caps and women with peaked hoods; (bottom left) the
Inca emperor and his queen at the festival of Capac Raymi in April; (bottom right) a
colonial messenger wearing a precolumbian tunic over Spanish breeches.
Dress ancient and modern 55

rm

42. How the garments from the Paracas burials might have looked when worn by a man
from that period: (left) in a tunic, kilt and headband; (right) in a tunic, loincloth, mantle
and headband. (Courtesy of Anne Paul.)

to a braided strip of cloth which was wound around the head.

Turbans were rectangular pieces of cloth which were placed on
the head so that they hung down the side or the back.
Although over a thousand years separate the two cultures,
similar matching sets have been found in Chimt graves. The
loincloths were larger, 338 by 114 cm (153 by 45 inches) as
opposed to 100 by 50 cm (39 by 20 inches) for Paracas ones. They
had ties at one end which secured the cloth around the wearer’s
waist, leaving the decorated front panel to fall down in front of
the wearer like a skirt. The tunic was also wide and short, but
with sleeves. Turbans were worn like Paracas ones but secured by
wimple-like bands wrapped around the head and chin. There
were also large mantles, as much as 329 by 190 cm (130 by 75
inches) in size. These garments often matched in design and
colour schemes. Judging from ceramic representations, women
were dressed in long tunics with small cloaks. They went
56 Peruvian Textiles

43. Headband from a match-

ing set of garments in plain-
weave white cotton with sup-
plementary-weft brocading
in brown and grey cotton and
black wool, with a black wool
fringe. The overall design is
one of stepped triangles and
zigzags. North coast. Late
Intermediate Period. 437 by
17 cm (172 by 6% inches).
(Courtesy of the Department
of Library Services; negative
325451 by Yourow. Amer-
ican Museum of Natural His-
tory, New York.)

44. Loincloth that matches

the previous headband.
Shown folded. Without ties
367 by 106.5 cm (144% by 42
inches). (Courtesy of the De-
partment of Library Services;
negative 325454 by Yourow.
American Museum of Natu-
ral History, New York.)

oe
Dress ancient and modern 57

45. Mantle that matches the previous headband and loincloth. Shown folded. 170 by 142
cm (67 by 56 inches). (Courtesy of the Department of Library Services; negative 325453 by
Yourow. American Museum of Natural History, New York.)

bareheaded or brought their cloaks up to cover their heads.

Inca clothes from the highlands were slightly different. A
common man wore a small, plain loincloth and a tunic, an uncu,
that was sleeveless and longer than coastal tunics, so that it
reached to his knees. It was plain or striped. Over it he wore a
mantle, which he knotted over his shoulder to leave the arms free
for working. The mantle could also be used for sitting on or
carrying objects, as it is today. Surviving Inca tapestry tunics were
probably worn by nobles or government officials. They range
from 84 to 100 cm (33 to 39 inches) long and 72 to 79 cm (28 to 31
inches) wide. They were patterned in rows of rectangular
geometrical designs known as tok’apu or else had chequer-board
patterns in black and white with a V-shaped red border around
the neck. Sometimes there were just two bands of tok’apu around
the waist. The Inca emperor and nobles wore knee and ankle
fringes, bracelets and necklaces, and in their pierced ears were
huge circular earrings which pulled down their ear-lobes.
Ordinary men wore a small headband around their head, but the
Inca emperor had a special band with several little red tassels
58 Peruvian Textiles

encased in gold tubes, which fell over his forehead from a central
head-dress ornament.
A woman wore a tunic known as an aksu, made from a single
piece of cloth wound around her body, with the two ends brought
over her shoulder from behind and fastened with pins called tupu.
These were made of gold, silver or copper and had large,
flattened heads. Over her shoulders she wore a mantle known as
a yacolla and a patterned belt, a chumpi, was wound around her
waist. Highland women wore a band called a wincha around their
heads. Over this noblewomen placed a folded cloth.
Both sexes wore sandals on their feet. The soles were made of
untanned llama or deer skins, or else from plaited vegetable

46. (Left) A woman from the Potolo region of Bolivia wearing an overskirt that is pinned
over her shoulders. It is in warp-faced plain weave with a design of monster birds in
complementary-warp weave in red, black and white sheep’s wool. (Courtesy of J. Hill and
Dover Publications.)
47. (Right) A woman from Tarabuco, Bolivia, wearing traditional dress that consists of an
overskirt with a complementary-warp weave patterned border, a shawl with warp stripes,
fastened by a pin, and a leather cap. (Courtesy of J. Hill and Dover Publications.)
%
Dress ancient and modern 59

fibres, with thongs of braided wool or cotton. The nobility carried

small bags, chuspa, containing coca leaves.

