Weaving – Learning – Living: Textile Education in South America

10 The Common Thread 2 The Warp and Weft of Thinking Vanessa von Gliszczynski, Mona Suhrbier, Eva Ch. Raabe Textile thinking is human. Even if the knowledge of textile techniques is increas- fig. 1 Gustave Doré, 1867: Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the spindle. Illustration from the french collection of fairy tales Les Contes de Perrault. 11 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking ingly being eroded in our daily lives, it remains unconsciously present in each of us. The key role of textile production methods is reflected in our everyday language, in our idioms, narratives and myths. We spin stories, are woolgathering when we daydream, surf in the World Wide Web, take up the thread of a conversation or follow an online topic thread. With the help of Rumpelstiltskin, the miller’s daughter can spin straw into gold and so marries the king. In Sleeping Beauty, the princess pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into a deep sleep lasting one hundred years (fig. 1). The Nordic goddesses of destiny (Norns) spin each person’s thread of fate, so deciding over their life and death. The myths of many cultures outside Europe also contain similar images, attesting to the key role of textile techniques for humankind. For example, in the traditional belief system of the Kogi people in the Columbian Andes, the entire world is a vast loom.1 Beyond the realm of mythology, textile techniques stimulate the development of cognitive skills including, for example, spatial imagination. Before weaving can start, the patterns often need to be abstractly imagined and arranged on the fabric. Building on the Frankfurt Weltkulturen Museum’s collection, THE COMMON THREAD exhibition and this accompanying catalogue take an interdisciplinary perspective to cast light on these issues. In this process, the exhibition’s common threads are the powerful symbolism of textile techniques and their positive influence on the formation of cognitive skills as well as the topicality of these techniques in the digital age. The catalogue gives equal weight to the variety of perspectives on these issues presented in the authors’ contributions. 12 The Latin word textilis means ‘woven’. The plural form textilia was used to describe woven fabric, such as linen or cloth. The original meaning of ‘textile’ as exclusively woven products has been expanded in modern European languages. Today, it includes fabrics and clothing without differentiating between the materials or production techniques – and so weaving, knitting, crocheting, knotting or felting are all equally considered textile techniques. This expanded term has also become established in anthropology as well. Formerly textile techniques only covered those using thread. Though, today the ‘textile’ category also often includes barkcloth, since this is used as cloth in those many regions of the world where it is produced. With mesh fabrics manufactured by the looping of continuous threads, this technique is markedly different from the plaited or woven materials created by interlacing threads. Even if this catalogue primarily focuses on woven materials, it nonetheless takes into account that the weaving of cloth and plaiting of fabric, mats or baskets ultimately follows the same principle. Very few publications address the similarities between plaiting and weaving while the differences have been particularly and repeatedly stressed as one measure of technical evolution, especially in historicist ethnology in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.2 In her contribution, Eva Raabe takes the example of backstrap loom weaving in Micronesia to describe how, within the approach of the Kulturkreislehre (cultural circle theory), the dissemination of a particular technique became a key element in the historical reconstruction of settlement patterns. At the same time, she elucidates how the attempt to describe the requisite techniques in all their complexity calls into question any evolutionary theory of ‘lower’ or ‘higher’ levels of technical skill. Rangi Te Kanawa’s contribution on Māori plaiting techniques underlines just how complex this work can be without some form of loom. She shows that, in effect, hand-woven material can hardly be distinguished from loom-woven equivalents. Ultimately, rather than the quality of a textile being the result of techniques such as meshing, plaiting or weaving and the scholarly categories ascribed to them, it is dependent on the cognitive and manual skills of the producer. Simply the transformation of the most diverse fibres into threads is itself fascinating, whether spun with a spindle spindle, twisted on the thigh or twined to create a cord. These techniques, in particular, are rarely given the attention they deserve. Jens Soentgen explores in his essay the vast diversity of materials used to produce threads and fabrics in Europe, past and present, and in the process touches on various forms of social relations. One other key thread in any modern exhibition on textiles today must also be the current debate on fair working conditions and sustainable production and resources. In the exhibition planning phase, textile industry outsourcing and textile worker exploitation in low-wage countries to facilitate cheap prices for consumers were constant topics. ‘Exporting’ the textile industry has also shifted the associated ecological and social problems, for example, toxic waste water (fig. 2) or child labour, to the emerging industrialised countries. During fig. 2 A river on the Philippines in the ‘colour of the season’. Photo: Gigie Cruz-Sy, Greenpeace, 2012 13 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking Europe’s industrial revolution, which was decisively driven by textile industry mechanisation, European countries experienced very similar problems in an acute form. Precarious working conditions and environmental pollution are still on-going issues today, but have just been moved to low-wage countries such as China or Bangladesh – as is only too evident in the tragic example