A millenial Andean textile tradition

To reach our days, many habits have taken a sort of progressive extinction. First, the Incas were full of scruples to leave vestiges of previous civilizations and looked for the uniformity of their culture across their territory. Then, the Spanish vanished any connection to the native past implanting a new way to think.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

     

 

SULLANA, Peru – The pottery and the loom are some of the cultural manifestations that have held across the time and come until nowadays, but the risk is as much as the artisans even assume the industrialization as a faster, cheaper way-out, the essence of every manifestation is also lost.

 

The pottery has granted more promotion than the looms. In fact, an initiative introduced by the former Peru’s congresswoman Marisol Espinoza in 2006 promoted that the Chulucanas Pottery to get its origin denomination.

 

The textiles still wait for, being the most visible and exquisite manifestations that the Piura’s Andean local can create.  There is no legal protection to the copyright of jergas, ponchos, saddlebags, bags, but the work is widely appreciated for the ones looking for those accessories and wear them inclusive.

 

    It is still possible to see peasants of Piura highlands wearing ponchos. The dress has not suffered any variation since the time of the Incas, when it is supposed to be created or developed. The ponchos are very warm and useful in almost every field work. They even pretend to be a protecction in case of rainy weather.

 

Making one of them can take until one week, a female artisan comments us. She comes from Cujaca Community (Ayabaca District), but looking for a better life condition moved to Sullana City finding something worse.

 

She comes from families dedicated to this type of art for centuries. The tracing by some researchers suggests that the Ayawaka tribe, that had its core between the valleys of Mangas and Olleros Streams, at the east of Ayabaca City, was appreciated for its pieces in pottery and textiles.

 

    The discovery of Lord of Olleros, that now is known as the same time as the Lord of Sipán, did not only surprised the researchers because the method to bury the deaths but native cotton cloths what did not lose its resistance and its color despite the decades. The found piece can be seen at Museo de Ayavaca, still, in Ayabaca Downtown.

 

Cujaca and the close Tacalpo were the production centers for instance. Tacalpo comes from Tacarpo, the Quechuan name which the loom and the technique are called. Inclusive, there is another community in Huancabamba Province that still keeps this name.

 

At the close Aragoto Valley, beautiful jergas (pronounce “hergas”)used to be produced too. Those are a kind of large rugs which cover single furniture as long chairs or props. Every week or every 15 days, farmers and peasants of that zone and Olleros Valley went up to Ayabaca City for offering their merchandise, that included belting for beasts of burden, ssaddlebags, bags, and even peleros, a special cloth the horse wears on its back for it and the rider to feel much comfortable.

 

    The process

All the textile pieces are made in the waist looms, commonly called cungalpo looms because of the piece of wood with forks on its edges that allow to entrap the cloth. The process is slow and hardworking. It begins with the spinning that is obtained after shearing a sheep, or harvesting some vegetal fiber as the cotton.

 

Once a flake of this matter is obtained, it starts the slow, hardworking job, it means turning it into a firm thread which forms awool ball. It’s here when if wanted, it is possible to paint it by using some vegetal resins and even color clays.

 

Between spinning and wool balling, the process passes almost by every sibbling’s hands, especially the spouses, but the mother is the project chief, for naming it someway. This part can last days, and it is common to see the highland women walking with their wool balls spinning within their hands. They say it’s an excellent distraction.

 

    With the gotten threads, the warp is started. Four stakes are set into the soil forming an irregular trapeze, and the thread is passed through, so a kind of pre-hatchcalled sombra (shadow) is created. This one is crucial for ending the piece. The width of the cloth is decided here, and if it will have color strips like a contrast or listas, or just a plain color.

 

Once warp, the threads are taken off so carefully and get ready to be hatched. Previously, the thread is put under illaguado, in other words, separated among it so when the hatching thread passes through, it makes in order and no strand leaves out. Usually, the thread for illaguado is different color than the piece for doing it visible.

 

On the hatching, a thread passes among two portions of the rest of key threads, holding it. And it is continued so until finishing the length of the piece. If it’s about a jerga, it can last some days, but if it’s about a poncho, it can last until one week. When finished, borders or embroaderies can be added, but that is a process aside.

 

    Good-bye, generation of sewers?

Until 25 years ago, it was common to see women with their looms on their waist, sit down on the soil, working colorful clothes. It was a typical picture on a trip from Piura to Huancabamba or from Sullana to Ayabaca. The urban habits of the lowlands have removed the interest to the people for continuing to develop their tradition, as much as it became rare to see making those pieces.

 

In 2006, the Municipality of Frías District (Ayabaca) in association with NGO Cepeser organized the women of rural communities to incorporating the handicrafted textiles like a productive activity linking it to the cattle, and the whole process was absolutely natural without chemicals nor cheats.

 

In Ayabaca, artisans working isolately at the east of the city continued to make the clothes but in a very restricted way. The drug trafficking has caused that many of them to migrate to other ‘well-paid’ jobs or migrate from there to the lowlands. The hammocks and the ponchos of Sóndor continue to be appreciated in Huancabamba but, like in ayabaca, there are few makers who fight to keep the tradition alive. The issue is this generation could be the last one to do it.

 

In spite of that, everyone can’t let to appreciate the looms – skill, patience, aesthetics, everlasting, resistance… it’s amazing that the creativity of our Andean people can get!

 

With reports of Margarita Rosa Vega in Frías and Piura, Mario Tabra in Ayabaca, and Verónica La Madrid in Huancabamba.

This story was originally written as part of the Dress Industry Area at Miguel Cortés School, that got a second place in the province phase of Science & Technology Festival in Sullana, 2006. The project and the research’s production was sponsored partially by our network.

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