Colonial dress
During the early part of this period the Indian peasant retained
his dress and head-dress as a mark of his race. The one change
demanded by the Spanish church was that women sew up the slit
in their wrap-around tunics, since their thighs were sometimes
visible as they walked, which offended the Spanish clerics. Local
chieftains and the remaining Inca nobility who wanted to curry
favour with the Spaniards soon adopted Spanish dress, reserving
their native attire for festive occasions. The lower down the social
scale, the fewer the items of Spanish clothing that were worn.
Most Indian men kept their sleeveless tunic and mantle but would
add breeches, boots or shoes, a high-crowned hat and sometimes
a ruff.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the Indian rebel-
lions, although crushed by the Spanish authorities, resulted in a
clamp-down on any manifestation of Indianness. This led to the
strict enforcement of some earlier laws banning Indian clothing.
Men were obliged to replace tunic and mantle by a shirt and
trousers, and women their long tunic by a skirt and blouse. The
only indigenous items retained were an occasional headband, belt
and small cloak or shawl for the women. The men adopted the
poncho instead of the mantle. This garment was probably
developed by the Araucanian Indians of Chile as a protection
when riding horses in bad weather. Although there were a few
poncho-type garments in ancient Peru, they were much smaller
than the modern version, which is ubiquitous in the Andes and no
longer confined to Indians. It is usually made in plain stripes of
brown and fawn for everyday wear and in brighter colours for
festive occasions. European-style felt hats were introduced soon
after the Spanish conquest and were quickly adopted by the
Indians, with the result that their manufacture became an
indigenous occupation.

Modern dress
In general the Quechua and Aymara are similarly attired and
can be differentiated only by their hats and the woven patterns on
their clothes. In the wealthier communities men wear European-
style factory-made suits and in the poorer ones trousers and
round-necked shirts of bayeta. In certain parts of the south
highlands the trousers have fancy woven bands around their
60 Peruvian Textiles

bottoms. In the Cuzco area trousers are black and reach to just
below the knee. In some areas of Bolivia and Ecuador they are
white. Over these a man wears a bayeta jacket and a poncho and
may use another square cloth, a /liclla, for carrying things. Some
men still carry a small bag for coca leaves. Sandals are now made
from old car tyres because of their hard-wearing properties. For -
festive occasions men may wear a wide belt around their waist.
On Taquile Island, in Lake Titicaca, these belts have designs that
symbolise the agricultural year. In many regions men wear a felt
trilby-type hat or a panama. On the high plateau, near Lake
Titicaca, they wear a knitted cap with ear flaps, a chuyllo, under
the hat. In Cuzco for festivals one sees men wearing a
low-crowned, flat-brimmed hat trimmed with braids and tassels,
which is known as a montera.
Women’s apparel also varies in colour and head-dress from
region to region. Around Cuzco a plain, dark bayeta skirt with a
narrow patterned band around the hem is worn with several wool
petticoats. On the head is a montera, similar to the men’s.
Around Lake Titicaca Aymara women wear a pleated skirt or
one with horizontal tucks in bright colours. Bowler hats are
common there. Everywhere the bayeta blouse is gradually being
replaced by one of synthetic fabric and a cardigan. The only items
woven on an indigenous loom will be a headband or wincha (now
only worn by women from Charazani in Bolivia), a belt, a shawl
for carrying babies and a Jliclla for carrying other objects. Small
bags are hung from the belt and larger ones slung over the
shoulder. In Tarabuco, Bolivia, women wear a variation of the
old aksu as a wrap-around overskirt which is pulled over the
shoulder and belted. Both sexes there wear a strange helmet,
similar to a Spanish conquistador’s leather helmet.
 61

