(PDF) Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in los Andes

(PDF) Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in los Andes
About
Press
Papers
We're Hiring!
Outline
Title
Abstract
Introduction
References
Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in los Andes
Denise Y Arnold
2014
visibility
description
20 pages
Sign up for access to the world's latest research
check
Get notified about relevant papers
check
Save papers to use in your research
check
Join the discussion with peers
check
Track your impact
Abstract
This book explores the importance of textiles in Andean societies, past and present, as vital indicators of regional ideas about technique and technology, and the ways these interact with power relations, including gender and class relations. The focus is on Andean textiles from a weaver’s point of view, as living things which express through their structures, techniques and iconography a complex three-dimensional worldview. These ontological conceptions are traced through the various tasks and processes in the productive chain of textile making, and the manifold ways in which the ideas about a finished textile product refer back continually to these shared experiences in Andean societies. Different thematic approaches examine how the material existence of textiles served, and still serves, as records of technological knowledge, at the heart of human-centred efforts to integrate and coordinate diverse populations into socio-cultural and productive endeavours in common.

Specific chapters on the technical competitions between young weavers, communication systems based on differential forms of spin and twist, the technical features of weavings as evidence of cultural origins, or as expressions of identity and alterity, and a reading of textiles (on a par with khipus) as documents about resource use and allocation, all illustrate the interests of societies which privilege technical creativity and complexity, and their visual and textural expression. Contributions cover time periods from the Early Horizon to contemporary rural communities of weaving practice, mainly in the South Central Andes.
Related papers
Weaving Life. The Textile Collection of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia, following the productive chain.
Denise Y Arnold
Weaving Life. The Textile Collection of the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore, La Paz, Bolivia, following the productive chain., 2015
When we started preparing this catalogue, little work has been done in Bolivia on the museological aspects of textiles from the Andean and Amazonian regions of the country, and still less in a contextualised sense, taking into account the social life of its regions. Neither was there an adequate link, within Bolivian archaeology, between museum collections and national research into textiles, and this discipline is only recently showing an interest in this theme. And although there had been certain advances over the past decades within anthropology and the history of art into the study of textiles, this had not produced a renovation of ideas in theory or in practice, applicable to the organisation of textile exhibitions. In the present volume, in coordination with the Museo Nacional de Etnografía y Folklore (Musef), in La Paz, we decided to remedy this situation by proposing a new focus towards the woven objects located in the museum deposits, centred on making these textiles within the productive chain of weaving, taking into account the social life of the weaving communities of practice in the region, and also the social life of textiles as both objects and subjects.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Technical Competence in Weaving as a means of social distinction among young Macha women from Tumaykuri, Northern Potosi, Bolivia.
cassandra torrico
Arnold & Dransart Textiles, Technical Practice and Power in the Andes, 2014
To date most studies of contemporary Andean textiles have focused either on the symbolic or semiotic analysis of designs, or on the description of weaving technology and techniques. In this chapter I focus on the value attributed by the Macha of Tumaykuri (Northern Potos í , Bolivia) to the acquisition by young women of technical competence in weaving. I propose a practice-orientated approach and argue that the symbolic is located in the making of objects, and that the analysis of textile designs cannot be divorced either from weaving technologies and techniques, or from the lives of weavers. I argue that technical competence in weaving is at the heart of the construction of a female-gendered aesthetic subject, is a motor of creativity and innovation, and is a means of distinction among marriageable young women.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Artisan textile weavers: the persistence of Andean craft work and communities in a globalized economy
lorena toro-mayorga
Alternative, 2026
The Independence Plaza of Otavalo in Ecuador is a well-known international tourist destination that brings together Indigenous vendors of the Kichwa-Otavalo nationality. Although the side-by-side stands are lined with what look like traditionally handmade crafts, most of what is sold here is mass produced. Among the overwhelming display of industrialized textiles, this article aims to understand the perseverance of local handloom weavers. We argue that the materiality of weaving practices resists disappearing over time, despite difficulties, because the artisanal process vests weavers with creative possibilities to make work and make kin. Using a phenomenological research design based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, we found that skilled practice, embodied knowledge, and knowledge transmission shape the creation of value and that value creation also shapes practice, knowledge and its transmission. These aspects constitute prospects for artisans to make a tenuous place for themselves in a global market economy.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Woven techniques and social interactions in the South Central Andes: ladder designs and the visualisation of productive output.
Denise Y Arnold
Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes, edited by Denise Y. Arnold and Penelope Dransart, pp. 303-326., 2014
We examine the relations between weaving techniques and the social domain of knowledge and documentation, as expressed through the so-called ‘ladder’ techniques, in English terminology. These ladder techniques are characterised by their rows of contrasting colours in the simple form, or alternatively by their intercalated chequered patterns in the multiple form. Commonly they are used today to begin and end a textile design band, but they sometimes constitute whole bands. These ladder techniques have been mentioned in passing by a number of scholars, usually in the context of striped farming bags, both ethnographic and archaeological. However, no one to date has ventured a coherent account of their uses and meanings. We argue here that ladder techniques have played an important articulating role between textile technology and the social domain in the past, above all from the Middle Horizon Period, as an essential element in a coding in cloth to document the storage of food products, and the transactions made to gain access to these products at different ecological altitudes. Evidence is drawn from a range of archaeological examples, and ethnographic examples from ayllu Qaqachaka, ayllu K’ultha, and Sacaca in highland Bolivia, among others.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Intercambio cultural y significado creado en los textiles
Lori Hall-Araujo
2016
This paper was delivered at the 2016 TEXTIM conference in Oaxaca, Mexico. It is a mosaic of excerpted field notes written by a collecting anthropologist who later donated the collected textiles and clothing to the Fowler Museum at the University of California-Los Angeles. I use this approach to encourage reflection on the ways one might unintentionally ascribe cultural meaning to marginalized communities. The excerpts also aim to create space for the reality that the indigenous Mesoamerican communities involved are more than colonized and recolonized people; they have the agency to imagine and re-imagine meanings in textiles that may or may not align with the anthropologist's preconceptions.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Transformative Prospects: Textile Structure and the Social Organization ofPre-Columbian and Colonial Andean Production
Blenda Femenias
2004
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
1998 Housewives, chosen women, skilled men: Cloth production and social identity in the late prehispanic Andes
Cathy Costin
Archeological Papers of the American …, 1998
Cloth was the most economically, politically, and rituaUy valuable item in the late prehispanic Andes, and it might be expected that producers, distributors and consumers of this valuable would compete to capture the symbolic significance of these goods as an attribute or identity for themselves. Much has been said of the elite patrons of the textile arts in the Andes; far less has been said of the producers. Cloth production traditionally employed domestic -largely female -labor for both utilitarian and wealth production. The Inka state expanded textile production by taxing conquered households and by developing two new categories of specialist weavers. In reorganizing the economy, the Inka redefined the social identities of cloth producers to ensure that the symbolic significance of cloth accrued to the state, rather than to producers. The traditional category of domestic producers were dissociated from their products, likely seeing their own status diminish as the value of their products increased. The aqUakuna category of female specialist weavers enjoyed an idealized high status commensurate with the value of the exquisite cloth they wove, but at a high personal cost, as they remained sequestered virgins under control of the state.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Gestos textiles: Un acercamiento material a las etnografías, los cuerpos y los tiempos, by Tania Pérez-Bustos (Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2021)
Sandra P. González-Santos
Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience
This book begins with a simple, daily, almost insignificant event: the falling of a button. Following this simple event comes sewing back the button onto its shirt. Tania Pérez-Bustos, a Colombian STS feminist anthropologist, sees in this mundane event a pause for reflection, an opportunity for change, a moment of wonder, an encapsulation of the complexity of life. Why did he, the owner of the button, never learn to sew? Why did she learn to sew? Did she? Who taught her? How did she learn? Why does he ask her to do it? Did he ask or did she offer? Sewing back a button can be considered a simple act, yet it is capable of disrupting choreographed daily routines, long-existing habits, even culturally embedded preconceptions. Simple acts, simple gestures, can be transformative: this apparently simple piece of wisdom is what I take from reading Gestos textiles: Un acercamiento material a las etnografías, los cuerpos, y los tiempos. Throughout the book, it becomes patently clear that using gestures to change life is-like creating handmade textiles-an art that takes time, intention, knowledge, repetition, and care. Gestos textiles results from an ethnographic research project involving textile artists, activists, women, and researchers, many of whom have found in textile work a way of healing the wounds of the violence Colombia has lived for decades as part of its civil conflicts. It is a book about the creation and transmission of embodied knowledge held and shared by and among women, mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters, friends, and researchers. It is a book that explores sewing, weaving, stitching, knitting, patching, and embroidering as acts 5 | Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience 8 (2) Sandra P. González-Santos, 2022 2 Deshacer para volver a hacer 3 Destruir con cuidado 4 Remendar para resistir 5 Juntar para componer 6 Dechado de conceptos Author Bio Sandra P. González-Santos is a feminist STS scholar interested in reproductive and genetic biotechnologies, food systems, and arts-based pedagogies.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Weaving and Dyeing in Highland Ecuador; Andean Textile Traditions. Papers from the 2001 Mayer Center Symposium at the Denver Art Museum
Penny Dransart
Textile-the Journal of Cloth & Culture, 2008
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Prehispanic textile production in highland Bolivia. Instruments for spinning and weaving processes
Claudia Rivera
Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes. Denise Y. Arnold and Penny Dransart Eds. Archetype Publications in association with the British Museum, London. , 2014
I present here a diachronic analysis of prehispanic tools for textile production. Taking into account the textile operative chain, instruments were clustered according to the different steps in the chain, from procurement of raw materials, to spinning, weaving, and finishing. The instruments were also analysed considering their chronological period, and compared to show changes as well as continuities through time. These new kinds of analyses allow us to draw inferences about textile practices at different moments, and their association with major socioeconomic changes.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Introduction
Denise Y. Arnold

This book explores issues around the production been integrated into the threads of that object at
of textiles in the Andean region and their use in a certain stage in its making. Similarly, instead of
Andean societies. Its main concern is to generate a talking about the iconography of textile motifs in a
significant Andean contribution to current interests finished piece, their style, and so on, we could now
in materials and materiality, technology, ontology, appreciate the way that certain motifs were woven
and the socio-cultural, by major experts in the field into cloth during the application of particular textile
as well as emerging scholars. Where possible, the structures and techniques (see Chapter 11).
book focuses on Andean textiles from a weaver’s In all of this we became acutely aware that tex-
point of view, through the various tasks and pro- tiles in museum collections are generally treated as
cesses in their making, and the manifold ways in two-dimensional flat objects, and that a significant
which the ideas about a finished textile product limitation of current exhibition practices is to show
refer back continually to these prior processes. We only one particular face of the cloth to the visiting
also take on board recent intellectual developments public, the other remaining hidden. By contrast,
on the productive chain of weaving, specifically from a weaver’s point of view, textiles are perceived
on the human dimension of this in the operative as three-dimensional objects (Arnold and Espejo
chain (chaîne opératoire) of the textile domain, a 2013; cf. Dransart 1995: 228–229, 239). So any
concept developed mainly by French scholars based weaver visiting a museum collection will wish to see
on pioneering work by Marcel Mauss and André the other face of a cloth in order to appreciate better
Leroi-Gourhan. This was a point of convergence the structures and techniques used in its execution,
for various contributions to this volume (Arnold, which can vary on each face of the cloth. It is inter-
Espejo, de Diego, Peters, Rivera, Tiballi, Torrico). esting that this weaver’s three-dimensional point
Our decision to focus on the productive chain of view confirms Ingold’s proposal that in fact all
was confirmed in months of scrutinising textiles in objects are ‘woven’ by their human makers (Ingold
museum collections of Andean pieces during the 2000: 347). Ingold challenges the conventional view
AHRC project ‘Weaving Communities of Practice’, that making entails the imposition of form upon the
where many of the existing museum registers did material world by an agent with a design in mind
not refer much to the processes of their production, (Ingold 2010a: 91). He argues instead that objects
were not contextualised sufficiently in their docu- are ‘made to grow’ in an organic sense, not from
mentation, and above all not documented clearly a solid surface outwards but in a form-generating
in relation to the technical aspects used in their process, where the forms of things arise within
making. By working from the productive chain fields of forces and flows of materials. For Ingold, it
backwards, so to speak, we wished to trace and is by intervening in these force-fields, and following
define the processes which had led to the material the lines of flow, that practitioners make things:
makeup of a certain piece. In this way, we sought
to make more convincing links between, say, the In this view, making is a practice of weaving, in
materials or colours used during the productive which practitioners bind their own pathways
processes and the finished museum object. So or lines of becoming into the texture of mater-
instead of viewing ‘colour’ as an abstract attribute ial flows comprising the lifeworld. Rather than
of a certain textile piece, we could now talk about reading creativity ‘backwards’, from a finished
the way that plant, mineral, or animal dyes had object to an initial intention in the mind of an

