Peru, Part 12 – Chinchero

Getting near the end, I promise!

Fields on the way to Chinchero – ©Deidre AdamsOn the road to Chinchero – ©2012 Deidre Adams

Another day excursion from Ollantaytambo was to see the village of Chinchero, known for its traditional-style weavers and the extraordinarily fine work they do. It is home to The Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco (CTTC), founded by Nilda Callañaupa in 1996. Nilda grew up in Chinchero in the 1960s, at a time when “most weaving was of inferior quality with synthetic fibers and Dayglo colors” (Hand/Eye). She later made it her mission to learn the techniques of her ancestors and teach them to other women in the village to preserve the fine craft traditions of the past.

Chinchero weaving – ©Deidre Adams

Our guide at the CTTC was Carolina Concha, who combines work and parenting with admirable ease.

Carolina Concha and son –©Deidre Adams

There was another little girl here at the center that day, keeping herself busy with her own toys or intermittently interesting herself in the work of her elders.

(Side note: In fact, as I noticed throughout most of the places we went in Peru, this seemed to be the way children behaved. They stayed near the adults, playing or otherwise occupying themselves, and they didn’t have tantrums or beg for attention. The only time I saw children out of control was in a rather upscale restaurant in Lima, where an obviously wealthy family was having a large gathering complete with several children and no fewer than 3 nannies in uniform. Still, the children ran around making noise and disturbing the other diners, looking much more like the scenes I’m accustomed to here in the U.S.)

We saw demonstrations of spinning, weaving, and knitting. The CTTC weavers are also making a big push to study and return to the natural dyeing techniques of the past. The beautiful colors come from leaves, moss, lichens, roots, and other plant matter, and of course, cochinilla.

 

After leaving the center, we did a little more exploring of the town and, of course, the ruins.

February 4th, 2013|Travel|2 Comments

Peru, Part 7 – Alejandro Flores

Alejandro Flores – ©Deidre AdamsAlejandro Flores shows local plant he uses for natural dyeing

 

In 2005, Taquile was added to the UNESCO Proclamation of Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, a list that recognizes the function and values of living cultural expressions and practices, and seeks to raise awareness of the need to safeguard them. The criteria for inclusion on the list includes “proof of excellence in the application of the skill and technical qualities displayed” as well as demonstrated “outstanding value as masterpiece of the human creative genius.” Taquile was selected for its “cultural space … and its textile art, which is produced as an everyday activity by both men and women, regardless of their age, and worn by all community members” (Taquile and its Textile Art).

Alejandro Flores Huatta is one of the more well-known textile artists on Taquile. He was selected by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian to assist with curating the “All Roads Are Good: Native Voices on Life and Culture” exhibition in 1994. We didn’t know any of this before our visit, but during our boat trip over, Susan talked with another passenger who happened to have one of his weavings with him, which Susan admired, and thus began the quest to find him.

Although it seems that Alejandro gets the credit, the weaving business is a family endeavor. During our visit, Alejandro set up the loom, but then it was his wife who proceeded to sit down to do the actual weaving for the demonstration. Another family member finishes the fringe on the ends of the woven pieces and handles the money when a visitor makes a purchase.

The traditional process of weaving is low-tech and labor-intensive, involving solid color stripes with an intricately patterned center strip that makes the addition of each row of weft very time-consuming. It can take many days to complete one piece.

As is typical on this island where it’s the men who are known for knitting, Alejandro himself is a knitter. The Taquilean technique is different from the usual I’ve seen. The men feed the yarn from around their necks and instead of their fingers, they use their thumbs to wrap the yarn around the needle to create the stitch. They are amazingly fast in the execution of their complicated patterns. After putting on his glasses, Alejandro proceeded to demonstrate the technique for us.

Alejandro Flores knitting – ©Deidre Adams

 

Textile Arts of Taquile Island, Peru explains the traditions of the caps worn by the men:

During the latter part of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, unmarried men wore a finely-knit cap (ch’ullu soltero) with a colored base and white top, without earflaps. Married men, especially those who had completed community service, wore a red and navy blue striped knit cap (pintay ch’ullu), filled with design motifs along its length. Some men wore a ch’ullu oreja (also called ninri ch’ullu), an Aymara- or Lake Titicaca–style knit cap that has earflaps, which usually includes numerous multicolored rainbow-like rows.

The Flores family is unique on Taquile because their weavings are done with fibers colored only with natural dyes. Alejandro showed us the materials used to make the dyes, along with samples of the dyed wool. This one is cochinilla (cochineal), which comes from an insect that lives and feeds on the prickly pear cactus.

Alejandro demonstrates the color by crushing one of the dried insects

 

Starbucks Coffee recently stepped into a big controversy by using cochineal to color their strawberry Frappuchinos, but what people didn’t know is that it’s been used for centuries to add red coloring to textiles, cosmetics, and yes, even food. This great article from Business Insider has more on the process.

Unfortunately, our memories didn’t serve as I’d hoped, and I haven’t been able to discover the name of the small orange-flowered plant at the top of this post or the green-leaved one (below, in the image gallery). If anyone reading this happens to know, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment.

The naturally-dyed woven pieces made by the Flores family have a distinctive color palette. This is the one I decided I had to have:

 

(click for full image)

 

The family doesn’t sell their work in the local cooperative store in the plaza, and neither do they export it as far as we could tell. They don’t label the pieces, either, so it would seem they don’t make a huge effort to promote it anywhere. We thought that they must do a very nice business simply through word of mouth, but in researching for this post, I discovered that Alejandro Flores is just as well known for his hospedaje (lodging house) as for his textiles.

November 24th, 2012|Travel|2 Comments