7
Textiles and society
In many pre-industrial societies textile production is considered a
woman’s occupation, but in Peru men have always carried out
some of the tasks associated with it. The chronicles indicate a
varied division of labour in spinning and weaving. Figure 48
shows a woman spinning and a man plying, but this may have
been true only of peasant yarn production. The women who lived
secluded in convents under the Incas probably undertook both
skills and produced the fine yarns to be woven for tapestry.
Nowadays women still do most of the spinning, although some
men are equally capable and will do it if required. Small boys
near Cuzco will help prepare fleeces and men will help with the
plying. On the north coast of Peru it is common for men to do the
plying for yarns destined for cordage. On Taquile Island men spin
and knit.
We have less historical information on dyeing. One chronicler,
Falcén, mentions male specialist dyers who served the Inca
emperor, but it was probably chiefly a woman’s task. In
present-day Bolivia dyeing is done by women, but the pictures
and descriptions of colonial obrajes show that men dyed
mass-produced cloth. They earned a Spanish real a day (a mere
pittance in modern terms) for dyeing two pieces of cloth, each 100
metres (about 330 feet) long.
With regard to weaving, the Jesuit priest Father Cobo reported
that there were male specialists in tapestry weaving who lived in
small colonies and wove gompi cloth for the Incas. The person
working on the vertical loom, depicted by Guaman Poma (figure
10), is probably an elderly man. A vessel from Pachacdmac shows
a male overseer and two women weaving. Nowadays in southern
Peru large pile tapestry rugs and hangings are woven on a vertical
loom by men, whereas women in the same village use a small
backstrap loom, on which they make everyday clothing. In the
highlands men have always worked the treadle loom, and in
certain regions they also use the backstrap loom, on which they
weave ponchos, saddlebags and shawls. Many of the pieces
woven for tourists today are made by men and men have
traditionally made braids for slings and cordage. _
With regard to the time factor in cloth production, recent
studies suggest that hand-spinning the necessary amount of yarn
can be more time-consuming than the weaving process. Reports
on spinning in the Cuzco area show that 10-13 metres (33-43 feet)
62 Peruvian Textiles

of yarn can be spun in ten minutes by experienced spinners. An

elaborately patterned poncho can take up to 508 hours to make,
that is almost four months of work, if one works a 35 hour week,
with the time almost equally divided between spinning the yarn
and weaving. On the other hand, a plainer poncho, with a few
simple warp stripes, takes only 288 hours to make, but 200 of
these are spent spinning yarn. In the central highlands it can take
a man between two and five days to weave such a poncho. These
facts have led people who want to earn money by making goods
for tourists to use machine-spun yarns and synthetic fibres, the
cost of which is not much more than that of a high-quality sheep’s
fleece. Because of the long time taken to spin yarn, people
concentrate on weaving small objects, like belts and bags, for
these do not require so much yarn or labour investment, since it
may be difficult for women or men, burdened by domestic and
agricultural tasks, to find time to weave a poncho.
We can use these modern studies to calculate the amount of
labour involved in spinning and weaving some of the ancient
burial garments. For example, James Vreeland has calculated
that 65 km (almost 40 miles) of yarn were required to weave the
wrappings of a Late Intermediate Period mummy bale, whose
total length exceeded 60 metres (197 feet). The estimated
spinning time for this yarn was 4442 hours: in other words, one
woman working a 35 hour week would take two and a half years
to complete the spinning alone. For the embroidered Paracas
garments it has been estimated that it would take one person
working a 35 hour week more than ten years to produce the cloth
for one bundle. All this attests to the considerable amount of time
spent by the populace in producing cloth for the dead, not taking
into account clothes for the living, textile offerings to deities and
tribute to local chieftains.
Spinning takes place at odd moments throughout the year.
Weaving, however, tends to be done in the slack agricultural
season between July and November, that is between harvesting
and planting, remembering that the weaver works outside and is
dependent on daylight and dry weather. People learn how to
spin, dye and weave through observation and imitation of those
already in possession of such skills, usually a close relative. A
four- or five-year-old girl will be given some fleece and a spindle
and will be expected to work out the details in solitude, while
tending a flock of animals on a hillside. These young girls, not yet
old enough to engage in heavier household tasks or to weave,
have the time to produce a good deal of yarn. Weaving is a skill
Textiles and society 63
48. (Below) Guaman Poma depicts
a man and woman outside their
house. The woman is spinning from
a distaff held in her left hand. The
man is plying from two yarns wound
into a ball on to a larger spindle.