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

agent, this entails reading it forwards, in an of what have been called ‘technology acquisition
ongoing generative movement that is at once support systems’, with their varying degrees of
itinerant, improvisatory and rhythmic. (Ingold complexity (Wynn 1994: 153, cited in Ingold
2010a: 91) 2000: 37).
We took as our point of departure the idea that
This process of growth is evident in the thought technical relations are embedded within social
and practices of Andean weavers, first in the ways relations and that technics should be understood
that herders work with their herd animals to make in this relational matrix (Arnold and Espejo 2010:
their fibre ‘grow’, when they sense that a llama ‘is 6; cf. Ingold 2000: 314). So we were interested in
like a field’ (Tomoeda 1985; see also Gow and Gow the technical aspects of the processes of textile
1975: 154, and Dransart 1991, 2002), and then in making, just as much as in the social life of textiles
the interactions between weavers as practitioners, as finished products within Andean societies,
their raw materials, and the loom as a structuring past and present. We wished to explore the nexus
instrument, to make their textiles ‘grow’ three- between the technical relations of weaving produc-
dimensionally. tion and the social relations which facilitated these,
With these ideas in mind, an additional challenge for example the effects of the increasing technical
in the project was how to exhibit this three- complexity of weaving techniques in the Andes on
dimensional quality of Andean cloth, which we did the social domain, and vice versa. We were par-
gradually through new software developments (in ticularly intrigued by the way that developments
a program called Sawu 3D) that simulate on the in both the technical and social relations of textile
computer screen this three-dimensional quality of production have been expressed in the increasing
cloth, and so show museum visitors both faces of ‘three-dimensionality’ of cloth, using more warp
a woven cloth. layers, and with greater texture and colour use in
the designs.
In order to explore these various aspects of the
Technique, the technical, and technology in technical relations of cloth-making, it was neces-
the textile domain sary to develop an interdisciplinary focus. A core
group of contributors to this volume are not only
In each of these major areas of study, we had to specialised Andeanists but also practical spinners,
confront the meanings of technique, the technical, weavers, and dyers (for example Rowe, Torrico,
and technology, with specific reference to the textile and Dransart). Elvira Espejo, a weaver from child-
domain. In the Western canon, an emerging body of hood, born and bred in ayllu Qaqachaka, is also an
studies (among them Dobres 2000) documents the Andeanist, artist, and museologist. The chapters by
changing sense of tekhnē, from the Greek, as applied these authors are informed by their practical inter-
to each of these terms. Ingold tells us that the term ests. Other contributions are from anthropologists
tekhnē is derived from the Sanskrit words for axe, and archaeologists with specific interests in cloth,
tasha, and the carpenter, taksan. The carpenter is and from colleagues in art history, art, literature,
‘one who fashions’ (Sanskrit, taksati), a shaper or linguistics, and cultural studies.
maker. The Latin verb for ‘to weave’, texere, comes The bridge-building we achieved is a positive
from precisely the same root (Mitchell 1997: 330, consequence of this effort. This includes dialogues
cited in Ingold 2010a: 92). between anthropological and archaeological
In this Aristotelian sense of tekhnē as the approaches to Andean textiles in general, giving
embodied skill of craftsmanship and skilled making more importance to the productive chain (Arnold,
in general, weaving is but one aspect. This kind Espejo, Peters, Rivera), and greater attention to the
of skill as a form of knowledge and of practice is terminology of thread spin and twist terminology
tacit, subjective, and context-dependent. Tekhnē is (Splitstoser), and to that of textile structures and
often considered in relation to mekhanē, another techniques, from a weaver’s point of view (Espejo).
term from the Greek, which refers to the manually As a result, the chapters in this book comprise an
operated devices (or tools) that assisted tekhnē’s academic reader directed at students and research-
application, in subject-centred relations (Ingold ers in university-level studies of material culture
2000: 316). Our interest in tekhnē as technical skill in general, textiles in particular, and the Andean
concerned its development both through individ- region as a study area.
ual learning practices and within the wider social Understanding the technological aspects of
learning practices embedded in the social relations the textile domain was just as challenging. We

I nt ro du c t i o n

identified basically two ways of appreciating the are perceived by weavers, and given meaning in the
meaning of technology. The first is comparative, societies of which they form a part.
taking the distinct meanings of technology over The book focuses on two specific aspects of
different time periods and historical social real- textiles that have become key areas of study in
ities, as Dobres does (2000: 76–84). The second is recent years in the social domain. The first is the
within a perspective that takes technology to mean relevance of wider reflections on the term tekhnē
a specific aspect of modernity, whereby in contexts in relation to technical and technological issues
outside this modernist framework, this modern of increasing complexity. The second is the nexus
phenomenon called ‘technology’ simply did not between technology and technical issues in Andean
exist. Ingold (2000) takes this second approach. In textile production and power relations in Andean
the volume, as in the project, we sought to bridge societies, past and present.
both approaches.
This was because in the recent past various The relevance of tekhne≤ to a reconsideration
studies of Andean textiles have played a key role in of Andean textiles
current regional thinking about technologies and In Europe, a series of recent studies has taken the
the social, in the first, comparative sense. These term tekhnē as the point of reference for the history
studies were stimulated by the pioneering work of of technology and that of ideas about things tech-
Heather Lechtman from the 1970s onwards, based nical in a universal sense (among them Ingold 1988
on her own work on Andean metallurgy, which and Ferré 1995 [1988]). While this has reinvigor-
draws in turn on more recent work on Andean ated an ‘anthropology of technology’, there have
textiles by the Canadian weaver Mary Frame. More been several limitations to this approach. The main
recent cross-disciplinary developments in this field problem is that a universalising reference point in
urged us to take up these ideas again, and provide the term tekhnē does not acknowledge the diverse
a greater accessibility to their implications for a origins of technical and technological develop-
wider English-speaking public; this volume seeks ments in different societies, where terms for things
to achieve this aim. technical and technological have complex histor-
There are other ways in which textiles in the ies, generating many changes of meaning over
Andes have been at the heart of several ground- the centuries, and a vast array of regional vari-
breaking studies in recent decades. Within wider ants, as Marcia-Anne Dobres has shown (Dobres
social and productive relations, Andean textiles 2000: 50–53). Dobres calls these regional histor-
in the broadest sense, especially in studies on the ies of technology ‘technovisions’ (on a par with
knotted khipu, have long been acknowledged as key ‘cosmovisions’).
media in the region, for interrelating and integrat- In comparing technique and the sphere of the
ing diverse forms of knowledge. The chapters in technical with the technological, Dobres takes
this volume, as a group, rethink the complex semi- the view that ‘technology’ is the sum of the social
otic and graphically plural systems of this region as relations generated around the interactions taking
historical and contemporary media where power place within the material and productive world. For
relations (whether political, class, or gender rela- her, these relations acquire their specific meanings
tions) are expressed and played out, until today. A in the contexts of living communities of practice,
key difference, though, from former approaches to whose ways of making things have been histor-
these questions, is that most chapters in this volume ically and regionally constructed (Dobres 2000:
examine the ways in which textiles integrate know- 61). ‘Technique’, on the other hand, she defines as
ledge from a ‘material’ point of view rather than a the set of knowledges and practices constructed
‘representational’ one. Through different thematic historically in a specific region, which can be
approaches, the book explores the ways that the understood at an intellectual and corporal level as
material existence of textiles served and still serves they are enacted in the material contexts of arti-
as records of technological knowledge, and the inte- fact construction. At the same time, technological
gration of socio-cultural and productive relations. interaction between bodies and raw materials
When we use the thorny term ‘materiality’ we use contributes to notions of identity, whether of the
it in the sense of the broad material basis of textile artifact generated in this way or of the participant
production (in raw materials and instruments) as (individual or group) producing artifacts in a par-
well as in allusion to the ways that interactions with ticular community of practice. As a result of these
the vitality of these materials contribute to the ways interactions through time, material artifacts are
that textile making, and the finished textile product, generated at a technological level, for example in

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

developments in loom and loom furniture design, wheels), but rather in developments at a social and
whose acceptance (or rejection) in a region is organisational level (Lechtman 1993: 245–246). If
determined through the social processes of debate we take the case of the textile domain, technological
and reaching consensus (or imposition) about their developments were therefore very distinct from
relative advantages and disadvantages, between those of their Old World counterparts, precisely
social groups vying for power at any one moment because their emphasis was not in material devel-
in time (Arnold and Espejo 2010: 6). opment but in the ways of taking advantage more
While a number of collections on Andean tech- effectively of the regional availability of human
nologies have been written over the past decades, labour and other resources. For Lechtman, this
including articles on weaving (Ravines 1978; meant that technological developments in the
Lechtman and Soldi 1985), and despite the highly Andes were centred on the ideological and norma-
politicised contemporary focus in the region on tive spheres, which sought to integrate populations
‘traditional Andean technologies’, the Andes as a and territories into a shared technological venture.
whole does not figure prominently in the wider Because of this, the immense scale of weaving activ-
debates on this theme. This is partly because, in ities was able to develop hand in hand with similar
the Andes, in order to think through the notions of developments in Andean civilisations.
the technical or the technological, as Juan de Dios Interestingly, Tim Ingold uses the same com-
Yapita (2012) explains, there is a quite different parative viewpoint in his contrast between
cultural history and very distinct linguistic roots. hunter-gathering societies and Western ones, of
Here the native languages of the Andean region, using technical resources to develop in the first case
Aymara, Quechua, and Uru-Chipaya among others, a kind of mutualism between society and natural
and not Greek, have been the point of departure. So resources, and in the second of overt control.
taking this Greek term, with all its cultural baggage, Ingold argues that that through their tools and
does not make much sense. But here begins the techniques hunter-gatherers strive to minimise the
problem: what would be the equivalent of tekhnē distance between society and the natural world, so
in Andean languages? And indeed, if there is no drawing nature into the nexus of social relations or
immediate equivalent, how might we reframe the ‘humanising’ it, whereas Western society does the
question and its terms of reference to arrive at an opposite, striving to maximise the distance between
approximate equivalent? them (Ingold 2000: 314). This confirms the status
of Andean prehispanic societies as distinctly non-
Technics, technology, and technological development Western.
in the Andes Another dimension to this same argument is
A first challenge comes from defining in an Andean that put forward in the regional literature by the
setting the very notions of technics, technology, Brazilian anthropologists Eduardo Viveiros de
and technological development, and their relation- Castro (1998) and Carlos Fausto (2001), that within
ship to the social domain. Technique tends to be Amerindian societies the objective of production,
defined as the skills or practice capabilities of par- whether of woven textiles or other objects, is the
ticular human subjects, organised in social settings. constitution of persons rather than the manufac-
Technique as the skill of weaving is embedded in the ture of things. I have used this argument on various
experience of these subjects in the organisation of occasions to explain the nature of textiles, from a
particular weaving patterns, textures, and compos- weaver’s point of view, as living beings, drawing on
itional aspects, including the regional repertories developing ideas among Andeanist scholars about
of motifs and colour possibilities used. By contrast, this (Arnold 2000, 2007; see also Desrosiers 1982,
technology tends to define a body of generalised among others). Viveiros de Castro’s and Fausto’s
objective knowledge with practical application. arguments are also relevant to the ways that the
Technological development tends to define the circulation of textiles as finished objects in Andean
articulations between this body of objective tech- societies generates extensive social networks that
nical knowledge and its social and regional settings, interrelate humans and material objects (Arnold
and these can take on a range of possibilities. Taking and Espejo 2013).
a comparative view of technology, the expert in Pertinently, Tim Ingold has proposed that the
Andean metallurgy Heather Lechtman observed technical forces of production were originally con-
some time ago that in the Andes developments substantial with the social relations of kinship, but
in technology were not centred on the generation that when these forces acquired a separate institu-
of hardware, in the sense of implements (such as tional identity as ‘technology’, then the objectives

