THE CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PERUVIAN TEXTILES:
PRODUCTION, FUNCTION, AESTHETICS
A. H. Gayton
In writing this article I am indebted to two great predecessors: Alfred L.
Kroeber for his comprehensive and perceptive appreciation of Peruvian art as a
cultural expression, and Lila M. O'Neale for her objective analysis of textiles
as a measure of Peruvian technical development. Neither of them was indiffer-
ent to the values which the other emphasized.  In assessing the Andean arts
Kroeber recognized the technical limitations of the textile medium, while
O'Neale frequently-commented upon aesthetic aspects such as color and design.
The former saw in textiles, as in ceramics, differentiating elements of style
that would aid in establishing the time sequences of Andean subcultures; the
latter perceived the technical data she must extract to aid in elucidating the
chronological distinctions. As pioneers who advanced the systematic study of
ancient Andean culture, they have been succeeded by able scholars whose inves-
tigations are continuously broadening and clarifying our knowledge of that
civilization. Yet, so far as textiles are concerned, the developments largely
have followed the basic interests of Kroeber and O'Neale--the significance of
art styles and techniques as time-indicators.
Outside the professional field Peruvian textiles have received their share
of acclaim from the current popular interest in "primitive arts which has been
publicizing by turns of fashion Oceanian, African, North Pacific Coast, Andean,
and Mexican native arts. Through exhibitions and illustrations the finest of
Peruvian textiles have been presented to a public pleased by their beauty but
indifferent to their original sense or their sundering from their cultural con-
text.  Such display textiles are selected for their aesthetic values alone.
Often unable to represent a specific time-place style because of dubious pro-
venience, neither do they exemplify the general quality range of textile prod-
ucts from which they have been extracted. However appreciatively Peruvian
textiles have been regarded for their utility in providing chronological clues,
their technical distinctions, and their aesthetic worth, the use and meaning of
the fabrics to those who wove and wore them have somehow been lost to sight.
The aim herein is to engender some comprehension of Peruvian textiles as
tangibles, as necessities, and as pleasures in their former human context.
This approach is compatible with Kroeber's interests in Andean prehistory which
were always those of the culture historian. He regarded "all native Peruvian
civilization as a unit--a larger historical whole, a major areal culture with
time depth." That the materials were archaeological and the ordering of their
stylistic data a methodological necessity were but incidental to his prevailing
objective--an understanding of the manifold nature of culture through time. As
he has said, I'The data on the major South American arts are inextricably inter-
twined with archaeology." The archaeological research and related textile
analysis which Kroeber initiated in the 1920's have continued to accumulate,
through succeeding decades, sufficient ramifying data to support reconstructive
thoughts on the role of textiles in ancient Andean life.
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Like all products of human hands, the textiles of Peru were enmeshed with
material and social aspects of the culture which created them. Technical devel-
opments can nourish yet delimit the product as a substance. The numerous mays
in which cloth can be utilized can encourage production. If the decorative pos-
sibilities serve not only aesthetic aims but political and religious ends as
well, as was the case in Peru, the role played by the medium can become entrenched
and even powerful enough to keep rival media in abeyance. In this articulation
of material and social factors, as exemplified here by fabrics, the interplay may
be such as to reinforce social aspects and possibly in periods of simplest begin.
nings even to initiate them.
However much the finest of Peruvian fabrics have been exhibited, illustra-
ted, and lauded in print, they represent but one extreme of an enormous range of
quality. A large proportion of textiles, while not lacking in simple touches of
embellishment, were made primarily for rugged uses. Coarse, burlap-like cloths
were the usual outer wrappings of mwrimy bundles; similar cloths must have been
employed in mary ways--as containers for carrying in the harvests, baling goods
for markets local or distant, as household utility cloths, and as garments by
the poor. From north to south and east to west in the Andean area through twenty
centuries, many thousands of sturdy, homely fabrics were produced as a normal
necessity in the ordinary business of living. Ignored by collectors, this huge
class of textiles is now known only in a small percentage of its original bulk
as extracted from modern, controlled excavations--worn, patched, dirty and ragged.
