Skip to content
Pitt Rivers Museum
AboutHire the MuseumNewsletterUniversity of Oxford

2023.37.21

Woman's woollen belt woven in striped dark brown and white.

2023.37.21

Digital asset copyright: Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford

Terms and Conditions

If you wish to order a high-resolution image and/or licence its use for print or web publication, exhibition, film, promotional product or any other use, whether in the academic or commercial sector of any print run, then please visit photographic services.

Collection type
Object
Description
Woman's woollen belt woven in striped dark brown and white.
Long description
Woman's woollen belt with a warp-faced ground-cloth comprising alternating wide dark brown stripes and thinner natural off-white stripes. The three dark brown stripes have a zipper-like pattern of transverse off-white lines. At both ends the warps have been plaited to form four tassels, gathered together to form a point which is attached to a twisted woollen cord – brown at one end, white at the other.
Cultural groups
Mam
Person
Maker Caterina Sales Perez
Field collector Krystyna Deuss
PRM source Krystyna Deuss
Date / Period
Date made: By November 1985
Date collected
Purchased November 1985
Acquisition information
Donated: 19 June 2023
Materials and processes
Material Wool Textile Animal, Process Woven, Process Plaited, Process Twisted
Dimensions
Length x Width 2190 x 80 mm
Object numbers
Accession number: 2023.37.21 Other numbers: SRP 20
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).

There is no difference in design between male and female sashes (2023.37.19, 2023.37.20), or in the red striped and brocaded su’tes (2023.37.23). However, the oldest sash and su’te in my Colotenango collection came from Diego Sales, an old man in San Rafael Petzal. The ground cloth of both items was woven by his wife in solid red German rayon, either without or with barely distinguishable orange stripes (2023.37.18, 2023.37.22). There is a difference in how men and women wear their su’tes and sashes. Women tie their sashes at the back and use their su’tes to carry shopping, cover their baskets, or shield their heads from the sun. Men tie their sashes in front, sometimes tucking the ends out of sight, and wear their su’tes slung over one or both shoulders.

Older women from mountain hamlets remembered using black and white woollen sashes in the 1930s and 40s. By the 1980s these type of sashes were still being used by women living in the mountains above San Rafael Petzal and San Sebastián Huehuetenango, but no longer in Colotenango town (2023.37.21).

See Related Documents File for more detail. [JMC 26/11/2024]

Search terms: Clothing Textile, Clothing, Textile, Belt

Further items to explore