of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in April 2013. In his essay, Tim Zahn addresses these issues, describing the textile industry’s global network as well as social and ecological aspects of textile production today. In addition, the scholarly concerns and questions addressed by THE COMMON THREAD highlight the correlation between the expansion of industrial textile production and a decline in the diversity of textile world cultural heritage and the related skills. This, however, does not mean that producing for European or North American textile multinationals automatically leads to the displacement of a country’s own textile cultures. Instead, local textile arts are being located in new contexts as is apparent, for instance, when Indonesian designers present their new range of batik and ikat creations at the annual Jakarta Fashion Week (fig. 3). Moreover, galleries and fair trade organisations, such as Threads of Life, are active all over the world, working closely with local women weavers and selling their textiles. In his contribution, William Ingram, the founder of Threads of Life, presents the project’s origins and general approach, which includes documenting traditional textile techniques and symbols as well as their cultural contexts. 14 fig. 3 The latest ikat and batik creations by young fashion designer Sity at the Jakarta Fashion Week. Photo: Sity, Jakarta Fashion Week, 2016 fig. 4 Juan de Ruelas (1588–1625): The childlike Virgin Mary with a distaff. Olivares near Seville, undated. 62 x 84 cm. Gift of Gustav and Heinrich Passavant, 1908. Gallery Acunto, Paris. Collection: Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, ARTOTHEK 15 In many places around the globe, textiles and the tools for their production are associated with a powerful symbolism. For example, Maya communities in Mexico and Guatemala trace weaving back to a female deity and regard weaving itself as magic.3 In Europe too, spindles or distaffs came to occupy a broad spectrum of meaning between the two extremes of epitomising female modesty and virtue or being associated with immorality, sexual permissiveness and black magic. In art, the distaff was an attribute both of the Virgin Mary, who spins the thread of life (fig. 4), as well as the lecherous witch.4 Colours and patterns are bearers of widely diverse meanings and can express, for example, social status, clan membership or age groups. In her contribution, Vanessa von Gliszczynski focuses on the example of the cultural significance and the meanings of red dye in the Indonesian Archipelago and, in particular, on the status of the colour red in the context of the pigment’s production. Whether it makes sense to cling too tightly to the ideal of natural pigments is the subject addressed by Willemijn de Jong in her article. On the basis of a case study from Flores, she presents the shift in aesthetic notions in patterns and colouring. Dagmar Schweitzer de Palacios, in contrast, shows how closely the art of textile patterns among the Andes peoples is linked to cosmic and cosmological concepts. 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking The powerful symbolism of textiles 16 For a long time, textile craftwork in Europe was associated with ideas of women’s work and discipline. The critical view of the mechanisms of industrial production in the DIY movement emerging over the last years has also given a new boost to crocheting, knitting and sewing in the so-called western world, making them fashionable again. Urban knitting and sewing cafés are also expressions of a growing awareness of ecological and fair trade issues among the urban middle and upper classes. In this context, the latest craze is for the pre-prepared knitting and crocheting starter packs which allow you to simply start straight away (fig. 5). In rural areas outside Europe, in contrast, the symbolism of textile skills and tools is often linked to the fundamental questions in life. On the Indonesian islands of Lombok and Sumbawa in the early twentieth century, for instance, Johannes Elbert collected loom shuttles engraved with love poems. Such engraved shuttles illustrate an intimate connection between weaving and founding a family. Among the Iban Dayak people in Borneo, a woman should ideally have already woven at least one ritual Pua kumbu cloth before her wedding. In many regions of Central and South America, a woman is only considered marriageable when she had been trained in weaving and designing patterns.5 Since textile skills are associated with social maturity, they are also indirectly connected to the woman’s responsibility to provide the family with clothes. Moreover, weaving and the art of pattern making go far beyond practical skills. By enabling the world and its beings, landscapes, animals, plants, spirits and gods to be transferred into own patterns, they can also be related in new ways. Archaeological finds show that textiles from fibrous materials may have already been produced around 30,000 years ago. For a long time, then, textiles have been used to meet basic human needs. Textile terms and topics are interwoven in our thoughts and influence our use of language, as is evident in the idioms, proverbs, folk tales and myths found in many cultures.6 For example, according to a legend, the island of Timor was created as an ancestor was weaving the sea. Her children kept disturbing her, making her so mad that at some point she grabbed the loom shuttle to give one of the children a whack, but she missed. Instead, she tore the blue fabric – and that tear is the island of Timor. 7 fig. 5 myboshi: Thomas Jaenisch and Felix Rohland are the bestknown faces in the recent craze for crocheting in Germany. Photo: myboshi, 2014 17 Beyond the level of language use, textile skills also promote cognitive skills. In the 1960s, paleoanthropologist André Leroi-Gourhan was already advocating a theory of the hand’s central role in shaping human cognitive skills.8 According to the neuroscientist Manfred Spitzer, the hand-and-eye coordination essential for playing music, in craft skills and weaving leads to the hand being conceptualised in the brain. Only the regular use of the hand in manual skills produces the “use-dependent traces” in the brain which enable new connections to be formed between nerve cells.9 Sociologist Richard Sennett describes each manual activity as a remarkable interplay of head and hand, noting: “All craftsmanship is founded on skill developed to a high degree.” 