Back
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles.  I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in  ...
Tutorial part 6 – Structures and designs in Aymara coca bags

Aymara weavings are with a very few exceptions four selvedged, warp faced woven textiles. I’ve explained the four selvedge concept in a previous post. The types of warp faced weavings found in Aymara textiles include: Warp faced plain weave - used primarily as the ground weave of a textile and complimentary warp weave used for the patterned sections of the textile. Warp faced plain weave which uses just a single set of warps and wefts can be done in one solid color field which is usual or in a variety of colors creating bands or stripes of various widths when different colored warps are used in groups across the textile. When the weaver uses different colored warps alternately, one after the other in the warping process a pebbled or zipper–like pattern will occur in warp faced plain weave sections. There are other variations too, depending on how the warp colors are set up on the loom. Complimentary warp weave is a compound structure. It has two sets of warps that interlace with one set of wefts. This is usually done in two or more colors. The colors on one face of the textile are reversed on the opposite face creating the same pattern on each side but with the colors reversed. This is often described as double-faced cloth. Variations are common in this structure with some patterns having two, three or even four span floats in the warps. These floats travel over a number of wefts and so create a more textured pattern area. Other warp faced structures used, but with less frequency by the Aymara are supplementary-warp weave and warp faced double cloth.

Aymara textiles designs can show geometric forms, zoomorphic, anthropomorphic and floral or plant-like forms. Symbolic imagery is also common. The Aymara were intimately connected to the land and certain symbols or arrangements of bands on their textiles relate to water courses, rectangular plots of cultivated land, the vast open plain of the Altiplano, sacred mountains and both wild and domesticated animals.
a wavy line could represent flowing water or a snake or both. Certain symbols represented stars, the sun the planets and even the Milky Way. Celestial imagery is very important to people who live at high altitude. They can see the stars and constellations and planets very clearly in the nighttime sky. All Andean people including the Aymara have a great connection to the heavens. Andean weaving imagery can be literal as well as symbolic, meaning that designs can mean what they look like they mean. a llama-like image represents a llama for example. However, llama symbols have numerous connotations. Since the Aymara are primarily pastoralists their animals represent wealth, fertility, and life itself. These animals were necessary and valued for their fiber, as food, as pack animals for trade and labor and for the dung used to fertilize the fields of tubers and grain. The Aymara treated their animals like family members and even had an important constellation that represented a mother llama and her daughter. The earliest carved stone monoliths in the region date to 1000bc and depict Llama heads. These were placed inside rectangular corral-like enclosures that were used in intimate ritual events. Over time, these modest, rectangular enclosures became formalized. They grew to monumental scale and served as the main ceremonial enclosures of ritual and ceremony for the most significant Andean cultures of the region including the Tiwanaku and later Incan cultures

Many design motifs passed down from pre-Columbian times are seen in 19th century Aymara textile designs.

All items in this post and the others in this tutorial series are for sale. This is the six tutorial. See links to my pages for the other five as below:

http://rugrabbit.com/node/214940 #5 http://rugrabbit.com/node/214909 #4 http://rugrabbit.com/node/214833 #3 http://rugrabbit.com/node/214759 #2 http://rugrabbit.com/node/214595 #1

price:  All ITEMS SOLD