I nt ro du c t i o n

of production were themselves transformed from One body of evidence for the social recognition
the constitution of persons to the manufacture of of this productive domain that can be perceived
things (Ingold 2000: 319). Ingold does not perceive until present times is the association between
technical evolution as a process of complexification weaving activities and the female domain, and
but rather one of objectification of the productive what are still viewed as women’s tasks, with being a
forces. For Ingold, then, the antecedents of tech- good wife and an accomplished woman admired in
nology should be sought in the sphere of artifice, Andean societies, as Torrico explains in Chapter 7.
contained in social relations, rather than in the While many spinning and weaving tasks in distinct
artifacts of material culture. Andean regions, and in different historical periods,
However, the history of weaving in the are done and have been done by men, this over-
Andean region shows that a technical process riding relationship between weaving and women
of complexification did indeed take place (see prevails. There also had to be ways of guaranteeing
for example Doyon-Bernard 1990), linked to the reproduction of the social values at the heart of
the sphere of artifice, but with ramifications in this weaving enterprise, as well as its transmission
society and social relations. It can be argued that between generations.
it was in fact the organisation of textile produc-
tion which generated the demand for other levels Weaving instruments: mekhane≤ and tekhne≤
of organisation in human labour and the forces Another factor intimately related to issues of tech-
of production, in the development of technical nique and technology is the body of tools and
knowledge, shared to a certain point in Andean instruments used in textile making. We saw how
society, and in the supporting technological Ancient Greek society defined this as a relation
developments, for example in loom and weaving between tekhnē as technical skill, complemented
instrument technology. by mekhanē, as the manually operated tools that
At the same time, this immense scale of product- assisted its application.
ive organisation generated the necessity for certain Tools until now have generally been regarded as
levels of complexity at diverse interrelated levels, mediators, animated by the intention of the user
as well as the social recognition of this complex- to have an impact on raw material. Tools are also
ity. Characteristically, the massive use of human considered to be elements that extend the capacity
labour in the textile sphere at all levels of Andean of a particular agent in a determined environment.
society, whether in specialised labour groups or a In this sense, tools mediate an active and pur-
domestic level of production, was directed towards poseful engagement between persons and their
state-sponsored tributary ends and the control of, environment, especially directed towards artifact
and increased, productivity within this sphere. making in the object being worked on. At the turn
Although early examples of this drive for productive of the twentieth century, an earlier generation of
complexity can be found from the Late Formative anthropologists studied tool making and tool use,
Period onward, it was developed to the highest in this sense, in relation to making textiles in South
degree with Inka expansion in the Late Horizon, America, and some of these studies had repercus-
and many of the characteristics of Inka productive sions in the Andean region (see for example Frödin
expansion continued into the early colonial period. and Nordenskiöld 1918 and Nordenskiöld 1919).
This means that examples of domestic-level rural These early advances were followed by those of
weaving production in the Andes today cannot ever other scholars, including the school of Junius B. Bird
be totally divorced from this much wider product- (Joyce 1921, 1922; Bird 1968; Goodell 1968). But
ive history with its longue durée, which had many of since then there have been relatively few specialised
the characteristics of pre-industrial manufacture in studies, with the exception of the work by Olsen
a Marxian sense, from early times. There is ample Bruhns on prehispanic instruments in the south
evidence in the past of the controlled supply of raw of Ecuador (Olsen Bruhns 1989). The contribu-
materials, textile assembly involving more and less tion in this volume on weaving instruments in the
skilled artisans, with a prescribed division of labour prehispanic period by Claudia Rivera (Chapter 9)
within single specialised workshops as well as in is therefore particularly welcome.
domestic labour, and the establishment of forms of However, a changing perspective now views
planning and quality control, with state function- tools less as external accessories to bodies working
aries and local leaders as controllers. These were on technical tasks and more as extensions to bodies
already ‘weaving communities of practice’ in the working in technical activities within a field of
widest sense. forces, whereby artifacts emerge from the rhythmic

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

interactions between body, tool, and raw materials. general haptic functions. In Andean languages,
This is particularly relevant in weaving a three- in relation to warp-faced cloth, the equivalent of
dimensional object. Tim Ingold has suggested that ‘structure’ would seem to refer to the groupings in
this might be why the term for ‘loom’ in medieval layers of the warp bouts set up on the longitudinal
English (lome) is the epitome of a tool or utensil axis of the loom. The equivalence of ‘technique’,
combined with skilled technical processing (Ingold on the other hand, would seem to be the range of
2000: 346). He takes as his point of departure the fact options for counting the pick-ups of warp threads
that weaving epitomises technical activity within combined with the selection of coloured warp
a field of forces on three-dimensional objects, to threads to make the regular patterns and varying
propose that making is actually subservient to textures of warp-faced cloth (Arnold and Espejo
weaving as the embodiment of rhythmic movement 2010, 2012a). Every increment of extension is
between body, tool, and the environment to help coupled to what went before by transverse and
generate a textile as object. longitudinal attachment. The arithmetical units of
Within Andean languages, ideas about structure the pick-up counts generate proportional designs.
and technique in relation to weaving presuppose the These generative principles underwrite the con-
tool as the basis of work, and the loom as the tool stancy in distinct periods and regions of particular
par excellence. Indeed the complexity of Andean textile techniques, the options for using a certain
looms and loom furniture, combined with bodily number of colour groupings, and of presenting
movements, suggest that it might be appropriate certain kinds of motifs and not others (cf. Ingold
to call the Andean loom a ‘machine’. This question 2000: 346).
has been examined by Ingold (2000: 303) in his Similarly with weaving instruments, a study of
reflections on Marx and his notion of machine, and spindles cannot be separated from their use in rela-
whether it is relevant to ask if the weaving loom is a tion to the fingers, hand, and body, within a field
machine, or when it does become a machine. of forces. Spinning is a ‘kinetic activity’ between
Loom complexity depends in great measure on spindle and hand (Dransart 1995: 235). As a result,
precise coordinations with the somatic tool of the the emerging thread is both a product of this field
human body in manual and other operations. This of forces, and a transmitter in itself of these forces,
includes coordinations between the main body, the fibres of the threads in the making acting in
shoulders, arms, hands and fingers, legs and toes, as turn as tools for twisting each and every other
well as eyes, and the mouth at times (to bite off the (cf. Ingold 2000: 304). We begin to get this sense
end of a thread, for example). Each, some, or all of in Claudia Rivera’s chapter, where spindle whorls
these play the role of communicators or modifiers serve as weights, which, combined with their rotary
of the loom movements. In manipulating the loom motion and manual dexterity and directionality, are
certain actions are more mechanical and rely less on used to control thread thickness.
development of specific skills and more on general
bodily coordinations in a rhythmic pattern. For Technological development and power
example, in simple looms the weaver’s body serves A second key aspect of this book is the nexus
as the solid vertical element passing forces from between technological developments in weaving
the loom components back to the earth, whereas production and power relations in Andean soci-
this role is taken by the loom frame in the vertical eties. With regard to the relation between tekhnē
loom, a solid vertical element such as a tree in the and power, we wanted to explore how political
backstrap loom, and vertical loom stakes in the power might have been created, organised, con-
case of the four-staked loom. The weaver provides solidated, and maintained in distinct political
the driving force in moving the loom shuttle and formations through the manipulation of and man-
the series of loom elements (swords, compacting agement of cloth and its components. This meant
rods) that compact the weft threads once passed first defining the different kinds of power relations
across the warp. In the use of a backstrap loom, the at issue, and then how textiles became embedded
movements of the weaver’s body also contribute to in power networks as key elements (some would
the tension in the developing cloth as a whole, as say ‘agents’). The demise of political anthropology
does the relation between body and toes in much some decades ago, which accompanied the ascend-
simpler looms. ance of postmodernism, has not helped generate
More skilled manipulations of the loom, the arguments recently about such questions, where
loom furniture, and instruments, demand intimate material culture such as textile making forms a
coordinations of manual, visual, tactile, and more vital part.

I nt ro du c t i o n

One view of technological development, with to be woven for tribute purposes, and measures of
textile production at its core, that also concerns finished cloth.
power relations draws on work by the French
philosopher Michel Foucault (1980), in his ‘power Textile and khipu as documents of resource
over’ model. This takes as its point of departure management
Foucault’s well-known idea concerning modern While tupu was a key measure in the productive
states and their forms of social and physical control sphere, another key area in which textiles in the
over populations, but also includes his notion of broadest sense were used in the systems of control
social power as an enabling or generating power: a over diverse productive systems was in record
‘power to’ complete things. This second aspect of keeping, including internal systems of measures.
power, present in all social life and integral to every A number of papers examine this theme from dif-
social relation, is often perceived as an invisible ferent perspectives.
energy that drives activity. This is commensurate An important theme in Chapter 1 here is my
with the Andean notions of ch’ama in Aymara or own comparison between textiles and khipu as
qallpa in Quechua as the driving energies of human recording devices, with reference to wider state-
labour, and their control or channelling into spe- controlled systems of documentation and planning
cific domains and activities. María Rostworowski of productive activity. A generation of scholars has
has argued that societal controls over this kind of shown how khipus are expressions of Inka practices
driving energy are at the heart of the interest in of bureaucratic control. As Carrie Brezine (2012)
prehispanic Andean societies in measuring the mentions, it is assumed that whoever controlled the
biological energy levels of populations, particularly khipu had the information required to exact tribute.
in relation to productive weaving tasks, through The khipu controllers could also verify genealogies,
notions such as the ‘streets’ of Guaman Poma de determine labour requirements, and keep track of
Ayala (1936 [c. 1615] cited in Rostworowski 2005; resources available, for instance in community
cf. Arnold 2012: 180–187). storehouses. My own interest was to establish how
In this context of the power to complete things, far the documentation addressed in textiles formed
weaving activities were vital measures of and points part of this same bureaucratic system.
of reference for other integrating productive activ- Depending on the level of management within a
ities into a common productive regional model. complex hierarchy, the planning strategies, docu-
In order to facilitate these trans-domain relations mentation of productive activities, and the record
and intercalations, it is pertinent here that weaving keeping for these will be different. The control over
language was used to distinguish between distinct resources and productive output might be organised
spheres of production, from textile to agriculture at a state-wide level, when we would expect greater
and herding production. Juan de Dios Yapita (2012) evidence of common practices, measures, and com-
proposed that certain lexicons in Andean languages munication systems, tied to tribute categories and
were key articulators of this kind. This is evident their productive organisation. More work needs to
in many of the official visitas in the early colonial be done to clarify the degree to which these may
period, where there are terms for land that are used be predatory models dictating a power to coerce
interchangeably in weaving terminology. Among local groups in resource management through real
these are patas and andenes for hill terraces, systems of force, as part of the political hegemony
pampas for flat areas and meadows, and pedazos of state formations, or alternatively whether we are
and pedacillos for small pieces of land. dealing with more integrative models that provide
Above all the term tupu was used as a general an invitation to participate in a higher power, as a
term for ‘measurement’ across the weaving, agri- kind of badge of citizenship, as Espejo and Arnold
cultural, and herding domains (Rostworowski suggest in Chapter 12. However, if resource man-
1981: 385–386). I have argued elsewhere that agement is more locally organised, we would expect
these cross-cutting Andean uses of the term tupu, more diverse patterns of practice and communi-
some of which still apply today, are evidence of a cations systems, such as those explored by Rowe
previous normative system of standards, and tech- and Lau in this volume. At the interstices between
niques of measurement, that was easily adapted to each level, we would expect to find more hybrid
the regional variation of Andean microsystems at systems.
distinct altitudes (Arnold 2012: 170–175). Tupu In the actual processes of textile making, the
measurements were used to define areas of land, consideration of textile designs as forming ‘woven
the productive quantities of seed, the sizes of cloth libraries’ that document regional resources

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

pertaining to specific social groups has been management (Urton 1994). Jeffrey Splitstoser
proposed for regions other than the Andes. Alfred alludes to this in Chapter 2, where variants in
Gell explores this idea in his book Art and Agency spin and twist in the wrapped batons and cords
(1998), in relation to his work in Melanesia, and of Cerrillos were possibly used to communicate
Susanne Küchler (1987, 1988) has explored similar particular information. In her book Signs of Empire
notions, not related to textiles but in the artistic (2012: 169–170), Gail Silverman analysed spin and
practices of making the internationally recognised twist in the textiles of Qeros to indicate the visual
malangan sculptures in Melanesia. It now seems language of a systematic differentiation between
possible that what has been discussed in a former things received and things given (for me, for you).
anthropologising language of ‘symbolic power’, She argues that ‘S’ spun yarn is related to the math-
attributed to the symbolic nature of textiles (see ematical concept of subtraction, whereas ‘Z’ spun
Bachir Bacha 2012), or ‘collective memory’ (Fischer yarn is related to addition, both of these according
2012), is equally about competition over material to the Inka system of distribution. Espejo and
resources. These orientations suggest a sense of Arnold, in their chapter, confirm that differential
control and ‘power over’ people and resources, spin and twist in the threads of food bags provide
where the role of textiles in both image projection, information about the management of resources,
and in their material basis, holds sway as the sym- specifically at a domestic level. These possible cor-
bolic force controlling people’s actions. relates between the material meanings of textile and
In Chapter 10, drawing on decades of work khipu components have still to be debated.
among Qeros weavers in the Cusco region of Peru, In a more politicised debate centred on resource
Gail Silverman takes this resource-based approach. location and access, Alonso Barros (2012) directed
She explores textile motifs and other compositional his attention towards the ways in which carto-
components (the plain pampa areas, coloured graphic practices have influenced how these are
stripes), especially tocapu designs, as icons of represented. The centuries-old extensive trading
regional productive resources in a visual language movements between the high Altiplano (now
that she thinks derives from Inka times. Textiles Bolivia) and the coast of what is now Chile involved
for Silverman are registers that codify the relation resource obtaining transactions, pilgrimages to
between textile technology and power, both visually bury the highland dead in the desert sands, and a
and through the woven textures applied. general exchange of produce. Historically Charkas
In Chapter 12, Espejo and Arnold explore the extended from the lakeside region to the South
theme of social integration through cloth, this time Central Andes, but it is less well known that it
through the use of the so-called ‘ladder’ techniques also extended from the highlands westward to the
as a productive output coding, marking the type of Pacific coast. Herrera’s seventeenth-century map (in
production (the kind of crop cultivated), the scale of his Descripción del Audiencia de los Charcas, 1730
production, the stages in the transformation of food [1601–1615]) shows that the Atacama Desert, too,
products within the domestic sphere once cultivated was a historical part of Charkas, and Rostworowski
(for example from potatoes to freeze-dried chuño), (1986: 127), citing such maps, confirms that terri-
and comparative data on the ecological zones where tory extending as far south as Tarapaca and on to
this cultivation takes place. In this case, Espejo and Atacama also formed part of Collasuyu. Historically,
Arnold illustrate the wide influence in time and highland groups, as we know from Murra’s vertical
space of common systems of crop colour coding, ecology model (1972), often had access to valley or
and above all of counting warp threads by either coastal lands and resources. The degree of influence
odd or even techniques, especially in striped food of these movements on textile styles, structures,
sacks, to mark whether crops are exchanged, or just and techniques during different periods has still to
stored or used again as seed. They suggest that this be established (but see Ayala 2001 and Cases and
range of dissemination indicates its original devel- Loayza 2010). The ways in which textiles as maps
opment during the Middle Horizon, possibly with documented the boundaries between chiefdoms is
the expansion of Tiwanaku state power, although also a subject that demands more research.
regional influences can also be identified in the
variations of this system. Certain aspects of this
documentary system are still in use today. Technical relations and social relations
It is probable that specific uses of thread spin
tautness and twist direction in textiles, as in khipu, Let us now reconsider specific examples of the nexus
were used to document certain aspects of resource between technical relations and social relations.