10 In his book The Craftsman, Sennett explains the intermeshing of head and hand in these activities, calling for a greater appreciation of the work of artisans. Spitzer’s and Sennett’s general comments on craftwork apply in particular to textile skills. Spitzer himself defines working with textiles as a cognitively stimulating activity – especially for children.11 In her contribution, Pirita Seitamaa-Hakkarainen explores the question of whether and how neuroscientific ideas can be applied to investigate the cognitive processes of people working on craft textiles. 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking Textile skills, cognitive skills 18 As can be illustrated particularly well by the ikat technique which is widespread in Indonesia, spatial and mathematical thinking are fostered by textile techniques such as crocheting, plaiting, weaving and, in particular, creating patterns. When patterns are ‘ikatted’, the warp or weft threads – in rare cases, both warp and weft – are tied off with knots and dyed to create the pattern before being woven. First of all, then, weavers need a thorough knowledge of the production of pigments and dyes. The patterns, some of which are very complex, have to be tied off on the threads – usually working from memory. For this, depending on the patterns, the weavers count off or estimate a certain number of threads. A weaver already has to visualise her mind in detail how the pattern will look on the finished woven textile. In some regions, new motifs are abstracted from photographic images and transformed into ikat patterns.12 To save time, the women weavers often tie off the same motifs together, then re-arrange them by colour in the correct places. Frequently, ikat strands are dyed for different cloths at the same time. If there are several dyeing baths, the tied-off threads are often marked by specific knots to show when they should be released. The threads are usually tied off on an ikat frame (panel 20). However, to dye the threads, they need to be tied in bundles. The ikat strands then have to be re-arranged again in the correct sequence on the loom. Successfully re-arranging the pattern on material not yet woven requires a highly developed spatial imagination. Since ikat, weaving and other textile techniques require at least a concept of sets as well as a notion of numbers and geometry, mathematician Ellen Harlizius-Klück regards weaving as the origin of deductive maths and distinguishing between odd and even numbers.13 As yet, virtually no anthropological or neuroscientific studies have been conducted anywhere in the world on the connection between textile techniques and cognitive or mathematical skills. Studies in the Andes in South America have shown that a large proportion of the maths teachers and professors in Peru come from weavers’ families.14 In Maya communities in Mexico as well, learning to weave is based on a theory of knowledge and taught with targeted learning strategies. Weaving knowledge plays a part in the formation of identity. Moreover, it embraces thinking, calculating and remembering, and aside from practical knowledge, also includes knowledge of the heart and soul.15 In her essay, Mona Suhrbier offers a deeper insight into these connections between textile techniques and indigenous learning systems in South America. Textiles today 19 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking Without weaving techniques, the development of the first computer would have been inconceivable. The Analytical Engine, a calculator designed by Charles Babbage in the 1830s, is regarded as a milestone in the history of computing. For his Analytical Engine, Babbage adopted the same punched card system used to control the Jacquard loom, developed in 1805. The Jacquard punched cards with their commands ‘hole = lift warp thread’ and ‘no hole = release warp thread’ proved a main impetus in the computing binary system of ones and zeros.16 The artistic contributions to THE COMMON THREAD investigate the textile connections to our digital world in greater depth. In their installations and catalogue contributions, Tübingen artists Maren Gebhardt and Ruth Stützle Kaiser critically explore the development ‘from weaving to web’. The two North American artists Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band Cherokee) and Sarah Sense (Choctaw/ Chitimacha) weave together photographs, texts and patterns to create entirely new objects. Here, traditional plaiting is transformed into a modern artistic language – and in his essay, curator Max Carocci examines the multifaceted language of these works. In a similar spirit, Tobias Hagedorn and Raphaël Languillat, two students of composition, transpose textile structures from the Weltkulturen Museum’s collection into modern music. In the context of these compositions, Gerhard Müller-Hornbach’s essay discusses the commonalities between textile and musical thinking. In THE COMMON THREAD exhibition, rather than presenting a comprehensive narrative of the global history of textile techniques, we seek to offer an impetus to reflect on and think about global conditions. By associatively selecting exhibits and developing the experimental presentation structure in an on-going process, we have been able to do justice to the way textiles and the tools of fabric production in ethnographic collections are the bearers of diverse information with great relevance for the political, economic and social issues in our days. Not least, though, the beauty of the textiles created on simple domestic looms speaks for itself. 20 1 see Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978 2 For Indonesia see Solyom 1984. In this work, thread systems, basket weaving and barkcloth are all dealt with in one publication. 