TERZERAE DADDEIS
i
VI

fate
UAC

49. (Above right) Feather head-dress with black and white feathers applied on to brown
network. From forehead to feather tip it measures 41 cm (16 inches). The piece hanging
down at the back is of red, black and white feathers and is 40 cm (15% inches) long. North
coast, Late Intermediate Period. (Courtesy of the Cambridge University Museum of
Archaeology and Anthropology.)

similarly learnt from one’s mother at the age of ten or twelve. At

that time a mother will give her daughter a small bag or carrying
cloth to weave and will help her to warp it. She will assist her with
working out the warp pattern, correct her errors and help her
with difficult sections like the terminal area.
Both in the past and today textiles have more socio-cultural
meaning than is commonly realised. Mention has been made of
how they indicate people’s origin and status. Similarities in the
size and design of certain Inca tunics suggest that they were
woven to specifications laid down by the emperor and worn as a
badge of office. For instance, Atahualpa’s escorts at Cajamarca
64 Peruvian Textiles

are described as wearing red and white chequer-board tunics.

Only the Inca emperor was allowed to wear garments sewn with
gold and silver ornaments and he alone could present these as
gifts to his subordinates. In precolumbian Peru one’s head-dress
revealed one’s place of origin, something the Spaniards found
useful for census purposes. Nowadays in Tarabuco, Bolivia,
people can easily identify the village someone comes from by the
patterns woven on their clothes.
Textiles were also given as gifts at certain ceremonies, much as
we might give money. In ancient Peru they were presented to the
participants in various rites of passage, such as when a child was
first named or had his hair first cut. At initiation ceremonies for
Inca nobles boys received a breechcloth specially woven for the
occasion by their mothers. On marriage the bride gave the groom
a fine wool tunic and a headband. Nowadays such gifts are made
by the sponsors of the ceremony, usually the most important
uncle. These customs survive in Bolivia, where a woman weaves a
set of traditional clothing for herself, plus blankets and storage
sacks, before marriage. All this is considered part of her dowry
and, if the couple should part, the textiles return with the woman.
It is a woman’s skill as a weaver that makes her a desirable
partner, for in the first year of marriage she is expected to weave
a poncho for her husband and later a set of clothing.
The importance of textiles is also emphasised by the amount
demanded in tribute, first by the Incas and then by the Spaniards.
In the Chillon valley during the Late Horizon one group of
villages was obliged to give the Incas 117 male tunics and an equal
number of female tunics, plus 26 pieces of gompi cloth. At
Pachacamac in 1549 the Indians still had to provide their Spanish
overlords with fifty shirts every quarter year. Before the conquest
the Inca state controlled a good deal of cloth production and
distribution, for theoretically it owned all the herds of llamas and
alpacas and had also set aside fields for cotton cultivation. The
raw cotton from these fields and the camelid fleeces were
distributed among villages, where they were spun and woven into
garments, shirts, sacks and carrying cloths. When finished, these
articles were taken to state warehouses in the highlands, where
they were redistributed as gifts to those who had won the
emperor’s favour, to the army or to peasants doing labour service
at state centres, for all these were fed and clothed by the Inca
state. Chroniclers of the Spanish conquest report the Spaniards’
amazement at the number of warehouses filled with cloth, which
retreating Inca armies would burn rather than let fall into Spanish
 Textiles and society 65

50. Modern festive attire worn by mestizos from a central highland village. The women
wear imitation Indian clothing consisting of a brightly coloured dress with metal spangles
sewn on the bodice, a shawl that has been machine-embroidered with a floral design,
broderie anglaise petticoats, white panama hats and high-heeled shoes. The men are
masked and have pink and green feathers attached to their hats.

hands. Cloth was also exported, for during Pizarro’s first voyage
to South American shores he met a Peruvian raft bound for
Ecuador, carrying cloth to exchange for spondylus shells and
emeralds. ,
Ritual bundles of cloth play an important role in animal
fertility ceremonies, when herds of alpacas, llamas and sheep are
blessed and sometimes marked. The bundles consist of specially
66 Peruvian Textiles

