Textiles have been an integral part of human life since the beginning of civilization. The treatment of drawing and color, as well as the fibers used, have made it possible to recognize the cultural identity of various peoples throughout the world, in the making of their typical costumes, their embroidery or their carpets.
Textile traditions in the andean world were and continue to be very important elements in the political, social and economic development of Andean communities.
The importance of textile traditions in the Andean world. It has always held a central place in the identity, ideology and beliefs of the indigenous peoples of the Andean region. Even the archaeological rescue of textile pieces has allowed a better understanding of the different Andean cultures and their traditional roots are found in the current production of the different communities.
This Andean textile tradition has developed over thousands of years and its knowledge has been passed down from generation to generation.
These textiles are an open book of information, codes and symbols. Even the art of weaving in the Andes is a form of writing or language, which consists of visual metaphors that convey its values, cosmology and cultural patterns.
The Art of Weaving
There are Andean cities that still maintain their customs, mainly rural places. Andean cultures developed techniques that are still used today, including textile art.
Since the ancestors, many around the world have pointed out that the fabrics of the Paracas culture were the best in their field.
The textile art of the Paracas is one of the finest and most sophisticated in the world. They are thus renowned for their designs, the variety of colors, fibers and pigments, and especially for the techniques used in their development. These looms were used for his famous funeral bundles.
Thus these techniques reached the Inca culture, in which the inhabitants used the same techniques. Since at that time the textile industries that we know today did not exist, they had to resort to the wool of their Andean camelids (llamas, alpacas and vicuñas), then use natural pigments and dye these fibers. Finally with all these techniques they wove their own clothes.
Colors were and still are the product of natural pigments extracted from minerals and plants. From the best fibers, clothes were woven which would then be used in important rituals and ceremonies.
Speaking of the drawings, most of the drawings were with geometric shapes, they offered original, complex and colorful creations in which they represented forms of their daily life. They were once motifs of flora and fauna.