Beneath a shade tree in the Guatemalan highlands, women gather to weave. They talk and laugh as they interlace brightly colored threads on simple backstrap looms, virtually identical to the looms their Maya ancestors used some 1,200 years ago.
Most of these women have been weaving for as long as they can remember, following the example of their mothers and grandmothers. For them, weaving is as much a part of the day’s domestic duties as cooking, cleaning, working in the fields, and caring for children. Today’s weavers descend from the ancient Maya, whose civilization developed across a wide swath of Central America from the second millennium B.C. onward. Over centuries, weavers in each village developed their own characteristic patterns and colors of clothing, portraying their communal identities much like a dialect. On a blank canvas of fabric, they repeated characteristic geometric designs, stripes, flowers, birds, and animals using brocading and embroidery techniques.
Read more of Laura Morelli’s “The Genuine Article” at National Geographic Traveler…
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Published on May 06, 2014 06:31