Empowering Mayan women through ancient textiles

The preservation and reproduction of the textiles of the traditional clothing of Santiago el Pinar.

Weaving is a living expression that persists and survives in the indigenous peoples that inhabit part of the Mexican territory, despite the industrial influences of the world. This resistance is due to the fact that grandmothers and mothers have inherited their knowledge from generation to generation.

El telar de cintura, forma parte del patrimonio cultural de los pueblos originarios de México, cuando este desaparece de la vida de un pueblo desaparece una forma de vida, una tradición, un conocimiento ancestral que lleva consigo, otras técnicas, como el uso de fibras, tintes, iconografías, preservadas fundamentalmente por  mujeres.

 Artisans of the cooperative “Choyo Spolavil” from Santiago el Pinar conducted a research process of the traditional clothing of Santiago el Pinar in the Textile Center of the Mayan World, a place that preserves a collection of more than 2,500 pieces in which you can appreciate the diversity and complexity of the designs, symbols and meanings of textiles from tojolabales, Choles, Tzeltales and Tzotziles Mayan communities from Chiapas.

This allowed them to elaborate and reproduce the traditional clothing of their community, a crucial activity that allows the women to recognize, value and preserve the backstrap loom techniques of their ancestors, thus reinforcing their knowledge and motivation as artisans, turning them into future facilitators who transmit knowledge to new generations. 

To appreciate backstrap loom weaving is to appreciate a way of life that shows us great knowledge, treasured for centuries by indigenous women artisans who are an invaluable part of the cultural fabric of our nation.

Links:

• Taller
• NGOimpacto
• Reel

• SANTIAGOcartel.pdf (PDF)