Maintaining and incorporating our cultural heritage is of utmost importance for its survival. In an increasingly globalized world, the economic system tends to homogenize products and services, and therefore lifestyles, across borders. Our brand highlights the national identity and incorporates it into watches and knives in a modern way. It is a way to keep the legacy alive and make it present, beyond just reading about it in a museum book. In this instance we will make an introduction to the art of the Mapuche loom.
One of our watches is the Newen model, inspired by the Mapuche culture. Specifically, in the Mapuche loom. A very important tradition whose legacy is still very present in our country today.
The Mapuche loom in time
The tradition of Mapuche textile art remains alive because it expresses traditional meanings and fundamental cultural values for this people, who today live in cities and rural communities. A textile garment is an essential artistic medium in the representation of Mapuche ethnic identity, because it is part of a powerful network of social and symbolic relationships typical of this culture.
The Mapuche textile and loom tradition dates back to pre-Columbian times, as evidenced by the archaeological site of Alboyanco, in Angol (IX region), dated approximately 1436 A.D. This finding shows that before the arrival of the Hispanic conqueror, the groups that inhabited this area made textiles with camelid wool dyed with vegetable and mineral dyes.
Subsequently, the rapid incorporation of sheep, brought to the American continent by the colonizers, produced important changes in Mapuche textile activity. The possibility of raising their own animals, suppliers of a new raw material, and the advent of artificial dyes, led to a rapid increase in textile production. The woven garments became very important items for trade and commerce, both with the Spaniards and with the inhabitants of the Argentine pampas.
Mapuche looms are traditional tools considered an integral part of this people and have been used for centuries for the creation of weavings and blankets.
The Mapuche loom is usually built horizontally and is composed of different elements. The main structure is made up of two wooden pillars called “utrutruka” or “meli”, which are placed parallel to each other and are fixed to the ground or to a stable support. These pillars support the loom frame, which consists of a series of cross bars called “kollon” or “huente”.
The upper kollon is fixed, while the lower kollon is movable and is used to adjust the tension of the fabric. Between the kollon is placed the warp, which is the set of vertically tensioned threads that will serve as the base for the weaving. The warp threads are wound on a cylinder called “kewe” or “lleyque”, located on the right side of the loom.
The weaving process on the Mapuche loom involves the use of a shuttle called a “ragu” or “pichana” and a “batán”, which is a wooden instrument used to compact the woven threads. Traditional designs and patterns are created by selecting and combining different colored yarns in the warp.
Weaving on the Mapuche loom is mainly done by hand, using flat weaving techniques. Mapuche women are especially skilled in this work, passing on their knowledge from generation to generation. The resulting weavings are highly valued for their beauty and quality, and often represent symbols and elements of Mapuche culture, such as animals, plants and geometric figures. Through their textile art, the Mapuche express their history, worldview and connections with nature.
Learning to be feminine: Weaver and woman
The learning of textile making, within the current Mapuche culture, occupies an important place in the process of female socialization. From an early age, women will learn the arts and jobs that their society has assigned to them since time immemorial. From grandmothers to mothers and daughters, a wisdom that is the legacy of ancient generations is transmitted, and that has allowed the continuity of a cultural tradition that identifies the Mapuche and in particular their women, for being the creators of these creations.
Thus, the vital task of weaving the cloth to clothe their people, provide family shelter and generate income for the “fouls” falls on them. Thus, giving life and protecting it are aspects that are inextricably linked to the existence of women.
Learning to spin, dyeing and weaving techniques are knowledge that women must internalize in order to fully comply with their feminine attributes. Therefore, it will be a family concern that the daughters are prepared for the work and that in the future they will be “good weavers”. This concern is manifested through the performance of magical practices associated with the cosmovision and myths of origin of the textile industry: putting spider webs around the wrist of the girls’ hands, or passing small spiders on the palm of their hands to make them good spinners. These rites are performed at the time of a woman’s birth, infancy or adolescence and are intended to facilitate the learning process. To understand the deeper meaning of these magical practices, let’s listen to the following story:
My mother told me that in the past they used to give the Mapuche woman a little wool that is found in a tree -I think it is a hualle-, it is a special wool, it is in the mountains; but only the lucky one finds it, it is a very fine wool. When they were little Mapuche girls, they would wrap their wrists around their hands, so they would become like spiders for spinning or weaving, they would become experts in weaving. I used to say to my mother, why didn’t she look for one for me, why didn’t she look for me when I was a little girl. I dreamed that I was going to spin some day; but I thought it was going to be slower because she didn’t put the web on me. She used to tell me: “When he grows up it is difficult, when he is a little girl he is good, you have to look for him in the bush, it is a little difficult, but you can find him”.
Margarita Painequeo, Temuco, 1988
The iconography of Mapuche weaving
When we analyze the iconography of textiles, we discover that it is subject to a notion of representation different from those of our culture. The basic key to understanding the figurative mechanics of Mapuche textiles is to realize that what is represented has undergone a profound process of transformation. Objects, in reality, have three dimensions; they are necessarily volumetric. The weaver is faced with the problem of bringing these three-dimensional objects into the two-dimensional plane of the reality of her weaving. For this purpose, he uses a representational technique widely used in Indian America, that of “splitting by cutting”. The object to be represented on the textile plane is subjected to an imaginary vertical cut, without cutting its front part (Figure 1).
This figure, cut at the back, is unfolded to both sides, opening it up (Figure 2) and transforming it into a flat figure, which can be represented on the textile. Always, as a result of our tendency to “representational realism”, we find it difficult to decode the representations of Mapuche weavings. Only by reversing the unfolding process do we manage to configure the original shape in the volume, which can then be decoded. Since “splitting by cutting” is the elementary representation technique, it is accompanied by other techniques that allow elaborating and reworking new figures from the split ones. The “dismemberment” is another technique by “cutting”, where parts of the initially unfolded figure are cut off. Some of them are discarded and others are added to what is left of the initial figure, but in different places. Thus a new figure is born, which has been deprived of certain original elements and, at the same time, complemented with the annexation of some elements in places that do not correspond to their original position (figure 3).
With this introduction to the Mapuche loom, we will gradually delve into the cultural aspects of this people that is part of our cultural and ancestral heritage. Some 80% of the Chilean population has some degree of Mapuche mixture. Its culture is also that of the entire country. Below is a descriptive video of the looms.
Bibliography:
MAPUCHE TEXTILES, WOMEN’S ART
Angelica Willson A.
MAPUCHE TEXTILE ART
Pedro Mege Rosso