woven carrying cloths with warp-patterned stripes, which contain

smaller cloths, coca bags, animal figurines, foodstuffs and shells.
The bundle is opened in the animal corral during the ceremony,
the cloth is spread out and offerings of coca and alcohol are made
to local deities. At the end of the ceremony the bundle is carefully
wrapped up, returned home and hidden away until the following
ear.
y In modern Andean society indigenous clothing affirms the
Indians’ identification with their own culture, as opposed to the
European culture of their conquerors. Those who wish to be
classified as non-Indians first change their dress, and women their
hairstyle. With the growth of national consciousness fostered by
military and other governments since the late 1960s the Indian
has theoretically been accorded greater status, so that mestizos
(those of mixed Indian and Hispanic ancestry who follow an
urban lifestyle) are adopting a version of Indian dress for their
festivals. Such a costume symbolises their identification with the
Indian part of their heritage, without their having to dress like
Indians.
As a development from the kind of garments woven for
themselves, Indians are now producing weavings for tourists. It is
possible to purchase the plainer striped ponchos worn by the
men, and the occasional festival one, but more common are those
knitted from loosely spun alpaca wool or hand-woven from
synthetic fibres. Spinning the yarn for these goods is not so
time-consuming for knitting yarn does not have to be so fine and
evenly spun as yarn for weaving. Hence a variety of socks,
sweaters, mittens and caps are made for the tourist market. The
patterns show llamas, humans, star shapes and other geometrical
motifs in the natural browns, blacks and white of alpaca wool.
The art of dyeing with vegetable dyes is being revived and wool is
being dyed in soft colours; tapestries are being woven from it,
sometimes on a treadle loom. The warps are synthetic yarns or
cotton and the wool weft is thicker than any precolumbian yarn
used for tapestry, so that the surface is rough. These tapestries
depict geometrical motifs that are set diagonally or in rectangles
and are loosely based on Inca or Tiahuanaco designs. The joins
are dovetailed rather than interlocked. Some very coarse
tapestries with precolumbian motifs are also being woven with an
exceptionally thick sheep’s wool weft. A different style has been
evolved at San Pedro de Cajas, where tapestry-like pictures are
woven with a coloured unspun wool weft which is pushed in
between fine warps to create a picture that portrays an idealised
Textiles and society 67

version of Indian life. These woven pictures are intended as wall

hangings.
One may dislike some of this weaving, which does not
approach the standard by which Indians weave their own ponchos
and mantles, let alone precolumbian standards, but there is no
denying that textile production for tourists is becoming a vital
part of Indian economy. In the late 1960s, Junius Bird, the doyen
of Peruvian textile analysts, wrote that spinning and weaving
were becoming a dying art, as machine-made fabrics took their
toll of homespun and woven ones. He suggested that those who
are in a position to do so would be well advised to encourage the
highest standards of craftsmanship and see that the craftsman or
woman receives adequate returns for his or her labour. If he or
she does not receive this encouragement, then Peruvian weaving
will be but a pale reflection of past glories.

51. A modern tapestry woven for tourists.

Synthetic warps and sheep’s wool wefts in
beige and brown with some yarns dyed with
natural vegetable dyes. The designs are
loosely based on Middle Horizons ones.
Compare figure 37. Provenance Cuzco, but
possibly made elsewhere; twentieth century.
95 by 63 cm (37 by 25 inches).
68

8
Museums
Many museums in Britain have collections of Peruvian textiles.
However, few will put their collections on permanent display
because prolonged exposure in display cases can lead to rapid
deterioration of textiles, even in a controlled museum environ-
ment. Those museums with good collections will rotate some
examples; others will display them only for special exhibitions.
Bearing this in mind, the intending visitor should make careful
inquiries in order to avoid disappointment. The museums marked
with an asterisk usually have some Peruvian items on display.

United Kingdom
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Chamberlain Square,
Birmingham B3 3DH. Telephone: 021-235 2834.
Bolton Museum and Art Gallery, Le Mans Crescent, Bolton,
Lancashire BL1 1SE. Telephone: 0204 22311 extension 2191.
Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropo-
logy, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ. Telephone: 0223
337733 or 333516.*
Liverpool Museum, William Brown Street, Liverpool L3 8EN.
Telephone: 051-207 0001 or 5451.
Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester, Oxford
Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Telephone: 061-273 3333.
Museum of Mankind (the Ethnography Department of the
British Museum), 6 Burlington Gardens, London W1X 2EX.
Telephone: 01-323 8043. Students’ Room.*
Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PP.
Telephone: 0865 270927.*
Royal Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh EH1
1JF. Telephone: 031-225 7534.
Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington,
London SW7 2RL. Telephone: 01-938 8500. Textile Study
Room.*
Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, Oxford
Road, Manchester M15 6ER. Telephone: 061-273 4865.