3 Holsbeke 2003: 34 4 see Rossner 2012 and Venjakob 2012 5 On the Iban Dayak see Gavin 1996: 27; on Central and South America see chapter 7., Textile Thinking Textile Learning in this volume 6 see Kraft 2001: 64 7 following Hamilton 2014: 19 8 Leroi-Gourhan 2006 9 Spitzer 2005 10 Sennett 2010: 20 11 Spitzer 2005 12 see Jong 2011 13 Harlizius-Klück 2004: 93ff. 14 Bolin 2006: 91 15 Greenfield 2004: 52–53 16 Kraft 2001: 92ff. References: __Barber, Elizabeth Jane Wayland. 1994: Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years Women, Cloth, and 21 Society in Early Times. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. __Bolin, Inge. 2006: Growing Up in a Culture of Respect. Child Rearing in Highland Peru. Austin: University of Texas Press. __Gavin, Traude. 1996: The Women’s Warpath. Iban Ritual Fabrics from Borneo. Los Angeles: University of California/UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. __Greenfield, Patricia Marks. 2004: Weaving Generations Together: Evolving Creativity Among the Mayas of Chiapas. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School of American Research Press. __Hamilton, Roy W. and Joanna Barrkman (eds.). 2014: Textiles of Timor. Island in the Woven Sea. Fowler Museum Textile Series 13. Los Angeles: __Reichel-Dolmatoff, Gerardo. 1978: The Look of teme und die Genese der deduktiven Mathematik Life. A Kogi Priniciple of Integration. Journal of Latin in vier Umschweifen entwickelt aus Platos Dialog American Lore Vol. 4 (1). 5–27. Politikos. Berlin: Edition Ebersbach. __Rossner, Christiane. 2012: In Schwäbisch Hall __Holsbeke, Mireille and Julia Montoya sitzt Maria an einem Spinnrocken. Der Faden des (eds.). 2003: “With Their Hands and Their Eyes.” Lebens. In: Monumente. Magazin für Denkmalkultur Maya Textiles, Mirrors of a Worldview. Antwerp: in Deutschland. December 2012. http://www.monu- Etnografisch Museum Antwerpen. mente-online.de/de/ausgaben/2012/6/der-faden-des- __Jong, Willemijn de. 2011: Kleidung als Kunst. lebens.php#.VxDrb6PwDct (20.4.2016) Porträt einer Ikatdesignerin in Ostindonesien. __Sennett, Richard. 2010: Handwerk, 2nd edition. In: FKW//Zeitschrift für Geschlechterforschung und Berlin: Berliner Taschenbuch Verlag. visuelle Kultur Vol. 52, Special Issue: Stoffe weben __Solyom, Bronwen and Garret. 1984: Fabric Tradi- Geschichte(n). Textile Kunstmaterialien im transkul- tions of Indonesia. Washington: Washington State turellen Vergleich. 55–71. University Press and The Museum of Art, Washing- __Kraft, Kerstin. 2001: Muster ohne Wert. Zur Funk- ton State University, Pullman. tionalisierung und Marginalisierung des Musters. __Spitzer, Manfred. 2005: Hand und Gehirn. Dissertation. Technische Universität Dortmund: Werken von Kindern aus neurowissenschaftlicher https://eldorado.tu-dortmund.de/handle/2003/2972 Sicht. In: Unsere Kinder, No. 3. 11–13. (14.4.2016) __Venjakob, Judith. 2012: Albrecht Dürer, „Die __Leroi-Gourhan, André. 2006: Hand und Wort. Die Hexe“, um 1500. @KIH-eSkript. Interdisziplinäre Evolution von Technik, Sprache und Kunst. Frankfurt Hexenforschung online 4, Hexerei in den Medien. am Main: Suhrkamp. https://www.historicum.net/purl/2y7zmf/ (21.4.2016) 2 The Common Thread. The Warp and Weft of Thinking Fowler Museum at UCLA. __Harlizius-Klück, Ellen. 2004: Weberei als epis- 110 Weaving Learning Living fig. 1 Lady wearing a fashionable dress in the style of a women’s huipil garment at the airport in Mexico City. Photo: Mona Suhrbier, 2014 7.1 Textile Education in South America Mona Suhrbier Neither Weaving Learning Living 111 7.1 cheap Asian textiles nor donations of clothing from Europe have hitherto been able to eradicate textile crafts in Latin America. Quite the opposite is true: in Mexico, Guatemala and the Andean states of Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and Columbia, textile techniques are still widespread, from extracting the raw materials and processing them, then producing thread, and spinning, dyeing and weaving it, to the resulting diversity of pattern art. The weavers make textiles both for their own use and for sale at market, to tourists and museums. Local dress traditions are still adhered to, and even in Latin American cities men and women occasionally wear clothes derived from their place of origin (fig. 1). So how is it that traditional textile techniques and local styles of clothing remain popular in the former Spanish colonial settlements of Latin America? What Western observers might initially perceive as clinging to tradition and folkloristic in the broader sense is actually politically relevant. Under closer examination, the continuity of textile arts turns out to be one of the elements in retaining indigenous perspectives within a fabric of society which has been determined by colonialism. Forms of expression which proved successful in the colonial era as a way of disassociating from Spanish influences have been retained and are still practised in opposition to the ubiquitous Western imagery and mentality. Textile production forms a significant part of this assertion of non-European culture. Since pre-Hispanic times it has been embedded within larger sets of ideas concerning socialisation and child development, handed down and adapted as necessary from one generation to the next as part of a comprehensive educational framework.1 Despite all the local variations, some key common features can be summarised for this brief overview, particularly concerning the ways in which textile crafts are passed on from one generation to the next. I will demonstrate that textile work teaches wide-ranging practical knowledge and capabilities, skills that go beyond pure artisanship. With a few exceptions, weaving in Latin America is women’s work nowadays. As far back as the colonial era, Spanish chroniclers were already praising indigenous weaving arts in the country’s colonies as well as the spinning, weaving and embroidery skills of Mexican and Peruvian women.2 In the Andes only selected high-ranking women were permitted to produce textiles for rituals and sacrifices connected with the nobility. The wealth of pre-Hispanic textile art in Latin America can only be guessed at or