I nt ro du c t i o n

One aspect of the close articulation between dis- in turn directed towards the well-being of the
tinct groups vying for power, and possible power descendants. The act of wrapping symbolised a
concentrations between centres and peripheries, new layer of growth for the ancestor, which accu-
expressed though cloth, is that concerned with mulated through their acts of devotion. The new
notions of ‘identity’ as opposed to ‘alterity’. George cloth replaced the old and soiled covering, and so
Lau has explored this question in relation to the resembled the discarding of spent organic tissue.
textiles of Recuay, a group based in Peru’s North The cloth wrapping presented a fresh outer surface
Central highlands during the first millennium AD as newly imagined by the descendant group. As Lau
(Lau 2010). In Chapter 13, he goes against the con- states, ‘As the public countenance for the bundles’
ventional grain of interpreting textile iconography interior potency, as well as the ritual’s community’s
as linked to aspects of ‘identity’, to argue instead that commitment, rewrapping basically created a new
in Recuay, at least, they are more related to ‘alterity’ version of the ancestor.’
(see also Lau 2013). Lau includes the techniques In Chapter 2, Splitstoser interprets the wrapping
and expressions of textile iconography in Recuay of the batons and cords found in the Late Paracas
as part of a cross-media impulse to enhance ‘planar Period Cerrillos site as part of an Andean tekhnē
surfaces’ on and about chiefly bodies in life and concerning knowledgeable practice and practical
in death. For Lau, the enhancement of surfaces, knowledge. For Splitstoser, ideas about wrapping and
whether of textiles or ceramics, expresses power. As spiral structures were enacted and created through
fancy gifts and funerary wrappings, these are most spiral movements and practices, as transform-
often associated with burial practices and ancestor ational activities. Through ethnographic analogy,
veneration. Lau points out how textiles are also Splitstoser cites the work of Valdi Astvaldsson, in
expressed by Recuay potters in ‘elaborate ceramic the Jesús de Machaca region of highland Bolivia,
representations of handsomely attired people’, where spiral wrapping produced through circular
adding yet another layer to the alterity-marking bodily movements (called in Aymara muyumuyu)
process of artful mimesis. For Lau, making textiles are ritually charged, particularly in the contexts
for others implies a predictable imagination of the of authority and power relations over others
other, in this case, noble ancestors enshrined for (Astvaldsson 2000: 207–209).
posterity. Another aspect of power relations over others,
Both George Lau and Jeffrey Splitstoser are this time through dress, concerns the body politic
concerned in their respective chapters with woven and the differential expression of certain parts of
surfaces and with the way that wrapping might the body considered to be more powerful than
express power relations through the control of these other parts, as a wider expression of power relations
surfaces, Lau in the textile wrappings of ancestors, as a whole, ordered through bodily parts. Several
and Splitstoser in the wrapping of batons and cords chapters in this volume (Dransart, Tiballi, Torrico)
with threads, often in colour, possibly related to the allude to the key role of the political use of textiles
capture of enemy heads. Both contributions make in clothing in the initial and ongoing conformation
links between wrapping and forms of veneration. of political power throughout the history of the
However, the emphasis on textile surfaces in Lau’s Andean region. Some emphasise particular body
work is different from my own findings in the South parts associated with power (head, shoulders, and
Central Andes, where the three-dimensionality of the articulation of joints), and others the use of
cloth is more important. I wonder if this is because colour and other compositional design elements
the high influence in Early Intermediate Recuay of to express power. Class and gender relations are
attention to textile surfaces as negative and positive, examined in the differential expression of these
in a complementary play of figure and ground with elements of power.
added relief, derives from the way they were model- Penelope Dransart, in Chapter 8, proposes
ling ceramics and sculpture. Techniques for colour that discontinuous warp techniques acquired
application in ceramics, the lost-wax techniques added value because they are difficult and time-
of smelting metal, and the modulated reliefs of consuming, and examines a range of tunics and
Recuay sculpture all suggest that something quite modern garments using this technique. Curiously,
different was going on (Lau 2010: 265–266, 274). the construction of the tunics often exaggerates the
In warp-faced cloth, three-dimensionality is much width of the wearer, as if this were an expression
more pronounced. of power in itself, perhaps directly associated with
For his part, Lau regards the wrapping or the opening for the head. Dransart also proposes
rewrapping of an ancestor as a revitalising activity, that the use and gradual standardisation of the

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

discontinuous warp technique in garments is an it. Here, the chaîne opératoire provides data on
aspect of technical knowledge as power shared by technical gestures and related strategic choices of
highland communities as far apart as Colombia and artifact manufacture, use, and repair, to provide the
the Atacama Desert. necessary empirical and interpretive links between
I mentioned how Gail Silverman pays particular the making of personhood and the making and
attention to interpreting the tocapu designs of the use of products within the body politic (Dobres
Dumbarton Oaks tunic as part of a visual language 2010: 103).
concerned with the potential production of a new
area brought under Inka domination. Through Textiles and gender relations
ethnographic analogy with modern-day Quechua The links between gender, textiles, and power
speakers, and their interpretations of these designs relations, are discussed in several chapters here,
today, Silverman interprets these historical tocapu as well as in several conference papers. For
as expressing, with a certain precision at the level example, Zuidema’s chapter mentions in passing
of phonemes, a regionally integrating discourse, gender relations as an aspect of power relations,
as if its wearer were speaking this discourse to his and its incidence in visual expressions of the solar
audience at some specific event in the past through or lunar calendar on male and female garments
his clothes, as an expression of power. respectively.
In Chapter 3, R. Tom Zuidema takes another Carrie Brezine (2012) argued that khipus, mainly
aspect of these integrating productive instructions in male hands, were the ‘written’ records of the
through clothing in a closely detailed description prehispanic Andes, and that one could argue that
of woven tapestry tunics from different periods being able to ‘read’ khipus was equivalent to what
(colonial Inka, Wari, and early Tiwanaku or we think of as being literate today. In contrast,
Pukara). Zuidema argues that in each case these weaving in the Andes, mainly in women’s hands,
tunics can be read as fourfold almanacs (or quin- is an important expression of numeracy as a form
cunx), which illustrate yearly cycles, broken down of skilled knowledge, which is in many ways a cor-
into daily, ‘weekly’, ‘monthly’, and longer periods, relate to literacy, implying an ability to understand,
each associated with particular ritual uses. His interpret, and manipulate numbers. Brezine used
overall interest is in how technical knowledge and numeracy in weaving in this wide sense of math-
practices of the calendrical domain were articulated ematical knowledge as well as competences and
to the socio-political domain, including power rela- knowledge that go beyond the immediate ability
tions, through cloth. In the Inka tunic, Zuidema to count. She argued that while khipus may be a
argues that the design composition expresses the specific vehicle of the past that required numer-
royal organisation of space and the calendar in acy to create and interpret, there are different yet
the Cuzco Valley. It does this in coordination with equally complex manifestations of numeracy in
the so-called Ceque system, a spatial division that Andean textiles and textile making. This demands
organised ritual tasks assigned to the social groups the intellectual frameworks necessary to create
living within these, as known from ethnohistorical Andean textiles, including the ability to mentally
sources. Zuidema proposes that the Inka inherited flip, rotate, or shift motifs to create symmetries,
this visual management of calendrical data from generate hierarchical series of binary choices, scale
the earlier Tiwanaku or Wari, or else Pukara soci- designs to varying numbers of threads, and pattern
eties. This kind of esoteric yet practical knowledge design repeats into a precise length of cloth.
among the weavers who wove these elite garments Brezine’s paper (not included here) was centred
is of course directed towards the management on how, mathematically, all of these tasks are non-
of productive resources through time and space, trivial, highly sophisticated, and based on particular
expressed again in the dress of the user. conventions in the kinds of textile technology
However, if we take the chaîne opératoire as used to produce cloth. For example, the creation
our point of departure, the body and indeed the of patterned woven textiles relies on the applica-
body politic become fused into the textile making tion of algorithms, rather than the automation of
process, as opposed to providing corporeal expres- machinery. That is, rather than memorising how
sions for the finished product. Taking this as her to program a pattern into a loom, Andean weavers
starting point, Dobres, like Ingold, argues that have a repertoire of algorithms at their disposal: sets
ancient technicians were mindful, sensual, socially of rules which create various patterns, which they
constituted and gendered beings, making sense of can manipulate at will to tile the plane in various
the world – and themselves – by working through ways. Brezine suggests that similar algorithmic

10

I nt ro du c t i o n

representations may be at play in braiding and in the Cusco region between weaving two and three
weaving interlacements, and that there are also levels of cloth is the greater religious and symbolic
highly complex three-dimensional configurations importance given to the latter.
at play in the interrelations between weaving sheds For their part, Espejo and Arnold in Chapter 12
and heddles. on the use of ladder techniques in food bags call
In Chapter 7, Cassandra Torrico interprets attention to the ways that these specific techniques,
tekhnē this time as technical competence among combined with the selecting of coloured threads
young female weavers in ayllu Macha in highland and counting of pick-ups, provide a visual language
Bolivia, involving skilled knowledge and practice. in the female domestic work of regional record-
Torrico argues that it is the fierce competition keeping practices. They view the elaboration of
generated between weavers individually and in ladder techniques, which act ambiguously as both
kinship groups, centred on their ability to create textile motifs and textile techniques, as document-
structurally and technically complex cloth, which ing practices which trace the flow of productive
provides the stimulus for creating greater com- resources passing through a household, marking
plexity in cloth through time, as a motor for their function in the management of its productive
innovation and change. For weavers themselves, activities and their patterns of use in the house-
technical competence in weaving is the measure hold stores. The combination of all these practices
of their aesthetic appreciation and judgements allows a woman weaver to tell at a glance what her
of cloth, as well as being a measure of wilful and food bags contain and how their contents are to be
focused attention, and visual and tactile prowess. destined in household patterns of work.
Within Macha society, a skilled and technically
competent weaver becomes highly desirable later Textile techniques and class relations
on as a wife, so technical competence imbues Another aspect of relative power concerns class
fertility, too, as an important aspect of femininity relations, at least those between regional elites
and status in the community. This importance of and commoners in the Andean past, as expressed
technical competence in weaving, and the gener- through their differential access to greater technical
ation of competition between weavers as a motor complexity, increased labour input in technical
for technical innovation and change in cloth, is work, and the degree of attention to design and
certainly present in the neighbouring region of colour in weaving composition.
ayllu Qaqachaka, as commented on in several Regarding access to technical complexity, we
works (Arnold and Hastorf 2008; Arnold and have noted elsewhere that in relation to the South
Espejo 2009). However, we also noted a degree Central Andes around Qaqachaka, the Aymara and
of regional variation in the importance given to Quechua terms for ‘simple’ (Aym. ina; Qu. siq’a)
technical innovation and change, suggesting that and ‘complex’ (apsu in both languages), in a tech-
technical innovation is dependent on a range of nical sense, are then applied to the social groups
factors, including regional history, the scale of with differential access to the use of these in their
communities of weaving practice working there, dress (Arnold and Espejo 2012b: 186). So ina jaqi in
outside influences and others. For example, in Aymara means an ordinary person or ‘commoner’
the Charkas-Qharaqhara region of the ayllus (Sp. comunario) limited to wearing cloth with
of northern Cochabamba, northern Potosí and the application of simple techniques, and a more
southern Oruro (Bolivia) continual innovation restricted use of colour. By contrast, apsu jaqi refers
is accentuated, and has become even more pro- to a ‘selected person’, one who has access to more
nounced in recent decades. By comparison, in the complex forms of cloth, and the potential to wear a
region of Omasuyos around Lake Titicaca there wider range of colours, including the higher-status
is a much more conservative weaving repertory colours of reds, blues, and yellows.
of techniques and structures, and relatively less In this context, greater technical complexity in
importance is given to technical competence; in Qaqachaka is linked to the greater technical power
fact certain weaving structures and techniques of one social group over another to wear more
have followed a particular pattern for centuries layers of cloth, with a greater textural modelling
(Arnold and Espejo 2013: ch. 8). Similarly the in its surfaces, the use of more colours, and more
region around Cusco in Peru is relatively conser- complex designs. Another way of perceiving this
vative, and certain techniques have been prevalent relation could be that the desire to achieve technical
during centuries. As an explanation for this, Gail power is in fact closely allied to the aesthetic values
Silverman suggests that the main difference in of a particular society, and this is what foments the

