2023.37.15

Collection type

Object

Description

Skirt of woven burgundy and black striped cotton decorated with vertical bands of brocaded motifs in many different colours of mercerised cotton.

Long description

Skirt constructed from two lengths of woven cotton in burgundy and black stripes. The two lengths are joined side by side with black cotton, with the ends joined together by a basting stitch in black cotton to form a large tube. The skirt is decorated with narrow vertical bands of single-faced supplementary weft brocaded geometric motifs in various shades of blue, green, pink, purple, orange, yellow and white mercerised cotton. The motifs include Xs, circles, double chevrons and diagonal lines.

Geographical reference

Guatemala

Latin America and the Caribbean > Central America > Guatemala

Cultural groups

Mam

Person

Maker Unknown Maker

Field collector Krystyna Deuss

PRM source Krystyna Deuss

Date / Period

Date made: By January 2005

Date collected

Purchased January 2005

Acquisition information

Donated: 19 June 2023

Materials and processes

Material Cotton Seed Fibre Textile Plant, Material Cotton Seed Fibre Yarn Plant, Process Woven, Process Stitched, Process Brocaded Woven, Process Supplementary Weft Woven

Dimensions

Height x Width 970 x 1090 mm

Object numbers

Accession number: 2023.37.15 Other numbers: C 109

Research and responses

Information supplied by the collector/donor Krystyna Deuss:

The municipality of Colotenango includes not only the lower lying lands around the town but also hamlets in the high Cuchumatán mountains to the north at altitudes of over 2,000 metres

The township of San Rafael Petzal used to belong to Colotenango before 1890, so people there use the same dress. However, changes in dress styles have been slower in San Rafael than in Colotenango and in the late 1980s there were several men still dressed in white with traditional home woven sashes (2023.37.18) and su’tes (2023.37.22). Many older women were still wearing simple striped huipiles (2023.37.2) and navy skirts (2023.37.12). These simple huipiles were very wide and longer than the norm and were worn bundled up at the back. Even San Rafael Petzal’s ornate festive huipiles from the 1960s tended to be wider than those of Colotenango (2023.37.3).

My informants in Colotenango and San Rafael concurred that in president Ubico’s reign (1931-1944) times were hard and wages were very low, so only the wealthy could afford to buy red yarns. Therefore, huipiles and su’tes were mainly white with occasional red stripes, and skirts were plain navy-blue cotton or of black wool. Skirts in this area were also woven on hip-strap looms. Under President Arbenz better wages were paid and so the Maya could afford to use red yarns in their weavings.

In Colotenango the women I spoke to all agreed that by the 1950s huipiles with red brocading were the norm and that skirts had red stripes as well as brocaded motifs, but far less at that time than what had become fashionable in the 1970s (2023.37.13). The ornate, so-called traditional Colotenango huipiles which were regularly brocaded with the prized red rayon from Germany called “alemán” (imported between the mid-1950s and -60s) as well as quality mercerized cottons, were often saved for best wear i.e., for church, market days and festivals. These were normally made from three panels (2023.37.3, 2023.37.4). Usually a simpler, so-called ‘kitchen’ huipil is worn in the house and constructed of only two panels (2023.37.5, 2023.37.6).

Changes in dress were evident by the end of the 1990s. The traditional imported bright red rayon (rojo alemán), which was used in brocading, started giving way to a dark burgundy rayon produced in Tecpan by the Tocora family. Designs now included animal and other new motifs (2023.37.9, 2023.37.10), and skirts were woven in dark burgundy cottons and black (2023.37.15).

See Related Documents File for more detail. [JMC 22/11/2024]

Search terms: Clothing Textile, Clothing, Textile, Skirt