approached from early works of art, for the actual textiles have only survived in a few locations. Grave finds from the South Coast of Peru testify to the diversity of base fibres, dyes and patterns available in pre-Hispanic times: there are weaving devices, richly patterned and decorated textiles (plate 27 and 29), clothing and fabrics made of gauze and brocade, as well as tapestries made of agave fibres, human hair, cotton and llama wool. It has since been possible to distinguish 190 different colour shades.3 A comparison between the few surviving pre-Columbian textiles in the Frankfurt collection and twentieth- 112 century textiles reveals a continuity in the pattern art and in the symbolic content of the motifs (plate 27).4 Thanks to the wave of globalisation, discovery, colonisation and missionary work initiated by the Spanish, it was not long before the indigenous population of Latin America came into contact with objects, clothes and textiles brought from Europe. Western ideas of grandeur and ornamentation soon had a noticeable impact on indigenous women’s clothing, which observed European notions of shame about the female body. Bare legs and breasts were not regarded as presentable. A regulation passed by the viceroy Francisco Toledo as early as the 1570s stipulated that henceforth women had to cover their legs with a lace underskirt worn under their wrap dresses. Outer clothing which had previously been worn loose was now tightly stitched together, safely concealing the breasts.5 Even under the conditions peculiar to colonial domination, and at a point when the Spanish were attempting to fully extinguish indigenous views and beliefs, the continuity of weaving and pattern art in Latin America formed part of the stubborn resistance displayed by the indigenous populations. In the Andean highlands, for example, textile patterns not only represented hierarchies but also communicated information accessible only to those who were familiar with the encoded symbolic patterns. Moreover, they were an inconspicuous means of establishing a link to the gods and ancestors.6 Complex knowledge about sociocultural and cosmological relationships was passed down the generations thanks to weaving and pattern art. Concealed behind this seemingly mundane women’s work, indigenous symbolism and ideology lived on unnoticed by the Spanish. In the pre-Hispanic Maya communities of Guatemala and Mexico, weaving, like rituals, played a role in the periodic renewal of the indigenous cosmos.7 In Guatemalan Maya communities weaving itself is still regarded as a kind of birthing process, and a finished textile is thought to have been ‘born’.8 Weaving is attributed to fertility goddesses such as Ixchel, the Mayan moon goddess, the first weaver and the goddess of birth and healing. The simple backstrap loom (fig. 2), which is still used today for weaving even the most complicated patterns, was viewed as being alive in pre-Hispanic times, and the Maya called its component parts the ‘head’, ‘heart’ and ‘bottom’.9 Weaving device with back- strap. Zapotek, Mitla, Mexico, twentieth century. Wood, cotton, leather. 85 x 201 cm. Collected by Karin Hahn-Hissink and Albert Hahn, 1962–1963. Collection: Weltkulturen Museum. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel, 2016 7.1 fig. 2 Weaving Learning Living 113 114 Becoming skilled in complex techniques was part of a girl’s education, even in pre-Hispanic Latin America. Immediately after a girl was born, the Aztecs would bury the cord and afterbirth near the house in order to spark the girl’s enthusiasm for her future household duties such as cooking, spinning and weaving. Small girls were given miniature versions of items they would later use as women: spindles, wharves, weaving sticks, wharve plates, a little basket containing raw cotton, and a mat similar to the one they would sit on while working.10 Even very young girls would be involved in age-appropriate activities connected with spinning and weaving. As they got older and embarked upon each new stage of life, they would start learning significantly more advanced techniques. Texts and images in chronicles, which were generally formally addressed to the Spanish king, depicted life in the colonies, including descriptions of the tools and techniques for spinning and weaving. Examples of these were El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno (1600–1615) about the Andes, by chronicler Felipe Huamán Poma de Ayala, who introduced himself as a descendent of Inca nobility, or Codex Florentinus (1540–1585) by Bernadino de Sahagún about the Aztecs. A sequence of Aztec pictograms in Codex Mendoza (1542) records the progress of a girl’s education over a number of years, as she learns to handle materials and looms, to spin and to weave. The lessons would begin at the age of three when she was taught to spin. Many years later at around fourteen years old, the practice phase came to an end when she could weave her own patterns on the loom.11 Instruction in weaving was given by an older woman, who presumably also taught other kinds of knowledge required by an adult woman. Even back in the Aztec era, acquiring weaving skills probably marked the conclusion of a girl’s education and signalled her impending marriage. In eighteenth-century Peru, a popular motif in paintings of the Cusco School (the first indigenous artists’ organisation in the New World) 12 was the “ideal of the Inca woman in the colonial era”.13 Wearing magnificent, sumptuous clothing and opulently bejewelled, these Ñustas or ‘Inca princesses’ were girls from aristocratic indigenous families who were often married to high-ranking Spaniards as befitted their position.14 Several portraits show these young women with a spindle in their hand, for instance the picture of a young Inca noblewoman.15 This emphasises the importance and distinctive situation of indigenous women in ‘colonial style’ cooperation, for women were well versed in core cultural skills and possessed the associated expertise. The mostly anonymous painters of the Cusco School borrowed depictions of the Virgin Mary from earlier Spanish traditions in