Austria Kon ee eee aS

Museum fiir Volkerkttddé? Heldénptitz 3, Neue Hofburg, 1010
Vienna 1. ce ey “en. a ay de

sage ag away fe
" ‘a a. es vik Pal
Museums to visit 69

France
Musée de Homme, Palais de Chaillot, Place du Trocadéro,
75016 Paris.

Germany (West)
Museum fiir Voélkerkunde, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kul-
turbesitz, Arnimallee 23-27, 1000 Berlin 33.
Staatliches Museum fiir V6lkerkunde, Maximilianstrasse 42, 8000
Munich 22, Bavaria.

Italy
Museo Preistorico Etnografico Luigi Pigorini, Via Lincoln 1,
00187 Rome.

Peru
Museo Amano, Calle Retiro 132-60, Miraflores, Lima.*
Museo Nacional de Antropologia y Arqueologia, Plaza Bolivar,
Pueblo Libre, Lima.*

Spain
Museo de las Américas, Avenida de los Reyes Catélicos, Ciudad
Universitaria, Madrid 3.*

United States of America

American Museum of Natural History, 79th Street and Central
Park West, New York, NY 10024.*
Brooklyn Museum, 188 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York,
NY 11238.*
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1703 32nd
Street, NW, Washington DC 20007.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 5th Avenue at 82nd Street, New
York, NY 10028.*
Museum of the American Indian, Broadway at 155th Street, New
York, NY 10032.*
Museum of Fine Arts, Huntington Avenue, Boston, Mas-
sachusetts 02115.
Robert H. Lowie Museum of Anthropology, 103 Kroeber Hall,
University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.
Textile Museum, 2320 South Street, NW, Washington DC 20008.

CARINGBAH
HIGH SCHOOL
LIBRARY
70

9
Further reading
Peru
Bankes, George. Peru before Pizarro. Phaidon, 1977.
Hemming, John. The Conquest of the Incas. Macmillan, 1970;
Penguin, 1983.

Textiles
Emery, Irene. The Primary Structures of Fabrics: an Illustrated
Classification. The Textile Museum, Washington DC, 1966.
Peruvian textiles
Anton, Ferdinand. Ancient Peruvian Textiles. Thames and
Hudson, 1987.
Cahlander, Adele. Double Woven Treasures from Old Peru. Dos
Tejedoras, St Paul, Minnesota, 1985.
Cahlander, Adele. Sling Braiding of the Andes. Fiber Centre,
Boulder, Colorado, 1980.
Fini, Moh. The Weavers of Ancient Peru. Tumi, London and
Bath, 1985.
d’Harcourt, Raoul. Textiles of Ancient Peru and Their Techniques
(edited by Grace Denny and Carolyn Osborne). University of
Washington Press, Seattle, 1962. Several later reprintings.
Reid, J. Textile Masterpieces of Ancient Peru. Dover Publica-
tions, New York, 1986.
Rowe, Ann Pollard. Warp Patterned Weaves of the Andes. The
Textile Museum, Washington DC, 1977.
Rowe, Ann Pollard. Costumes and Featherwork of the Lords of
Chimor: Textiles from Peru’s North Coast. The Textile
Museum, Washington DC, 1984.
Wasserman, Tamara, and Hill, Jonathan. Bolivian Indian Tex-
tiles: Traditional Design and Costume. Dover Publications,
New York, 1981.
 71