11

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

higher value and status of wearing certain designs dynamics, or indeed the constancy and stability of
and colours over others, in a competitive sense. woven forms, emerge from the generative princi-
The use of indigo blue as a mark of status and ples embedded in the material conditions of their
value in prehispanic khipu and weaving imagery production (see Dransart 2002: 92, 122–123), that
indicates that the use of this particular colour was is to say the structures and techniques used in their
associated with power. However, it is also possible making. Most communities of weaving practice
that in other contexts, such as in the knotted khipu tend to work with a limited and identifiable tech-
or in certain textiles (above all food bags), the pat- nical repertory. This suggests that the presence of
terns of sequences of colours may be significant, unified or else diverse technical features in a certain
just as much as the colour per se. Torrico (1989) region, past or present, might indicate the presence
showed the importance of colour sequences in the of single or diverse groups of practitioners, through
food sacks of the Macha llama herders as markers exchange or marriage relations, through patterns of
of a series of economic transactions that they generational renewal, or else through imposition, or
control as an economic class and that take place a desire to change to a new high status form.
between the products of different altitudes during In the past, these technical features making up a
the course of the year. And Espejo and Arnold in materialisation of knowledge may have been at the
this volume show how colour sequences in food service of elites to produce their dress and funeral
bags can also illustrate the transformations of food attire. In Chapter 4, Ann Peters examines a case like
products before they are stored in a household’s this using a method based on the chaîne opératoire
depository. to analyse the construction of funerary bundles
Above all, in her chapter on the Dumbarton in the Necropolis of Wari Kayan on the Paracas
Oaks tunic, Gail Silverman examines specific links Peninsula, mainly from the Early Horizon and Early
between the colour of certain parts of the textile Intermediate Periods. She also identifies various
composition and the kind of soil in the fields to kinds of power in existence there: personal power,
be cultivated, with black as uncultivated land, dark ritual as power, power in the making, power over,
colours as expressing wetter soil, black-and-white power to, the powerful, and the powerless. Peters
chequerboard designs as speckled maize seeds to views the materialisation of knowledge as particu-
be planted, light dots as sunlight, and so on. For lar ‘ways of doing’ which pervade the techniques
Silverman and others, textile stripes, like khipu and technologies practised in a region over the
threads, express information categories: a certain longue durée, and she draws on her extensive work
food product, an irrigation ditch, to be worked by in the Paracas region to explore this. The bundles
commoners (see also Arnold 2012 and the chapter are organised in complex layers of cloth, from the
by Espejo and Arnold here). plain weave outer wrapping layers, to interior layers
However, it is important to note that Galen covered with designs, each layer with its distinct
Brokaw (2012) drew our attention to the caveat styles and techniques. Peters thinks that the style
that the role colour and colour patterns played in changes among Paracas Necropolis grave lots are
any given Andean medium may actually call into associated with changes in the balance of power
question the distinction that Western thought among social groups in the region, so the percent-
draws between the mimetic and the abstract, or ages and placement of garments in different styles
between the aesthetic and the rational. Brokaw can perhaps best be understood as assertions of
argued that the colour conventions of the tocapu, both contemporary and ancestral identities in this
the yupana, and the khipu constitute rather a kind context.
of visual poetry, one that exhibits both rational and This approach permits Peters to identify the
aesthetic features, or rather, a semio-aesthetics and nature of the communities of textile practice
an aesthesio-semiotics (Mandoki 2007, cited in involved in the production of these extraordinary
Brokaw 2012). This idea can also be applied to the textiles. Apart from the woven layers with distinct
realm of technical complexity. styles, Peters notes that when some steps in the
production process demonstrate one style grouping
The materialisation of knowledge and and other steps define a different style grouping,
technical power in cloth this provides evidence of different producers or cat-
Another aspect of power relations expressed in egories of producers specialised in creating different
cloth is an approach to tekhnē as a materialisation of elements of the textile. The evidence suggests to her
knowledge in the productive process and regional that the component elements making up each woven
organisation of work. This would indicate that the artifact were not products of specialists attached to

12

I nt ro du c t i o n

high-status elites, or of exchange relations linked to intersecting contemporaneous styles in a region
the power and purposes of a state system, but rather might imply the presence of vying power relations,
created by diverse groups linked by social networks although stylistic dominance does not necessarily
of production and exchange. Peters concludes that mean political dominance. Her claim, supported by
the communities of textile production that contrib- a method combining the detailed technical analysis
uted to the Paracas Necropolis textile assemblages of textiles with ethnohistorical documentation, lays
were numerous, highly empowered, and competing out an important new methodology for archaeo-
in quality, esoteric knowledge, and innovation. logical work in general.
Peters’s conclusion takes us back to Cassandra Another point of view about the materialisa-
Torrico’s view of technical competence and con- tion of knowledge expressed through overlapping
structive rivalry, in the contemporary setting of textile identities is put forward by Anne Tiballi,
ayllu Macha weavers, as primary factors in textile who traces in Chapter 5 how the textile technol-
production, and raises the question of which factors ogy which expresses material knowledge is socially
in common might be held by the contemporary constructed. She bases her argument on Dobres’s
Macha (and Qaqachakas) and pre-Columbian view that through the unfolding and everyday
Paracas, to generate this competitive approach habitus of artifact making and use for functional
to weaving. I propose that the existence of small (and other) ends, technical activities become an
endogenous communities of weavers in alternat- important means for expressing and materialising
ing relations of exchange and competitive warfare larger cultural epistemologies and ontologies, as
might be the answer. There is evidence for this in well as identities and differences (Dobres 2000:
both Charkas-Qharaqhara and Early Intermediate 139). Tiballi takes the case of 46 women, probably
Period Paracas, although we do not know in the aqlla or selected weavers, sacrificed and buried in
latter case how far this was based on gender rela- the Cemetery of the Sacrificed Women, associated
tions (see Arnold and Espejo 2009). with the aqllawasi compound in Pachacamac, Peru,
The coincidence in one location of different to examine the proliferation of hybridised textiles,
textile styles can suggest the presence of diverse production contexts, and identities under the Inka.
weaving groups linked by social networks of pro- Tiballi questions the traditional models of Inka state
duction and exchange, as in Peters’s description service, particularly for the aqlla, which suggest that
of Paracas. Or it can suggest a more hierarchical the ethnic identities of individuals incorporated
relationship between local and incoming groups, into the state bureaucracy from subject populations
where stylistic dominance is linked to power rela- were replaced by a new, Inka identity. Although the
tions, associated again with overlapping technical Pachacamac aqlla were producing traditional Inka-
competences. Ann Rowe’s contribution in Chapter 6 style textiles for the state, they were also making
deals with an ambiguous case between these two clothing for themselves in both Inka and non-Inka
possibilities in weaving communities around the styles. In the practice of making these textiles, the
Chillon, Chancay, and other watersheds of Central aqlla engaged in technical gestures that evoked the
Peru during the Late Intermediate Period. Rowe’s social contexts of their youth, continually preserv-
data-rich chapter examines the technical features of ing their knowledge of their birthplace, even as they
cloth as a significant component of what Lechtman participated in textile production and other shared
(1984) calls ‘technological style’. Rowe argues that activities for the Inka state. As a result, both the
these technical features are a more reliable indica- production and wearing of this clothing indicate
tor than woven designs of geographic and stylistic that the Pachacamac aqlla embodied aspects of
origin, even of local or other ethnic identities, hybrid identity, incorporating their former ethnic
since they are part of a regional repertory, explored identities into their new Inka role.
in Dransart’s chapter as a form of productive One of the key areas in which an approach
knowledge that is less easily copied by outsiders. centred on the materialisation of knowledge can
Such technical features can therefore be used to shed new light on power and regional relations
reconstruct geographic origin and interaction in a is that of textile iconography. In general, textile
manner that goes beyond other available types of composition has been defined until now by classifi-
evidence, such as historical records. catory systems that elect a certain thematic content
For Rowe, the presence in a region of relatively within the context of textile design, composition,
unified styles can indicate the desire to conform to form, volume, use of colour, and the tendencies to
local norms, or to new and prestigious forms, such manage designs in terms of realism, symbolism,
as those dictated by fiat from the state. By contrast, or abstraction. While this approach has often

13

14
Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

Figure 0–1. General map of archaeological sites mentioned in the text.
(Source: Drawn by Nilton Callejas in ILCA, based on Google Earth.)

Figure 0–2. General map of ethnographic sites mentioned in the text.
(Source: Drawn by Nilton Callejas in ILCA, based on Google Earth.)

15
I nt ro du c t i o n

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

produced interesting results (Solanilla 2012), the Organisation of the book
limitation for us is that it works as a self-referential
representational system, outside the actual proc- The book is organised in four parts. Part I, ‘Andean
esses of making cloth. textiles as cultural records, and issues in their
In Chapter 11, Arnold, de Diego, and Espejo documentation’, explores the idea of textiles as doc-
attempt to overcome these current limitations uments, seeking to close the current gap between
in the study of weaving iconography by drawing the studies of khipus (knotted cords) and textiles,
directly on weavers’ practices today to reconsider by proposing that they both form part of a wider set
textile images in terms of the techniques used in of interrelated semiotic practices, based in fibres,
their elaboration. This new approach to textile what Frank Salomon (2004: 177) has called a ‘semi-
iconography reconsiders textile motifs in terms of osis in common’.
their material nature, where an Andean equivalent In the opening chapter, Arnold presents a general
of tekhnē would embrace this idea of the material- overview of this comparison, based on evidence
isation of knowledge. Taking on board Malafouris’s in textile terminology. The following chapter by
work on palaeolithic art, and his proposal that the Jeffrey Splitstoser examines the case of wrapped
cognitive qualities of what once seemed to be batons and cords of Late Paracas Cerrillos, as an
just representation-making constitute rather the interrelated semiotic practice to that of weaving.
basis of new and more complex forms of material Among the theories he puts forward for their
engagement (Malafouris 2007), the authors propose possible use is that these may be precursors to
that textile motifs, too, are not representations in the planning instruments called waraña, directed
a passive sense, but rather externalisations of the towards the ordering of warp bout layouts in the
techniques used in their making. They agree with textile structure, or the application of particular
Gell (1998) that the practice of elaborating textile weaving or braiding techniques, or else a kind of
motifs externalises technique in an abductive proto-khipu. In the future, Splitstoser intends to
way, whereby in contemplating these motifs, both explore more the degree of articulation between
real and imagined, weavers can interrogate their these wrapped batons and cords and the textiles
own manual and technical capacities. This is turn of Cerrillos. Zuidema’s chapter closing this part
may facilitate their possibilities of generating new examines historical woven tunics as records
techniques on a practical level, through experi- of Andean calendars, with social and cultural
mentation with new kinds of corporeal, manual, correlations.
and instrumental coordinations and operations, Part II, ‘Andean textiles, technology, and mater-
in order to achieve the new colour configurations, ial culture: textile technologies and their social
additional warp layers, more complex techniques, consequences’, examines these themes to reveal
and greater outlining to figures they seek, or indeed the degrees of ambiguity in the nexus technology–
the new developments in loom technology needed society. In her chapter, Ann Peters relates the woven
in order to achieve a desired motif technically. layers of Paracas Necropolis funerary bundles to
These ideas suggest that weaving motifs are not the creation and maintenance of social boundaries,
limited to being organisative elements of a compos- but views these at the same time as being closely
ition. Rather, through the techniques used in their articulated through social and exchange networks
making, they may constitute part of the generic centred on weaving practice. She studies technical
rules that characterise the woven repertory of each persistence and variation over time, viewed from
community of practice. In this sense, woven motifs the perspective of technological style, while challen-
as semiotic signs are never simply abstract repre- ging many previously accepted notions of cultural
sentations to be applied across different media, but contact. Anne Tiballi’s chapter views the aqllas’
rather visualisations of sets of material practices in work weaving for the Inka state in the aqllawasi
one medium that can guide visuo-material practices of Pachacamac as an institutional configuration
in other media, at an ideological level. In the con- that integrates technological practice from diverse
temporary weaving practices of certain regions, the settings into the construction of social identity at
contemplation by a weaver of a new design actually an individual level, while weaving the body politic
‘motivates’ her to go beyond her conventional rep- at a state level. Ann Rowe’s chapter views the tech-
ertory to break new ground by creating techniques nical interrelations in the late prehispanic Chillon
and technological developments unknown until and Chancay watersheds as integrating highland–
then, which are then socialised and disseminated coastal relations, while defining local technological
throughout the region. styles.