Seville, blending these with the topos of the young indigenous woman spinning. Paintings such as Mary as an Inca Princess, The Child Mary with Distaff,16 La Virgen Hilandera17 or Virgin Mary Spinning18 transferred elements from the representations of Inca princesses and re-defined the role of the Virgin Mary in Latin America. The similarities between the colonised and colonial masters are condensed in the topos of the young weaver.19 Carmen Terrazas and Maria Chamaro tension the warp threads on a wooden weaving fork in preparation for weaving a carrying bag, while a little girl sorts threads. Tacana, Tumupasa, Bolivia. Collection: FrobeniusInstitut. Photo: Albert Hahn, 1953 Weaving Learning Living fig. 3 115 7.1 As globalisation has taken hold and as Western dress styles have entered the scene, the art of weaving has been subject to repeated change in Latin America. Other contributory factors have been ecclesiastical art, for example, with its need for processional trappings, and tourists who hanker after novel souvenirs. New materials, synthetic yarns and industrial dyes, access to imported textiles and new kinds of patterns have all given women greater scope and more opportunities for experimentation, leading them to change or even abandon traditional procedures and styles. Nevertheless, weaving has never been given up. While production facilities with modern looms do exist, in rural regions spinning and weaving is still done on simple devices in women’s homes. The colourful, richly patterned textiles produced in this manner might seem trivially folksy to Westerners, but they have retained their highly symbolic power (plate 11 and 12). Handing down knowledge of textile techniques as part of the child-rearing process is based on an inclusive notion of learning which is now once more being endorsed by educationalists.20 Educating young female weavers also introduces them to symbolic configurations in society and allows them to develop aesthetic experiences which incorporate emotions and possess ‘utopian potential’,21 for these are the prerequisite for each and every kind of encounter with their physical, social and cultural environment. The ultimate goal is social maturity.22 Detailed studies on child-rearing and everyday life in indigenously influenced parts of Latin America have only been relatively recently conducted, focusing on knowledge systems, communication strategies and artisanal skills as aspects of an all-embracing education. One aspect of this is learning how to adopt the calm yet alert ‘body style’ which is required for weaving with a backstrap loom (fig. 3). 116 fig. 4 Hand weaving device for a child with the initial stages of a wool belt. Andean highlands, twentieth century. 6 x 105 cm. Probably collected by Karin Hahn-Hissink, undated. Collection: Weltkulturen Museum. Photo: Wolfgang Günzel, 2016 Weaving Learning Living 117 7.1 In Weaving Generations Together23 Patricia Marks Greenfield describes in detail how the Tzotzil Maya in Zinacantán, Mexico, prepare girls from birth onwards mentally and physically for weaving on a backstrap loom by teaching them in successive steps. Being able to sit and kneel for extended periods as well as holding the upper body and arms still are drilled regularly as core prerequisites for weaving. Even babies are encouraged in various ways to keep their arms near their torsos and not move their upper bodies, a posture which young girls continue practising even with dance.24 Later on they do exercises in prolonged kneeling, keeping their balance, and retaining their concentration through the ‘learning by observing’ technique.25 Early training in this body style means that babies in Zinacantán villages already exhibit a lower level of motoric activity and greater visual attentiveness than American children of the same age.26 When girls in Zinacatán are as young as three years old, they receive appropriately sized toy looms, which are held together with additional cords at the sides. These first ‘weaving games’ are followed by bundles of thread and finally simple, narrow multi-coloured bands (fig. 4). Children aged between seven and ten already assist even younger children with their play looms, for instance in setting up a heddle for the warp threads through which the weaving sword is shot. In the children’s group the younger girls not only learn weaving techniques from the older ones, but also how to teach the younger children weaving themselves. As the girl grows, wider looms are used for broader woven articles such as small bags or ponchos, which even seven-year-olds can decorate with embroidery.27 The girls learn to coordinate their postures and hand movements, practising leaning forwards and backwards, as well as sequences of deliberate movements with various tools.28 Once they reach the age of ten, children can weave on the adult loom, which is held together solely with warp threads. Greenfield has shown that these learning strategies – using looms specifically adapted to a child’s physical size and manual and cognitive skills, as well as learning about weaving in carefully chosen age-specific steps – follow an implicit theory of cognitive development.29 Learning to weave on a real loom is based on a theory of knowledge common to all Maya communities, whereby knowledge in the sense of forming identity comprises both ‘heart knowledge’ and ‘practised knowledge’. It includes thinking, calculating and remembering. Knowing how to weave means weaving as part of one’s identity. 