Index
Page numbers in italic refer to illustrations
Aksu 54, 58, 58, 60 Ecuador 5, 6, 16, 60, 66
Alpaca 6, 9, 17, 18, 64, 65, 66 Embroidery 30, 32, 33, 33-4, 43, 44, 47,
Ancon 5, 10 47, 48, 50, 52, 53
Araucanian 59 Feathers 39, 50, 53, 54, 63, 65
Atahualpa 13, 53, 63 Fibres: hard 18
Awasca 51 synthetic 16, 62, 66, 67
Aymara 6, 15, 23, 59, 60 Footwear 53, 54, 58, 58, 59, 60, 63, 65
Basket, basketry 19, 45, 46 Fringe 40, 41, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 57, 57
Bast 10, 19, 45 Gauze 15, 32, 33, 35, 43, 50
Bayeta 23, 51, 59, 60 Guitarrero Cave 9, 45
Beads 39, 50 Hat 2, 14, 18, 23, 38, 39, 45, 58, 59, 60, 65
Bolivia 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 21, 23, 32, 37, Headband 1/4, 38, 53, 54, 55, 55, 56, 57,
39, 43, 49, 52, 58, 60, 61, 64 58, 59, 60, 64
Braiding 6, 38, 52, 53, 59, 60, 61 Head-dress 54, 59, 60, 63, 64
Brocade 30, 30, 47, 50, 56, 57 Heading cord 24, 31, 41, 42
Burials 5, 6, 11, 46, 51, 53 Heddle stick 2, 16, 20, 21, 31, 32, 45
Burial wrappings //, 45, 47, 62 Huaca Prieta 10, 46
Camelid 6, 9, 10, /0, 16, 17, 46, 64 Ikat 15, 37, 38
Carhua 46 Inca(s) 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 15, 17, 18, 34, 50,
Chancay 50 51, 51, 57-9, 61, 63, 64, 66
Charazani /4, 39, 60 Inca emperor 12, 13, 18, 54, 61, 63, 64,
Chavin 7, 46 Indigo 20
Chile 6, 15, 16, 25, 49, 59 Initial Period 7, 45
Chillén 64 Jacket 23, 60
Chimt 7, 8, 1/, 13, 25, 50, 53, 55 Knitting 15, 34, 60, 61, 66
Chronicles 5, 10, 17, 22, 53, 61, 65 Knotted netting 6, 38
Chumpi/belt 15, 21, 39, 54, 58, 59, 60, 62 Late Horizon 7, 34, 50-1, 61, 64
Chuspalbag 11, 15, 34, 34, 42, 43, 45, 52, Late Intermediate Period 7, 27, 27, 29-
59, 60, 62, 63, 66 33, 36, 40-1, 44, 50, 50, 56-7, 62, 63
Chuyllolcap 14, 38, 54, 58, 60 Leashes 21
Clothing sets 53, 55, 56, 57, 64 Lima 5, 12
Cochineal 20 Linen 16
Colonial 5, 7, 13, 15, 23, 37,51, 52, 54, 59 Llama 6, 9, 10, 17, 58, 64, 65, 66
Colours 16, 20, 30, 36, 38, 44, 45, 48, 50, Lliiclla/carrying cloth 14, 15, 42, 43, 60,
52, 59, 60, 64, 66 63, 64, 66
Complementary warps/wefts 30-2, 40, 43, Lloq’e 19-20
43, 52, 58 Loincloth 42, 53, 55, 55, 56, 57, 64
Cordage JJ, 17, 61 Loombars 16, 21, 22, 24, 28, 31
Cotton processing 16-17 Looms: backstrap 2, 20, 21, 24, 31, 61
Cuzco 12, 59, 60, 61 heddle 7, 34
Darning 16, 27, 35, 41, 45, 53 horizontal 22, 22-3, 24
Designs: matching of 42 treadle 16, 23, 23, 51, 61, 66
recurring 43-4 vertical 22, 22, 61
reversal of 31, 33, 40, 44 Looping 6, 35, 38, 39, 45
Discontinuous warp/weft 27, 28, 28, 38, Mantle 21, 32, 34, 42, 44, 48, 53, 54, 55,
43, 46 55, 57, 57, 58, 59, 67
Distaff 18, 63 Middle Horizon 6, 12, 26, 39, 49, 49-50,
Division of labour 61, 63 67
Double cloth 3/, 32, 43, 44, 46, 50, 52 Montera 12, 60
Dyeing 20-1, 61, 66 Mordant 20, 21
Dyes: aniline 16, 52 Mo6rrope 16
vegetable 20, 21, 66, 67 Mummies 5, 11, 17, 47, 53, 62
Early Horizon 7, 32, 33, 36, 45-8, 47 Nazca 7, 12, 20, 47
Early Intermediate Period 7, 34, 46, 47, Neck (slit) 42, 48, 49, 53, 57