16

I nt ro du c t i o n

Part III, ‘Woven techniques, instruments, and the social ways of organising this. Following on
skilled bodies: being and doing through cloth’, from this, Arnold, de Diego, and Espejo’s chapter
examines the relations between woven techniques, rethinks textile iconography contextually and as
instruments, and bodies, in aspects of being and deriving from weaving practice. They view textile
doing, that is in making textiles and in identify- iconography as an integral part of technological
ing yourself with this task. It explores how woven style and of woven structures and techniques, and
practice shapes corporeal notions of being and not simply as surface designs. Espejo and Arnold’s
doing, and how in turn weavers in communities following chapter rethinks the iconography of
of woven practice add value to their products by Andean food bags as a documentary language
shaping the contexts in which they are produced. about productive processes. Finally, George Lau’s
In a contemporary setting, Cassandra Torrico’s chapter explores the patterns of textile designs
chapter studies the close relationship between the in Recuay as expressions of alterity, with two
increasing complexity of weaving techniques and othernesses in mind: chiefly nobles and ancestral
parallel ways in which competition over managing bodies of the esteemed deceased, as perceived by
these emerging techniques is driven by practices of the living.
social complexity. For her part, Penelope Dransart’s The book includes general maps of the archaeo-
chapter views weaving with a discontinuous warp logical and ethnographic sites mentioned in the
and weft as part of productive knowledge in a geo- text, as well as the detailed maps in some chapters
graphical frame of reference shared by different (see Figures 0–1 and 0–2).
highland communities of weavers, but apparently
not by those in coastal valleys.
In her chapter, Claudia Rivera explores a range of References
archaeological instruments used during textile pro-
duction processes, mainly spinning and weaving, in Arnold, D. Y. 2000. ‘“Convertirse en persona” el tejido: la
different regions and periods of the South Central terminología aymara de un cuerpo textil.’ In Actas de la
Andes. She has been able to do this by comparing I Jornada Internacional sobre Textiles Precolombinos,
contemporary weavers’ categories of instruments Solanilla Demestre, V. (ed.): 9–28. Barcelona: Servei
and skilled knowledge using them, to propose de Publicacions de la UAB.
general reference criteria that can then be applied to —— 2007. ‘Ensayo sobre los orígenes del textil andino:
the archaeological past. Rivera also proposes ways cómo la gente se ha convertido en tela.’ In Hilos
in which these instruments can be more clearly sueltos: los Andes desde el textil, Denise Y. Arnold,
identified by archaeologists and located within the with Juan de Dios Yapita and Elvira Espejo: 49–84.
productive chain, as well as within different levels Etnograf ías 3. La Paz: Plural and Instituto de Lengua
of development and complexity in the processes y Cultura Aymara.
of textile production and supervision. In particu- —— 2012. El textil y la documentación del tributo en
los Andes: los significados del tejido en contextos
lar, she suggests how to differentiate the kinds of
tributarios. Lima: Fondo Editorial de la Asamblea
instruments used in warp- and weft-faced cloth.
Nacional de Rectores, Artes y Humanidades.
Part IV, ‘Textiles as visual records of techno-
Arnold, D. Y. and Espejo, E. 2009. ‘A comparison of war
logical knowledge and worldview’, takes on board
iconography in the archaeological textiles of Paracas-
the specific relation between textile iconography, Topará (in Southern Peru) and in the weavings of
textile techniques, and structures, and how these ayllu Qaqachaka (Bolivia) today.’ Textile. The Journal
express regional ideas about power, and related of Cloth and Culture 7(3): 272–295.
ideas about identity and alterity. The chapters here —— 2010. Ciencia de las mujeres. Experiencias en la
show how many ideas about identity and alterity are cadena textil desde los ayllus de Challapata. La Paz:
expressed in the play of textile surfaces and in the Fundación Albó and ILCA .
three-dimensionality of textiles structures. These —— 2012a. Ciencia del tejer en los Andes: estructuras
aspects of textile making challenge conventional y técnicas de faz de urdimbre. La Paz: Fundación
Cartesian geometrical paradigms, by showing how Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, Fundación
these plays of inside and outside surfaces express Interamericana, Fundación Albó and ILCA .
alternative spatial interests with distinct social —— 2012b. ‘Andean weaving instruments for textile
meanings. planning: the waraña coloured thread-wrapped
Gail Silverman’s chapter rethinks the textile rods and their pendant cords.’ Indiana (Ibero
iconography of tocapus as a mediating language Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin, Germany) 29:
associated with specific forms of production, and 173–200.

17

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

—— 2013. El textil tridimensional: la naturaleza del —— 2010. ‘Archaeologies of technology.’ Cambridge
tejido como objeto y como sujeto. La Paz: Fundación Journal of Economics 34: 103–114. Online, consulted
Albó and ILCA . 15 January 2013: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org.
Arnold, D. Y. and Hastorf, C. A. 2008. Heads of State: Doyon-Bernard, S. J. 1990. ‘From twining to triple cloth:
Icons of Power and Politics in the Ancient and Modern experimentation and innovation in ancient Peruvian
Andes. Berkeley, CA: Left Coast Press. weaving (ca. 5000–400 BC).’ American Antiquity
Assadourian, C. S. 1982. Sistema de la economía 55(1): 68–87.
colonial: mercado interno, regiones y espacio Dransart, P. 1991. ‘Llamas, herders and the exploitation
económico. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos . of raw materials in the Atacama Desert.’ World
Astvaldsson, A. 2000. ‘The dynamics of Aymara duality: Archaeology 22(3): 304–319.
change and continuity in sociopolitical structures in —— 1995. ‘Inner worlds and the event of a thread
the Bolivian Andes.’ Journal of Latin American Studies in Isluga, Northern Chile.’ In Andean Art: Visual
32(1): 145–174. Expression and its Relation to Andean Beliefs and
Ayala, P. 2001. ‘Las sociedades formativas del Altiplano Values, Dransart, P. (ed.): 228–242. Aldershot:
Circumtiticaca y Meridional y su relación con el Norte Avebury.
Grande de Chile.’ Estudios atacameños (Universidad —— 2002. Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric: An
Católica del Norte, Chile) 21: 7–39. Online, consulted Ethnography and Archaeology of Andean Camelid
7 October 2010: http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/ Herding. London and New York: Routledge.
src/inicio/ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve=31502102. Ehrenreich, R. M., Crumley, C. L., and Levy, J. E. (eds.).
Bachir Bacha, A. 2012. ‘Los textiles Paracas descubiertos 1995. Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex
en Ánimas Altas. Contextos arqueológicos e Societies. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological
iconograf ía.’ Paper presented to the International Association.
Conference, ‘Textiles, Techne, and Power in the Fausto, C. F. 2001. Inimgos fiéis. História, guerra e
Andes’, held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15–18 xamanismo na Amazônia. São Paolo: Editoria da
March 2012. Universidade de São Paolo.
Barros, A. 2012. ‘A common thread: the textiles of Ferré, F. 1995 [1988]. Philosophy of Technology. Athens,
highland Bolivia and Chile in ethno-historical context.’ GA: University of Georgia Press.
Paper presented to the International Conference, Fischer, E. 2012. ‘Complejidad cultural e identidades
‘Textiles, Techne, and Power in the Andes’, held at complejas.’ Paper presented to the International
Birkbeck, University of London, 15–18 March Conference, ‘Textiles, Techne, and Power in the
2012. Andes’, held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15–18
Bird, J. B. 1968. ‘Handspun yarn production in the Cuzco March 2012.
region of Peru.’ Textile Museum Journal (The Textile Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge. Sussex, UK:
Museum, Washington, DC) 2(3): 9–16. Harvester Press.
Brezine, C. 2012. ‘Powers of thread: mathematics in Frödin, O. V. A. and Erland Nordenskiöld, E. 1918. Über
Andean textile technology.’ Paper presented to the Zwirnen und Spinnen bei den Indianern Südamerikas.
International Conference, ‘Textiles, Techne, and Göteborg: W. Zachrissons Boktryckeri.
Power in the Andes’, held at Birkbeck, University of Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological
London, 15–18 March 2012. Theory. Oxford: Clarendon.
Brokaw, G. 2012. ‘Andean semiotics and the Quechua Goodell, G. 1968. ‘A study of Andean spinning in the
concept of Quilca.’ Paper presented to the International Cuzco region.’ Textile Museum Journal (The Textile
Conference, ‘Textiles, Techne, and Power in the Museum, Washington, DC) 2(3): 2–8.
Andes’, held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15–18 Gow, D. and Gow, R. 1975. ‘La alpaca en el mito y el
March 2012. ritual.’ Allpanchis Phuturinqa 8: 141–164.
Cases, B. and Loayza, C. 2010. ‘Conexiones territoriales Guaman Poma de Ayala, don Felipe. 1936 [c. 1615].
vinculadas a la producción textil en relación al estilo Nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Facsimile edition
tecnológico en textiles.’ Unpublished research report, by P. Rivet. Paris: Institut d’Ethnologie.
under the auspices of the Universidad Católica del Herrera, A. de. 1730 [1601–1615]. Décadas de las Indias
Norte, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, as part of the o descripción de las Indias Occidentales, 4 vols.
project ‘Weaving Communities of Practice’, financed Madrid: Nicolás Rodríguez Franco.
by the AHRC (UK). Ingold, T. 1988. ‘Tools, minds, and machine: an excursion
Desrosiers, S. 1982. Métier à tisser et vêtements andins in the philosophy of technology.’ Techniques et Culture
ou le tissu comme être vivant. París: Ceteclam. 12: 151–176.
Dobres, M.-A. 2000. Technology and Social Agency: —— 2000. The Perception of the Environment. Essays
Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology. on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London and New
Oxford: Blackwell. York: Routledge.