118 In the Bolivian highlands, too, ‘knowledge’ (yacha-) and learning are part of experience and experiencing. Yacha- can mean ‘take on a form’, ‘become something’ (in this case the transformation of the individual) or ‘affect someone or something’.30 Appropriating knowledge about life as practiced knowledge is intrinsic to every kind of artisanship, poetry, composition, dancing and playing music. We learn interactively through a process of mutual ‘nurturing’ in which both parties are transformed – the nurturer (teacher) and the nurtured (student) – in harmony with the individual biological and cultural life cycle.31 In Growing Up in a Culture of Respect Inge Bolin shows for the Quechuaspeaking Chillihuani community in the Andean highlands, how the practical and yet contextual education integrates even small children into the adults’ artistic creativity as a matter of course.32 The children first learn stories and songs and play music on instruments, exploiting the deep connection between textile art and music. Just as with weaving, practising music reveals knowledge in an interactive process. While playing together groups of musicians and dancers develop their new melodies annually and with the seasonal cycles, thus activating knowledge which comes from superhuman spheres and which enables processes of transformation: The musicians transform not only each other but also the landscape with its vegetation periods and associated spiritual beings. At the age of three years the children begin to sing, play flute, learn to dance and make up their own songs.33 Once they reach about six years of age, by which time they are familiar with adult dances and pieces of music, they learn to spin wool and commence a similar process in the textile arts.34 Practising weaving is also a gradual process of ‘growing into’ all the relevant skills and subject matter. Learning is largely based on observation and imitation, whereby a child is given access to ever larger and more complex looms, taking into account her physical growth and manual and intellectual capacities (plate 16). At the age of eight or nine, girls can use the most simple loom. For narrow, patterned bands they still count the threads for the pattern. Aged twelve or thirteen they produce wider belts and now no longer need to count the threads. The new challenge is to recognise at a glance how many threads are necessary for a particular pattern and implement this immediately. Before a new piece of weaving is begun an idea of the pattern is visualised by the weaver, ‘projected’ onto the warp threads and then implemented by hand. In this manner the sense of visual rhythms, symmetry and harmony is practised. For multi-coloured squares, rectangles, zig-zag lines and other shapes several colour sets are combined on threads. The girls then apply large overlapping patterns and begin to modify these according to their own ideas.35 Thus, observing becomes seeing, and seeing becomes doing, with the implicit goal to perfect hand–eye coordination. Weaving Learning Living 119 7.1 Weaving and creating patterns also promote mathematical and geometrical thinking, among other things. Young weavers are concerned with counting systems, amounts, geometry, symmetry and asymmetry, as well as spatial relationships in nature and its complex semantic contexts. It is well known that the most talented mathematicians in Andean countries – including teachers, university professors, engineers and programmers – come from remote highland villages with vibrant weaving traditions.36 In Penny Dransart’s ‘ethnography of colour’ she recounts how the Isluga in the northern Chilean highlands add ‘new colour’ to their knowledge of the world as it is passed down from generation to generation, thanks to their parallel experience of the environment as shepherds and weavers.37 In their attempts to design their own forms and patterns while weaving, girls learn very early on to perceive and interpret concrete places, phenomena, and beings from a weaver’s perspective. In order to train themselves in this skill and link it to existing knowledge, artisanal skills are always taught in conjunction with lessons on music, dance, poetry, etc. Even young weavers can transform oral and performative traditions into textile patterns by visually re-interpreting what they have seen, heard, sung and danced. Weavers in Chillihuani assign detailed meanings to their wide range of patterns comprising geometric motifs and figurative representations, for instance sacred places such as springs, mountain lakes, animals, plants, etc., which are claimed as Inca motifs.38 The relationships of mythical beings to mountains, lakes, springs, caves, rainbows, plants and animals, which are interpreted in myths and ritually performed at festive occasions, lead their own objective existence beyond language in the way their colours and scenes are arranged as woven patterns, an existence which in turn shapes new ideas about the external world. Pattern art becomes a means of creating the world and generating meaning. When children and young people perform manual work it conveys a sense of order and meaning to the world, and they play an active role in the symbolic production of meaning. They thus grow into a ‘meaningful’ reality, one that they have created with their own hands, which constantly refers back to the reality they have experienced. Artisanship enables people to interact with each other and with their environment. 120 The examples above from Mexico, Guatemala and the Andes show that educating children and young people in textile crafts should be understood in the sense of a living culture of remembrance. The teaching embraces myths, ritual practices and extensive practical knowledge. Since the colonial era the perspectives of the younger generation have consistently been incorporated. The energy devoted to textile art is less about added value and more about maintaining relationships – to humans and to supernatural beings. Textile art thus permits indigenous world views in Latin America to assert themselves in the face of the dominant Western-influenced perception and imagery. 1 Greenfield 2004: 29 2 Damian 1995: 79 3 Disselhoff 1953: 290–291, 292–293 4 Here and in the following see also chapter 6.1, 5 Goede 2011 6 Heckman 2003: 27–28 7 Holsbeke 2003: 33 8 Carlsen 2003: 145 21 9 Holsbeke 2003: 34 22 Crickmay 2002 10 Seler-Sachs 1984: 18, 26, 35 23 Greenfield 2004 11 Seler-Sachs 1984: 40 24 Greenfield 2004: 30 12 Damian 1995: 73 25 Greenfield 2004: 31–36 13 Goede 2011 26 Greenfield 2004: 30 14 Goede 2011 27 15 http://www.smith.edu/vistas/vistas_web/gallery/ 28 Greenfield 2004: 55 Interwoven Relationships in this volume. Meinberg 1988: 129 Greenfield 2004: 37–45 detail/nusta_det.htm (19.05.2016) 29 Greenfield 2004: 45–52 16 Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf 1977: 49 30 Stobart 2002: 81 17 http://www.iila.org/images/pubblicazioni/ 31 pubblicazioni_cooperazione/Cooperazione_41. 