Weaving Identities: Construction of Dress and Self in a Highland Guatemala TownUniversity of Texas Press, 1995 - 245 pages Traje, the brightly colored traditional dress of the highland Maya, is the principal visual expression of indigenous identity in Guatemala today. Whether worn in beauty pageants, made for religious celebrations, or sold in tourist markets, traje is more than "mere cloth"—it plays an active role in the construction and expression of ethnicity, gender, education, politics, wealth, and nationality for Maya and non-Maya alike. Carol Hendrickson presents an ethnography of clothing focused on the traje—particularly women's traje—of Tecpán, Guatemala, a bi-ethnic community in the central highlands. She covers the period from 1980, when the recent round of violence began, to the early 1990s, when Maya revitalization efforts emerged. Using a symbolic analysis informed by political concerns, Hendrickson seeks to increase the value accorded to a subject like weaving, which is sometimes disparaged as "craft" or "women's work." She examines traje in three dimensions—as part of the enduring images of the "Indian," as an indicator of change in the human life cycle and cloth production, and as a medium for innovation and creative expression. From this study emerges a picture of highland life in which traje and the people who wear it are bound to tradition and place, yet are also actively changing and reflecting the wider world. The book will be important reading for all those interested in the contemporary Maya, the cultural analysis of material culture, and the role of women in culture preservation and change. |
Table des matières
Map of Tecpán and surrounding area | 9 |
excavated temple sites 1990 | 10 |
Map of the cabecera of Tecpán | 16 |
I2 A room in the home of cofradía members where | 17 |
I6 The author and her teacher weaving on backstrap | 27 |
Womens and mens traje | 34 |
Cotton corte cloth with tiedyed jaspe designs | 36 |
The Geography of Clothing | 44 |
Children with their grandparents | 105 |
Woman with her wedding huipil and corte | 122 |
Mother and daughter 1981 | 135 |
The Cultural Biography of Traje | 144 |
Preparing warp threads for a huipil | 153 |
Backstrap loom | 155 |
Tecpán huipil with historical ties | 166 |
Woman wearing a sobre huipil inside out | 179 |
2O Penecita cloth being taken off a foot loom | 45 |
Detail of a lienzo for an aj San Martín style | 53 |
Tecpán children 1990 | 59 |
Traje presentation sponsored by the Tecpán | 65 |
Mafalda cartoon strip | 68 |
Images of the Maya | 76 |
An advertisement illustrated with an Indian | 83 |
Soldiers stationed in Tecpán marching | 186 |
To Wear Traje Is to Say We Are Maya | 195 |
Glossary | 221 |
Tecpáns town center viewed from | 222 |
235 | |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
Weaving Identities: Construction of Dress and Self in a Highland Guatemala Town Carol Hendrickson Affichage d'extraits - 1995 |
Weaving Identities: Construction of Dress and Self in a Highland Guatemala Town Carol Hendrickson Aucun aperçu disponible - 2010 |