“I always brought my spindle. That’s the easiest thing to bring. You need yarn, you have to produce yarn, you cannot just be a weaver. (My spinning) is the thing I am most proud of today. I was getting good grades, I could have easily dropped my spinning and my textiles. I think emotionally it is from the heart, in your life thing happen that you can’t explain. I just love it… it is something I like to do. The teachers don’t understand why I was interested in it, so a lot of times I just didn’t talk about it.”
– Nilda Callañaupa Alvarez, Director of the Center of Traditional Textiles of Cusco
In Peru, spinning and weaving yarn is an art form, an intrinsic part of Peru’s national heritage, and an integral part of Peru’s living culture today. Weaving is a tradition that exists in the family. It is passed down from one generation to the next. In the Andes, the women form the backbone of these spinning and weaving communities.
Peruvian weaving dates back to the Inca empire. There are literally thousands of different styles, weaves, and motifs that form the fabric of the Peruvian textile tradition that goes back over 200 years. Nilda learned how to weave from her Chinchero ancestors, and she has been spinning since childhood.
After Nilda’s spun her first yarn at age seven, she gave her wool to her mother who took it down to the river to wash it, in the tradition of the Chinchero community. Today, when Nilda spins, she uses unwashed Alpaca and spins it in a “Z” or clockwise direction using a drop spindle. However, some weavers, especially near Cusco, do the opposite. Weavers in Chahuaytiri counter-spin in an “S” formation, which is called lloq’e (left handed) in Quechua. Counter-spun yarn is believed to have magical and protective qualities which protect against negative vibes and impart balance. This cloth is usually worn by pregnant women, or someone needs protection.
Most of the ancients used a back-strap loom to weave their cloth and even today, Nilda continues to use one of these. Natural dyes made from local herbs and flowers were used and Nilda tries to encourage the communities that she works with to use these instead of chemical colors and dyes.
If you’ve ever wondered where the brilliant scarlet and vermillion of traditional Andean garments comes from, it’s actually derived from an insect! The Cochineal insect feeds on prickly pear cacti and produces a pigment. Ancient indigenous groups dried the female insects in the sun, and would grind their bodies to produce a powder that was made into rose-hued dyes – some lighter, some deeper.
In pre-Inca times, the native people also used plants such as Relbunium hypocarpium (known as antanco or chamiri) and Relbunium microphyllum (chapichan) which are still found in the Andean highlands.
After finishing her education, Nilda’s passion for spinning and weaving became her mission. After studying textile history in the USA, she returned to Peru and started working with the weavers of Chinchero. She founded the Center for Traditional Textiles in Cusco in 1996 and today she works with over 200 weavers in various communities in the Andes. Nilda visits her weavers regularly and buys their work for the Center.
In Chinchero, where Nilda grew up, she has set up the Jakima club. Jakima is the Quechua name for the patterned ribbons that Quechua children used to make and the club serves as a mentoring program for young weavers who learn at the hands of more experienced elders. Nilda’s work in communities such as Acha Alta, Pitumarca and Chahuaytiri has not only fostered a cottage industry, but a growing sense of community. Each week, Quechua speaking members of the community come to the shelters built by CTTC and socialize while knitting, spinning and weaving.
Prior to the advent of writing, Pre-Inca communities used textiles as a means of communicating their oral folklore and myths from one generation to the next. Today, Nilda and others are once again using the ancient art of textiles to nurture communication and collaboration within the communities of the Andes.
