Maya Heritage: The Textiles Around Lake Atitlan

From ancient times, probably for hundreds of centuries, the Mayan textiles have had not just an utilitarian purpose, but also have been artistic and cultural expressions to communicate different meanings. This visual literacy may become challenging since every symbol, every design, and the way every piece is worn, has a special meaning.

These hand-woven and hand-embroidered works of art in rainbow colors with geometric, floral, animal, and human designs, are quite impressive.

The traditional woman's dress includes a huipil (the blouse), a corte or falda (the skirt), a sash or faja (the belt), a cinta or the unique tocoyal from Santiago Atitlan (the adornment for the head or hair), a perraje or rebozo (the shawl), and different multipurpose accesories, called tzute (a head-cloth), servilleta, yagual, among others.

Men on their side, wear camisa (shirt) and pantalon (trouser), and only the most traditional still wear rodillera (a short woolen kilt), gaban (a black woolen over-garment), morral (shoulder woolen bag), and tzute. Some may wear sombrero (hat) on top of the tzute or only the hat.

Also from ancient times, loomers are always eager to learn about new materials and techniques, a reason why innovation and change in design, colors combination, and dress styles are inevitable and very exciting.

If you would like to learn about this beautiful tradition, I would like to recommend a couple of books and of course, the extraordinary Ixchel Museum in Guatemala City.

Maya of Guatemala, Life and Dress

Carmen Pettersen 

The classic survey of Guatemalan Maya dress, first published in 1975. Includes 60 watercolor illustrations and 26 photographs.

Sown Symbols

Barbara de Arathon

A study of the symbols woven into the traditional Maya textiles and their importance. Includes the tree of life, the center of the village, the turkey the vertical and horizontal rows, the ceremonial plate, the double eagle, the star, and the serpent.

Welcome to Guatemala City!

Photo by galasdeguatemala.com, used with authorization

To be honest, and since I am not a journalist, or a historian, nor even a writer, I have to say that it is my intention to introduce you to my country from my own perception, as I mentioned last Friday, probably a simplistic one, which I believe is the way most of my paisanos (compatriots) perceive Guatemala. For good or for bad, I will let the professional journalists and experienced bloggers the coverage of what is going on in Guatemala these days.

Additionally, today I express my gratitude to Maynor Mijangos from Galas de Guatemala for letting me use his beautiful photographs, which means that from now on, every time I do not have the appropriate image to illustrate a posting, I am going to use his material. I am sure you all will enjoy his photos as much as I do. 

Back to our journey, Guatemala City seems to me the logical place to start this trip through Guatemala, for several reasons, among others:

The international airport La Aurora is in the city and generally, it is the port of entrance for most of the scheduled international flights to Guatemala, from USA, from the rest of America Continental, and from Europe.

Guatemala City is the capital of the country and has become the main economic, governmental, and cultural center.

Guatemala City is home of Kaminaljuyu, and ancient Maya site that dates back around 9,000 years and considered one of America's most notable archaeological sites, although its remains today -only a few mounds- are not as impressive as other Maya sites more frequented by tourists.

Guatemala City is also home of several museums depicting from well-documented collections of Pre-Columbian artifacts, Maya civilization and colonial art, to indigenous textiles and clothing (one of my favorites not just for the textiles collection, which I love, but also for the naïf paintings by the father of the folk paintings, Mr. Andres Curruchich).

As occurs in almost any large city around the world, Guatemala offers all the modern amenities one can desire including a wide variety of art galleries, theaters, restaurants, hotels and shops.

Since Guatemala City is my homeland and lived there until recently, in some of the next postings, I would like to guide you through some of the places I used to call my favorites, places that I used to visit time after time after time without getting bored.

Photos in the next slideshow by galasdeguatemala.com, used with authorization.
Please click on the image to start: