wasa pano (Cloth)

Warp-faced fabrics with three or four selvedges are woven by women but the fabrics the techniques, structures and some of the motifs have pre-Conquest antecedents. This type of textile conveys the most information about an individual's ethnicity, sex, age, status and particular history. Rectangular cloths are pinned to the shoulders and are used by both sexes. Worn on the hip (men and women) for fiesta dances (for example, 24th of June and Pentecost).

Woven and used by Pelagia Zuipe Cruz. One corner of the cloth is folded down and the truncated diamond shape is pinned or sewn to the shoulders.

fiesta dancing

The range of motifs refers to local geography and landmarks, ecology, fecundity as well as luck. The six part circle refers to the division of land into six sections on Taquile and the rotation of crops and fallow periods. The striated crosses represent the furrows of a tilled field. The butterfly is associated with bad luck.

Weave structures are the following: 1-plain colour areas are warp faced plain weave. 2- figurative designs; complementary-warp weave with 3-span floats aligned in alternate pairs with an irregular (abbabaab) warping order (3/1 horizontal colour changes and diagonals of 2-span floats). 3- stripe with squares; float weave derived from turned 2/1 horizontal herringbone with floats forming squares.

Cloth, rectangular, woven from red wool with three wider and two narrower bands of green and red geometric, fish, butterfly, and bird figure motifs on off-white. The wider bands are flanked by thin bands of red, dark red, white, blue, and green. The thinner bands are flanked by thin bands of dark red. The edge is finished with a multicoloured fringe.