32 Bolin 2006 pdf (19.05.2016) 33 Bolin 2006: 46 https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/ 34 Bolin 2006: 99 asset-viewer/virgin-mary-spinning/ 35 Bolin 2006: 103–104 7AHXxLyJo8TsCg (19.05.2016); also Damian 36 Bolin 2006: 91 1995: 79–80; fig. 44 37 Dransart 2002: 56–78 Goede 2011 38 Bolin 2006: 174; note 24; see also chapter 6.1, 20 Meinberg 1988 Interwoven Relationships in this volume. 18 19 Crickmay 2002: 43, 49 __Holsbeke, Mireille. 2003: Textile as Text: Maya Traditional Dress and the Message It Conveys. In: Holsbeke, Mireille and Julia Montoya (eds.). 16–45. __Holsbeke, Mireille and Julia Montoya (eds.). 2003: ‘With Their Hands and Their Eyes.’ Maya Tex- 121 tiles, Mirrors of a Worldview. Antwerp: Etnografisch References: Museum Antwerpen. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. University of Texas Press. __Meyer, Roger. 1997: Alt-Peru: Spinnen – Weben __Carlsen, Robert S. 2003: Subversive Threads: – Opfern. Völkerkunde-Abteilung des Lippischen An Interpretation of Maya Weaving and Textiles. Landesmuseums Detmold (ed.). Detmold: Lippisches In: Holsbeke, Mireille and Julia Montoya (eds.). Landesmuseum. 138–155. __Poma de Ayala, Guamán Felipe. 1600–1615: __Codex Mendoza. 1542. Oxford: Bodleian Library. El primer nueva corónica y buen gobierno. Copen- http://publicdomainreview.org/collections/codex- hagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek. mendoza-1542/ (19.05.2016) http://www.kb.dk/permalink/2006/poma/1186/es/ __Crickmay, Lindsey. 2002: Transmission of text/?open=id3091277 (19.05.2016) Knowledge through Textiles: Weaving and Learning __Sahagún, Bernardino de. 1540–1585: Historia How to Live. In: Stobart, Henry and Rosaleen General de las Cosas de la Nueva España, Codex Howard-Malverde (eds.). 40–55. Florentinus. Florence: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana. __Damian, Carol. 1995: The Virgin of the Andes: 218–220. https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10621/ Art and Ritual in Colonial Cuzco. Miami Beach: view/1/51/ (19.05.2016) Grassfield Press. __Sander, Jochen and Bodo Brinkmann. 1997: __Disselhoff, Hans Dietrich. 1953: Geschichte der Gemälde der Romanischen Schulen vor 1800 im Altamerikanischen Kulturen. Munich: R. Oldenbourg. Städel. Frankfurt am Main: Blick in die Welt Film- __Dransart, Penny. 2002: Coloured Knowledges: und Dokumentations-GmbH. 56. Coloured Perception and the Dissemination of Knowl- __Seler-Sachs, Caecilie. 1984 (1919): Frauenleben im edge in Isluga, Northern Chile. In: Stobart, Henry Reiche der Azteken. Berlin: Reimer. and Rosaleen Howard-Malverde (eds.). 56–78. __Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. 1977: Barocke __Goede, Peggy. 2011: Ñustas. http://www.lai.fu- Malerei aus den Anden: Gemälde des 17. und 18. Jahr- berlin.de/e-learning/projekte/caminos/kulturkon- hunderts aus Bolivien, Ecuador, Kolumbien und Peru. takt_kolonialzeit/kolonialgesellschaft/indigene/ Düsseldorf: Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. nustas/index.html (22.01.2016) __Stobart, Henry. 2002: Interlocking Realms: Know- __Greenfield, Patricia Marks. 2004: Weaving ing Music and Musical Knowing in the Bolivian Andes. Generations Together: Evolving Creativity in In: Stobart, Henry and Rosaleen Howard-Malverde the Maya of Chiapas. Santa Fe, New Mexico: School (eds.). 79–106. of American Research Press. __Stobart, Henry and Rosaleen Howard-Malverde __Heckman, Andrea M. 2003: Woven Stories: (eds.) 2002: Knowledge and Learning in the Andes: Andean Textiles and Rituals. Albuquerque: Univ. of Ethnographic Perspectives. Liverpool Latin American New Mexico Press. studies, 3. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. 7.1 modernen Erziehungswissenschaft. Darmstadt: spect: Child Rearing in Highland Peru. Austin, Texas: Weaving Learning Living __Meinberg, Eckhard. 1988: Das Menschenbild der __Bolin, Inge. 2006: Growing Up in a Culture of Re- 132 Textile Responsibility 8 Introduction Mona Suhrbier Environmental pollution, squandered resources, paltry wages, inadequate safety standards and appalling working conditions: these are just a few examples of the disturbing impact of a globalised high-tech textile industry. Ever since the Industrial Revolution in Europe, textile production has gradually been shifting to low-wage countries in order to satisfy the demand for ‘low-cost textiles’. In exporting the problems of the textile industry to other regions of the world, they have become virtually impossible for consumers to comprehend. These issues start with the cultivation and preparation of raw materials, continue in dye-works and spinning mills, and end in the sweat-shops where even major fashion labels tolerate demeaning working conditions. So who is taking textile responsibility and what can this involve ? Often, even textile multinationals cannot reconstruct what has been produced where, by whom and under which conditions. So how are consumers supposed to navigate their way around the situation? Textile quality seals awarded for criteria such as sustainability, organic clothing or Fair Trade now provide some guidance and define obligatory environmental and labour standards. Moreover, consumers can extend the lifespan of textile products by recycling them and using second-hand items. But the globalisation of the textile industry also affects ‘traditional’ textile techniques and practices. Although these are in some cases being displaced or greatly decimated, it is by no means inevitable that indigenous textile techniques will become ‘extinct’. On the contrary, local communities repeatedly refresh their textile cultural heritage and relocate it within new contexts. 133 Citation from: Hans-Christian Andersen. 1911: The Emperor's New Clothes. In: Stories from Hans Andersen. New York: Hodder & Stoughton. 204. 8 Textile Responsibility “Many years ago there lived an emperor who loved beautiful new clothes so much that he spent all his money on being finely dressed.”