18

I nt ro du c t i o n

—— 2010a. ‘The textility of making.’ Cambridge Journal Murra, J. V. 1972. ‘El “control vertical” de un máximo
of Economics 34: 91–102. Online, consulted 15 January de pisos ecológicos en la economía de las sociedades
2013: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org. andinas.’ In Visita a la Provincia de León de Huánuco
—— 2010b. ‘Bringing Things to Life: Creative en 1562, Iñigo Ortiz de Zúñiga, Murra, J. V. (ed.) 429–
Entanglements in a World of Materials.’ Realities: 472. Huánuco: Universidad Emilio Valdizán.
Working Paper 15. University of Manchester. Nordenskiöld, E. 1919. An Ethno-geographical Analysis
Joyce, T. 1921. ‘A Peruvian loom in the Proto-Chimu of the Material Culture of Two Indian Tribes in the
period.’ Man 21: 177–180. Online, consulted 11 Gran Chaco, Fuhrken, G. E. (trans.). Comparative
January 2011: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/ Ethnographical Studies 1. Göteburg: Elanders
weaving/articles/man_lm2.pdf. Boktryckeri Aktiebolag.
—— 1922. “Note on a Peruvian loom of the Chimu Oakland Rodman, A. S. 1986. ‘Tiwanaku Textile Style
Period”. Man, Vol. XXII, Londres: 1–3. Online, from the South Central Andes, Bolivia and North
consulted 10 June 2011: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/ Chile.’ Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at
patterns/weaving/articles/man_lm3.pdf. Austin.
Kontopoulos, K. M. 1993. The Logic of Social Structures. Olsen Bruhns, K. 1989. ‘Prehistoric weaving and
Cambridge University Press. spinning implements from Southern Ecuador.’ Textile
Küchler, S. 1987. ‘Malangan: art and memory in a Museum Journal (The Textile Museum, Washington,
Melanesian society.’ Man n.s. 22(2): 238–255. DC) 27–28: 71–75.
—— 1988. ‘Malangan: objects, sacrifice and the Ravines, R. (ed.). 1978. Tecnología andina. Fuentes
production of memory.’ American Ethnologist 15(4): e investigaciones para la historia del Perú 4. Lima:
625–637. Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Instituto de
Lau, G. F. 2010. ‘The work of surfaces: object worlds Investigación Tecnológica Industrial y de Normas
and techniques of enhancement in the ancient Andes.’ Técnicas.
Journal of Material Culture 15(3): 259–286. Rostworowski, M. 1981. ‘Mediciones y cómputos en
—— 2013. Ancient Alterity in the Andes. London and el antiguo Perú.’ In Runakunap kawsayninkupaq
New York: Routledge. rurasqankunaqa. La tecnología en el mundo andino,
Lechtman, H. 1984. ‘Andean value systems and the Lechtman, H. and Soldi, A. M. (eds.): 379–405.
development of prehistoric metallurgy.’ Technology México, DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de
and Culture 25(1): 1–36. México.
—— 1993. ‘Technologies of power: the Andean case.’ —— 1986. ‘La región de Colesuyu.’ Chungara
In Configurations of Power: Holistic Anthropology in (Universidad de Tarapaca, Arica) 16–17: 127–135.
Theory and Practice, Henderson, J. S. and Netherly, —— 2005. ‘Redes económicas del Estado inca: el “ruego”
P. J. (eds.): 244–280. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University y la “dádiva”.’ In El estado está de vuelta: desigualdad,
Press. diversidad y democracia, Vich, V. (ed.): 15–47. Lima:
Lechtman, H. and Soldi, A. M. (eds.). 1985. La tecnología Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.
en el mundo andino: subsistencia y mensuración. Salomon, F. 2004. The Cord Keepers: Khipus and
Mexico: UNAM. Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village. Durham, NC:
Lemmonier, P. 1986. ‘The study of material culture Duke University Press.
today: towards an anthropology of technical —— 2006. Los quipocamayos. El antiguo arte del khipu
systems .’ Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5: en una comunidad campesina moderna. Lima: IEP
147–186. and IFEA .
Malafouris, L. 2007. ‘Before and beyond representation: Silverman, G. 2008. A Woven Book of Knowledge. Textile
towards an enactive conception of the palaeolithic Iconography of Cuzco, Peru. Salt Lake City: University
image.’ In Image and Imagination: A Global Prehistory of Utah Press.
of Figurative Representation, Renfrew, C. and Morley, —— 2012. Signs of Empire. The Pictographic Writing of
I. (eds.): 289–302. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for the Incas. Cusco: Editorial Kopygraf.
Archaeological Research. Solanilla Demestre, V. 2012. ‘Tejiendo paisaje: textiles
Mandoki, K. 2007. Everyday Aesthetics: Prosaics, the Play de la Costa Norte durante el Intermedio Tardío.’
of Culture and Social Identities. London: Ashgate. Paper presented to the International Conference,
Online, consulted 14 January 2013: http://wxy.seu. ‘Textiles, Techne, and Power in the Andes’, held
edu.cn/humanities/sociology/htmledit/uploadfile/s at Birkbeck, University of London, 15–18 March
ystem/20100827/20100827012629492.pdf. 2012.
Mitchell, V. 1997. ‘Textiles, text and techne.’ In Obscure Tomoeda, H. 1985. ‘The llama is my chacra: metaphor
Objects of Desire: Reviewing the Crafts in the Twentieth of Andean pastoralists.’ In Andean Ecology and
Century, Harrod, T. (ed.): 324–332. London: Crafts Civilization, Masuda, S., Shimada, I., and Moris, C.
Council. (eds.): 277–299. Tokyo University Press.

19

Textiles, Technical Practice, and Power in the Andes

Torrico, C. 1989. ‘Tejidos vivientes: El simbolismo de Wynn, T. 1994. ‘Tools and tool behaviour.’ In Companion
las bolsas de los pastores bolivianos.’ Unpublished Encyclopedia of Anthropology: Humanity, Culture
manuscript. and Social Life, Ingold, T. (ed.): 133–161. London:
Urton, G. 1994. ‘A new twist in an old yarn: variation in Routledge.
knot directionality in the Inka khipus.’ Baessler-Archiv Yapita, J. de D. 2012. ‘Pensando los desarrollos tecnológicos
(Berlin) 42: 271–305. andinos en el textil desde las lenguas andinas.’ Paper
Viveiros de Castro, E. 1998. ‘Cosmological deixis and presented to the International Conference, ‘Textiles,
Amerindian perspectivism.’ Journal of the Royal Techne, and Power in the Andes’, held at Birkbeck,
Anthropological Institute 4(3): 469–88. University of London, 15–18 March 2012.

