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2023.37.16.2

Pair of man's trousers of hand-spun and woven white cotton, part of man's outfit [2023.37.16]. For a shirt see [2023.37.16.1].

2023.37.16.2

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Collection type
Object
Description
Pair of man's trousers of hand-spun and woven white cotton, part of man's outfit [2023.37.16]. For a shirt see [2023.37.16.1].
Cultural groups
Mam
Person
Maker Family of Chepe (José)
Other owner Chepe (José)
Field collector Krystyna Deuss
PRM source Krystyna Deuss
Date / Period
Date made: January 1985
Date collected
Purchased January 1985
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
Dimensions
Length: Max 940 mm of leg, Width 320 mm at waist, Width: Max 780 mm laid flat
Object numbers
Accession number: 2023.37.16.2 Other numbers: C 90
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.

In the late 1970s, on my first visits to Colotenango, I noticed that many older men were wearing white trousers and shirts that were woven in hand-spun cotton (2023.37.16.1-.2). When I commented on this to a village elder, he confided that as wages for picking cotton were very low, the pickers often stole cotton to bring home. Normally, the white shirts and trousers used by older men in Colotenango and San Rafael were made of ‘manta moj’, a cotton cloth woven on foot looms in Comitancillo (San Marcos) and sold at markets in Huehuetenango.

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).

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

Search terms: Clothing Textile, Clothing, Textile, Trousers

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