48, 48-9 Obrajes/textile workshops 23, 50, 51, 61
72 Peruvian Textiles
Openwork/mesh 32-3, 33, 50 dovetailed 27, 45, 49, 65, 67
Pachacémac 5, 12,.22, 61, 64 interlocked 27, 49, 49, 51, 51, 65
Painting 15, 36, 36-7, 44, 46, 48, 50 reinforced 26, 27
Paracas 32, 33, 44, 46-7, 47, 53, 55, 62 slit 25-7, 26, 44, 48, 50
Pile 38-9, 39, 61 Taquile Island 60, 61
Plangi 12, 38 Tarabuco 37, 58, 60, 64
Plying 19, 45, 61, 63 Tassels 39, 39, 43, 50, 52, 57, 60
Poncho /4, 15, 1/8, 21, 32, 38, 52, 53, 55, Terminal area 24, 42, 43, 63
59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 67 Textile preservation 5-6
Potolo 23, 58 Tiahuanaco 7, 25, 39, 49, 49, 66
Preceramic 7, 19, 36, 43, 45, 46, 46 Titicaca 9, 11, 13, 15, 46, 60
Qompi 51, 61, 64 Tok’apu 54, 57
Quechua 6, 15, 59 Triple cloth 46
Republican Period 7, 13, 51 Trousers 23, 59-60
Sack 15, 17, 64, 65 Tunic 27, 32, 34, 42, 44, 48, 49, 51, 54,
Saddlebag 15, 17, 20, 37, 38, 61 55, 55, 57, 59, 63, 64
Sampler 4/ Tupu 54, 58
S and Z 19, 35, 36, 41, 43, 45, 46 Turban 45, 53, 55
San Pedro de Cajas 66 Twining 34-6, 35, 45, 46
Selvedge 24, 36, 47, 42, 46, 49 Uncu 54, 57, 63
Shawl 38, 42, 52, 58, 59, 60, 61, 65 Vicuna 6, 17, 18 ;
Shed 2, 20, 21, 24, 35, 45 Wall hanging 39, 49, 51, 53, 61, 67, 67
Shed stick 2, 20, 23, 3], 32 Warp, definition of 25
Sheep (wool) 9, 16, 18, 51, 65, 66, 67, 62 discontinuous 28, 49
Shirt 21, 59, 60, 64 -faced 25, 28, 30, 32, 34, 38, 43, 52
Shuttle 2, 16, 20, 23, 24 floating 28, 29, 29, 32, 45
Silk 16 pairing of 20, 25, 42, 45, 46, 51
Single-element fabric 19, 38 -patterned 14, 15, 21, 23, 24, 32, 42,
Skirt 78, 23, 53, 55, 59, 60 43, 52, 63, 66
Sleeve 27, 42, 55 -striped 2, 11, 15, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24,
Sling 38, 52, 61 34, 44, 45, 52, 62, 66
Spangles 39, 40, 50, 64, 65 tension of 21, 23
Spindle 2, 16, 17, 17, 18, 18, 19, 19, 62, 63 winding of: cylindrical 35
Spindle whorl 17, 18, 19 figure of eight 21, 35
Spinning: bowls 17 -wrapping 46
cotton 16-17, 17 Weave: balanced count 25, 28, 32
direction of 19, 45 float weave 52
process 16-20, 61, 62, 63 plain 12, 28, 30, 32, 36, 36, 45, 51, 53,
wheel 16, 18 5
wool 17-18, 19 tubular 32
Sprang 38, 45 Weaving process 21-4
Stitches: buttonhole 34, 34 Weaving sword 2, 16, 20, 23
cross-knit loop 34, 35, 38, 41, 43, 47, Web: reversal of 42, 58
48, 48, 52 width of 21, 24, 42
double running 34, 54 Weft: counterpairing of 35, 36
figure of eight 42 definition 25
overhand 40, 41, 42 discontinuous 24, 25
stem 33-4, 47, 48 eccentric 27
Strap 11, 21, 32, 39, 43 -faced 25, 32
Supplementary warp/weft 28-30, 29, 43, floating 27, 28, 29
43, 44, 50, 77 pairing of 20, 25, 45
Supplementary weft, discontinuous 29, -patterned 15
scaffold 28
Tabard 39, 40 tension of 47, 42
Tailoring 41, 42 unspun 66
Tapestry 15, 24, 25-7, 32, 41, 41, 43, 44, Wincha 14, 54, 58, 60
48-51, 52, 57, 61, 66 Wool processing 17-18
all cotton 25, 45, 48 Yacolla 54, 58
all wool 25