20
References (72)
Arnold , D. Y. 2000 . '"Convertirse en persona" el tejido: la terminolog í a aymara de un cuerpo textil. ' In Actas de la I Jornada Internacional sobre Textiles Precolombinos , Solanilla Demestre , V. (ed.): 9 -28 . Barcelona : Servei de Publicacions de la UAB .
--2007 . 'Ensayo sobre los orígenes del textil andino: cómo la gente se ha convertido en tela. ' In Hilos sueltos: los Andes desde el textil , Denise Y. Arnold , with Juan de Dios Yapita and Elvira Espejo : 49 -84 . Etnograf ías 3. La Paz : Plural and Instituto de Lengua y Cultura Aymara .
--2012 . El textil y la documentación del tributo en los Andes: los significados del tejido en contextos tributarios . Lima : Fondo Editorial de la Asamblea Nacional de Rectores, Artes y Humanidades .
Arnold , D. Y. and Espejo , E. 2009 . ' A comparison of war iconography in the archaeological textiles of Paracas- Topar á (in Southern Peru) and in the weavings of ayllu Qaqachaka (Bolivia) today . ' Textile. The Journal of Cloth and Culture 7( 3): 272 -295 .
--2010 . Ciencia de las mujeres. Experiencias en la cadena textil desde los ayllus de Challapata . La Paz : Fundación Albó and ILCA .
--2012a . Ciencia del tejer en los Andes: estructuras y técnicas de faz de urdimbre . La Paz : Fundación Cultural del Banco Central de Bolivia, Fundación Interamericana, Fundación Albó and ILCA .
--2012b . ' Andean weaving instruments for textile planning: the waraña coloured thread-wrapped rods and their pendant cords . ' Indiana (Ibero Amerikanisches Institut, Berlin, Germany) 29 : 173 -200 .
--2013 . El textil tridimensional: la naturaleza del tejido como objeto y como sujeto . La Paz : Fundación Albó and ILCA .
Arnold , D. Y. and Hastorf , C. A. 2008 . Heads of State: Icons of Power and Politics in the Ancient and Modern Andes . Berkeley, CA : Left Coast Press .
Assadourian , C. S. 1982 . Sistema de la econom í a colonial: mercado interno, regiones y espacio econ ó mico . Lima : Instituto de Estudios Peruanos .
Astvaldsson , A. 2000 . ' The dynamics of Aymara duality: change and continuity in sociopolitical structures in the Bolivian Andes . ' Journal of Latin American Studies 32 (1): 145 -174 .
Ayala , P. 2001 . ' Las sociedades formativas del Altiplano Circumtiticaca y Meridional y su relaci ó n con el Norte Grande de Chile . ' Estudios atacame ñ os (Universidad Cat ó lica del Norte, Chile) 21 : 7 -39 . Online, consulted 7 October 2010: http://redalyc.uaemex.mx/redalyc/ src/inicio/ArtPdfRed.jsp?iCve=31502102 .
Bachir Bacha , A. 2012 . 'Los textiles Paracas descubiertos en Á nimas Altas. Contextos arqueol ó gicos e iconograf í a. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Barros , A. 2012 . ' A common thread: the textiles of highland Bolivia and Chile in ethno-historical context. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Bird , J. B. 1968 . ' Handspun yarn production in the Cuzco region of Peru . ' Textile Museum Journal (The Textile Museum, Washington, DC) 2 (3): 9 -16 .
Brezine , C. 2012 . 'Powers of thread: mathematics in Andean textile technology. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Brokaw , G. 2012 . ' Andean semiotics and the Quechua concept of Quilca. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Cases , B. and Loayza , C. 2010 . 'Conexiones territoriales vinculadas a la producci ó n textil en relaci ó n al estilo tecnol ó gico en textiles. ' Unpublished research report, under the auspices of the Universidad Cat ó lica del Norte, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, as part of the project 'Weaving Communities of Practice' , financed by the AHRC (UK).
Desrosiers , S. 1982 . M é tier à tisser et v ê tements andins ou le tissu comme ê tre vivant . Par í s : Ceteclam . Dobres , M.-A. 2000. Technology and Social Agency: Outlining a Practice Framework for Archaeology . Oxford: Blackwell.
--2010 . ' Archaeologies of technology . ' Cambridge Journal of Economics 34 : 103 -114 . Online, consulted 15 January 2013: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org.
Doyon-Bernard , S. J. 1990 . ' From twining to triple cloth: experimentation and innovation in ancient Peruvian weaving (ca. 5000-400 BC) . ' American Antiquity 55 (1): 68 -87 .
Dransart , P. 1991 . ' Llamas, herders and the exploitation of raw materials in the Atacama Desert . ' World Archaeology 22 (3): 304 -319 .
--1995 . 'Inner worlds and the event of a thread in Isluga, Northern Chile. ' In Andean Art: Visual Expression and its Relation to Andean Beliefs and Values , Dransart , P. (ed.): 228 -242 . Aldershot : Avebury .
--2002 . Earth, Water, Fleece and Fabric: An Ethnography and Archaeology of Andean Camelid Herding . London and New York : Routledge .
Ehrenreich , R. M. , Crumley , C. L. , and Levy , J. E. (eds.). 1995 . Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies . Arlington, VA : American Anthropological Association .
Fausto , C. F. 2001 . Inimgos fi é is. Hist ó ria, guerra e xamanismo na Amaz ô nia . S ã o Paolo : Editoria da Universidade de S ã o Paolo .
Ferr é , F. 1995 [1988]. Philosophy of Technology . Athens, GA : University of Georgia Press .
Fischer , E. 2012 . 'Complejidad cultural e identidades complejas. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Foucault , M. 1980 . Power/Knowledge . Sussex, UK : Harvester Press .
Fr ö din , O. V. A. and Erland Nordenski ö ld , E. 1918 . Ü ber Zwirnen und Spinnen bei den Indianern S ü damerikas . G ö teborg : W. Zachrissons Boktryckeri .
Gell , A. 1998 . Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory . Oxford : Clarendon .
Goodell , G. 1968 . ' A study of Andean spinning in the Cuzco region . ' Textile Museum Journal (The Textile Museum, Washington, DC) 2 (3): 2 -8 .
Gow , D. and Gow , R. 1975 . ' La alpaca en el mito y el ritual . ' Allpanchis Phuturinqa 8 : 141 -164 .
Guaman Poma de Ayala , don Felipe . 1936 [ c . 1615]. Nueva cor ó nica y buen gobierno . Facsimile edition by P. Rivet . Paris : Institut d ' Ethnologie .
Herrera , A. de . 1730 [1601-1615]. D é cadas de las Indias o descripci ó n de las Indias Occidentales , 4 vols. Madrid : Nicol á s Rodr í guez Franco .
Ingold , T. 1988 . ' Tools, minds, and machine: an excursion in the philosophy of technology . ' Techniques et Culture 12 : 151 -176 .
--2000 . The Perception of the Environment. Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill . London and New York : Routledge .
--2010a . ' The textility of making . ' Cambridge Journal of Economics 34 : 91 -102 . Online, consulted 15 January 2013: http://cje.oxfordjournals.org.
--2010b . 'Bringing Things to Life: Creative Entanglements in a World of Materials. ' Realities: Working Paper 15. University of Manchester .
Joyce , T. 1921 . ' A Peruvian loom in the Proto-Chimu period . ' Man 21 : 177 -180 . Online, consulted 11 January 2011: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/ weaving/articles/man_lm2.pdf .
--1922. "Note on a Peruvian loom of the Chimu Period". Man , Vol. XXII, Londres: 1-3. Online, consulted 10 June 2011: http://www.cs.arizona.edu/ patterns/weaving/articles/man_lm3.pdf .
Kontopoulos , K. M. 1993 . The Logic of Social Structures . Cambridge University Press .
K ü chler , S. 1987 . ' Malangan: art and memory in a Melanesian society . ' Man n.s. 22 (2): 238 -255 .
--1988 . ' Malangan: objects, sacrifice and the production of memory . ' American Ethnologist 15 (4): 625 -637 .
Lau , G. F. 2010 . ' The work of surfaces: object worlds and techniques of enhancement in the ancient Andes . ' Journal of Material Culture 15 (3): 259 -286 .
--2013 . Ancient Alterity in the Andes . London and New York : Routledge .
Lechtman , H. 1984 . ' Andean value systems and the development of prehistoric metallurgy . ' Technology and Culture 25 (1): 1 -36 .
--1993 . 'Technologies of power: the Andean case. ' In Configurations of Power: Holistic Anthropology in Theory and Practice , Henderson , J. S. and Netherly , P. J. (eds.): 244 -280 . Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press .
Lechtman , H. and Soldi , A. M. (eds.). 1985 . La tecnolog í a en el mundo andino: subsistencia y mensuraci ó n . Mexico : UNAM .
Lemmonier , P. 1986 . ' The study of material culture today: towards an anthropology of technical systems . ' Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5 : 147 -186 .
Malafouris , L. 2007 . 'Before and beyond representation: towards an enactive conception of the palaeolithic image. ' In Image and Imagination: A Global Prehistory of Figurative Representation , Renfrew, C. and Morley, I. (eds.): 289-302. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.
Mandoki , K. 2007 . Everyday Aesthetics: Prosaics, the Play of Culture and Social Identities . London : Ashgate . Online, consulted 14 January 2013: http://wxy.seu. edu.cn/humanities/sociology/htmledit/uploadfile/s ystem/20100827/20100827012629492.pdf.
Mitchell , V. 1997 . 'Textiles, text and techne. ' In Obscure Objects of Desire: Reviewing the Crafts in the Twentieth Century , Harrod , T. (ed.): 324 -332 . London : Crafts Council .
Murra , J. V. 1972 . nuco en 1562, I ñ igo Ortiz de Z úñ iga , Murra , J. V. (ed.) 429 - 472 . Hu á nuco: Universidad Emilio Valdiz á n . Nordenski ö ld , E. 1919 . An Ethno-geographical Analysis of the Material Culture of Two Indian Tribes in the Gran Chaco , Fuhrken , G. E. (trans.). Comparative Ethnographical Studies 1. G ö teburg : Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag .
Oakland Rodman , A. S. 1986 . 'Tiwanaku Textile Style from the South Central Andes, Bolivia and North Chile. ' Doctoral dissertation, University of Texas at Austin.
Olsen Bruhns , K. 1989 . ' Prehistoric weaving and spinning implements from Southern Ecuador . ' Textile Museum Journal (The Textile Museum, Washington, DC) 27 -28: 71 -75 .
Ravines , R. (ed.). 1978 . Tecnolog í a andina . Fuentes e investigaciones para la historia del Per ú 4. Lima : Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Instituto de Investigaci ó n Tecnol ó gica Industrial y de Normas T é cnicas .
Rostworowski , M. 1981 . 'Mediciones y c ó mputos en el antiguo Per ú . ' In Runakunap kawsayninkupaq rurasqankunaqa. La tecnolog í a en el mundo andino , Lechtman , H. and Soldi , A. M. (eds.): 379 -405 .
M é xico, DF : Universidad Nacional Aut ó noma de M é xico .
--1986 . ' La región de Colesuyu . ' Chungara (Universidad de Tarapaca, Arica) 16-17 : 127 -135 .
--2005 . 'Redes económicas del Estado inca: el "ruego" y la "dádiva".' In El estado está de vuelta: desigualdad, diversidad y democracia , Vich , V. (ed.): 15 -47 . Lima : Instituto de Estudios Peruanos .
Salomon , F. 2004 . The Cord Keepers: Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village . Durham, NC : Duke University Press .
--2006 . Los quipocamayos. El antiguo arte del khipu en una comunidad campesina moderna . Lima : IEP and IFEA .
Silverman , G. 2008 . A Woven Book of Knowledge. Textile Iconography of Cuzco, Peru . Salt Lake City : University of Utah Press .
--2012 . Signs of Empire. The Pictographic Writing of the Incas . Cusco : Editorial Kopygraf .
Solanilla Demestre , V. 2012 . 'Tejiendo paisaje: textiles de la Costa Norte durante el Intermedio Tard í o. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
Tomoeda , H. 1985 . 'The llama is my chacra: metaphor of Andean pastoralists. ' In Andean Ecology and Civilization , Masuda , S. , Shimada , I. , and Moris , C. (eds.): 277 -299 . Tokyo University Press .
Torrico , C. 1989 . 'Tejidos vivientes: El simbolismo de las bolsas de los pastores bolivianos. ' Unpublished manuscript.
Urton , G. 1994 . ' A new twist in an old yarn: variation in knot directionality in the Inka khipus . ' Baessler-Archiv (Berlin) 42 : 271 -305 .
Viveiros de Castro , E. 1998 . ' Cosmological deixis and Amerindian perspectivism . ' Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4 (3): 469 -88 .
Wynn , T. 1994 . 'Tools and tool behaviour. ' In Companion Encyclopedia of Anthropology: Humanity, Culture and Social Life , Ingold , T. (ed.): 133 -161 . London : Routledge .
Yapita , J. de D. 2012 . 'Pensando los desarrollos tecnol ó gicos andinos en el textil desde las lenguas andinas. ' Paper presented to the International Conference, 'Textiles, Techne , and Power in the Andes' , held at Birkbeck, University of London, 15-18 March 2012.
January 17, 2021
Denise Y Arnold
Current research interests: Textiles as expressions of Amerindian transformational and three-dimensional thought; further research into the oral and written history of ayllu Qaqachaka, for the Republican period (1825-1900), in coordination with the ayllu members working on this.
Papers
120
Followers
2,241
View all papers from
Denise Y Arnold
arrow_forward
Related papers
Making textiles into persons: Gestural sequences and relationality in communities of weaving practice of the South Central Andes
Denise Y Arnold
Journal of Material Culture, 2018
The complex social and technical dimensions of weaving in contemporary Andean communities of practice are examined to suggest how these might have evolved so that populations could coordinate and make sense of their daily tasks in an emerging biocultural space. Rejecting former constructivist epistemological biases in operational studies of working practice, the article explores an alternative approach where technical practice is given meaning through ways of being in the world, and where common sense-making derives from the idea that textiles are living beings. The nurturing processes of a relational ontology where ‘making’ is ‘growing’ are traced in the patterns of learning and their gestural sequencing in weaving communities, in winding instruments that intercalate productive spheres and in finished textiles that express productive yields.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Weaving Social Change(s) or Changes of Weaving? The Ethnographic Study of Andean Textiles in Cusco and Bolivia
Cristian Terry
Artl@s Bulletin, 2020
Through a comparative and multi-sited ethnography in Cusco (Peru) and Bolivia, the article shows how, by mobilizing Andean textiles, local actors are weaving social change(s) while also changing the way of weaving. These two ideas are interwoven: 1) Andean textiles contribute to local population to weave social change(s) by bringing alternative economic opportunities; 2) weaving practices are changing, since new fashionable, industrial, and “hybrid” production has been created and adapted to an urban-oriented/tourist-oriented market which provides money to make the social change(s) possible. Recommended Citation Terry, Cristian. "Weaving Social Change(s) or Changes of Weaving? The Ethnographic Study of Andean Textiles in Cusco and Bolivia." Artl@s Bulletin 9, no. 1 (2020): Article 6. Full article, free download : https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/artlas/vol9/iss1/6/
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Andean Textile Traditions: Material Knowledge and Culture, Part 1
Elena Phipps
Zea Books, 2017
The development of rich and complex Andean textile traditions spanned millennia, in concert with the development of cultures that utilized textiles as a primary form of expression and communication. Understanding the importance of textiles in the Andean world, we can examine elements of their genesis and look at the trajectory from the earliest developments of fiber-made items to the extraordinarily complex and specific processes of textile making, such as warp-wrapping and discontinuous warp and weft weaving. These processes are examined in the context of the relationship between textiles and the sacred, highlighting the significance and agency of cloth in part through the creation of the unique methods of their construction, which constitute systems of knowledge underscored in the material and materiality of the media.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Intertwining the past and the present through textiles, experiences in the communities, a vision from Peru
Rommel Angeles Falcon
2021
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Can We Study Textiles From Other Cultures Without Ethnocentrism?The Andes As A Case Study
sophie desrosiers
2012
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
People, landscape and wool weaving in Venezuelan Andes
Eduardo Portillo
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, 2021
Wool weaving has been practiced in the Venezuelan Andean region for centuries, specifically at the Páramo ecosystem, this activity was introduced by the Spaniards and shaped by the relation of its inhabitants with the environment, warm clothes needs, climate and the isolation of the place. Weavers who still use handspun wool, cotton and natural dyes have made blankets and Ruanas traditionally on elementary handlooms. Beauty in simplicity has built a singular aesthetic to be wearing within the mist of the mountains. This paper intend to share a personal encounter of the authors with the community of weavers, spinners, dyers, sheep breeders, farmers, landscape and culture of the Venezuelan Andes through the wool weaving, a visual journey on this encounter is discussed to illustrate and appreciate the way of life and textile making of the Páramo people and their silent experience. The Páramo is an ecosystem of the highest Andean mountainous areas of the equatorial belt in height between 3000 and 4300 meters above sea level, it's considered to be found in the Andes of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and northern Peru. Moorlands is the word that translates into English the word Páramo. In this presentation we´ll use the Spanish word Páramo and will refer to the Páramos of the Venezuelan Tropical Andes, specifically the area of Mucuchíes and surroundings.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Andean weaving instruments for textile planning: the waraña coloured thread-wrapped rods and their pendant cords
Denise Y Arnold
Andean weaving instruments for textile planning: the waraña coloured thread-wrapped rods and their pendant cords., 2012
Recent studies on the Andean knotted threads, called khipu, consider their use not only as records of quantity, but also as more general recording and documenting devices, with integral planning aspects. This possibility has been explored in relation to khipus as finished artifacts and as composite objects under construction. However, until now, studies of Andean textiles have tended to restrict their analysis to the semiotically constituted construction of already completed artifacts, with less attention to their relation to this wider administrative domain. Here we consider textiles as part of wider productive networks, in their totalities and their constituent parts. We reconsider some archaeological and historical weaving instruments, called waraña in Aymara, from this point of view, using ethnographic analogies to suggest ways in which these instruments might have been used in the past in these wider planning and administrative systems overseeing textile production.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Woven Brilliance: Approaching Color in Andean Textile Traditions
Elena Phipps
Textile Museum Journal, 2020
Support for volume 47 of The Textile Museum Journal is generously provided by the Cotsen Textile Traces Study Collection Endowment, David W. and Barbara G. Fraser, and the Markarian Foundation. The museum is grafeful for their support and commitment to advancing textile scholarship.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Mind’s Eye and Embodied Weaving: Simultaneous Contrasts of Hue in Isluga Textiles, Northern Chile
Penny Dransart
Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, 2019
This article examines the use of hue in textiles woven during the twentieth century in Isluga, a bilingual Aymara/Spanish-speaking community of herders of llamas, alpacas and sheep in the highlands of northern Chile. It pays tribute to the weaving skills of Natividad Castro Challapa and other weavers of her generation, born early in the twentieth century. Aniline dyes were already known to them but, in the course of their lives, they witnessed increasing amounts of industrially manufactured, pre-dyed acrylic yarns arriving in the community. The article explores how weavers incorporated these brightly hued yarns in their textiles to form accents of colour alongside undyed yarns spun from alpaca and llama fibre. Taking into account the environmental context of ambient lightness and darkness, it addresses the forms of contrast the weavers used, based on principles of extension, saturation, complementarity and simultaneity. This study of Natividad Castro Challapa's weaving career provides a rare opportunity to demonstrate how local concepts concerning the use of hues have undergone historical change with the arrival of global resources in an ethnographic context that otherwise provides the researcher with little documentary evidence.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
The agency of textile technology in some archaeological ritual contexts of Northwest Argentina
Sara Maria Luisa Lopez Campeny
Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology, 2014
I concentrate here on the agency of textiles, through certain technical features, to produce a range of social actions and effects when they intervene in the contexts of specific cultural practices. This “power” (in terms of the transformative capacity) or “magical efficacy” is made manifest visually in the textile artifacts, and they intervene in, and modify the specific social contexts in which they participate. The technical features I examine here include: the direction of thread twist, the use of contrasting tonalities and intense colors, the presence of knots, and the material basis of the textile object. These features are illustrated in a set of textile artifacts proceeding from archaeological contexts in the micro region of Antofagasta de la Sierra, in Northwest Argentina, and that cover an extended chronological sequence from about 3800 to 200 years BP. I appeal to interpretative frameworks which are supported by historical and anthropological data, and which I consider closer to the archaeological communities I am analyzing than our contemporary reality. I also take the necessary precautions so as to avoid using direct analogy, and I leave open the possibility for putting forward and checking hypotheses in specific contexts through the use of independent archaeological data.
Download free PDF
View PDF
chevron_right
Explore
Papers
Topics
Features
Mentions
Analytics
PDF Packages
Advanced Search
Search Alerts
Journals
Academia.edu Journals
My submissions
Reviewer Hub
Why publish with us
Testimonials
Company
About
Careers
Press
Content Policy
580 California St., Suite 400
San Francisco, CA, 94104