Of domestic furnishings in ancient Peruvian homes we still know little, yet
occasional specimens offer clues suggesting that people of some status, not only
the elite, had padded quilts, small cushions, and cradling cloths. Fabrics hung
in tombs may represent similar usage in dwellings; certainly some decorative tex-
tiles, because of their size or odd shapes, could hardly have been costume parts.
Triangular, patterned cloths hung from the feathered canopy of the Inca's litter,
as drawn by Guaman Porn de Ayala. A specimen in the Uhle Collection at Berkeley
brings to mind portieres because of its construction, length, and painted lower
ends; this is a guess, of course. Yet to imagine the textile-conscious Peruvians
in bare rooms would be an even stranger fancy. The general lack of capacious
baskets or wooden chests implies that bulky goods such as extra clothing and orn-
aments were wrapped in cloths for home storage.
It is as clothing and its accessories that Peruvian textiles are best
known. Here at least is abundant evidence that the potentialities of weaving
were fully realized in the many-faceted role which dress plays in an advanced
society. The basic garments were few: breechcloth, kilt, shirt, and mantle for
men, and a one-piece dress and mantle for women. Additions of scarfs for the
head, hair ties, and belts were usual. Cloth pouches were a general accessory
for men, possibly for women too, as in Inca times. Specialties occurred which
were characteristic of particular periods or places, such as the Paracas shoul-
der yoke, the Tiahuanacan four-pointed cap, or the Inca feathered poncho, but
these were extrinsic to the standard forms which persisted through the centuries.
Within the standardized forms a tremendous stylistic range was made possible by
the variables of the textile content. The stylistic components of Peruvian gar-
ments were dimensions, fibers, colors, weaves, designs, and superstructural em-
bellishments such as embroidery, passamenterie, reserve dyeing, and painting.
Each component had many variables which by permutation permitted diversified
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styles to emerge in spite of the continuous adherence to basically simple gar-
ment forms. The styles which characterized areal and temporal planes in Peru-
vian history represented selections or constellations of preferences from
innumerable possibilities for variation.
In the following discussion place and time labels have been kept to the
minimuM and esoteric textile nomenclature avoided whenever possible. The over-
all time span is roughly 2,000 years:  from 500 B.C., by which time weaving was
well developed, to 1532 A.D., date of the Spanish conquest. For temporal loca-
tions the terms early, middle, and late have been used-loosely to cover approx-
imately 500 B.C. to 700 A.D*, 700 A.D. to 1200 A.D., and 1200 A.D. to 1532 A.D,
They are time segments which encompass but do not delineate certain of the
major cultures referred to by name. Thus Mochica, Paracas, and Nazca are with-
in the early span, Tiahuanaco-Huari in the middle span, and Chimu and Inca of
late times. (The newest archaeological timetable for prehistoric Peru is in
the 1960 edition of Bennett and Bird, Andean Culture History, p. 112).
Production
Of occupations at large, whether domestic or institutionalized, undoubted-
ly food production, ceramic manufacture, and textile fabrication were the three
which consumed most of the time and energy of the Andean people as constant con-
cerns. With cloth, production consists of many successive stages, each requir-
ing particular knowledge and skills contributing toward a successful culmination
as united in the end product. In the sophisticated civilization of Peru hun-
dreds of persons were primarily engaged in various phases of cloth production.
While many coastal families grew their own cotton, acquired a little wool (per-
haps already spun and dyed), and wove sufficient cloth for their humble needs,
the quantities of high-standard fabrics from Peru imply a marked degree of
specialization--and not of weavers alone.
The prime desideratum was production of raw materials in sufficient quan-
tity for the textile needs of a fairly dense population. A notion of quantity
needs may be understood by imagining a simple example, a very coarse cotton
cloth which might have been used by a laboring family. It is one yard square,
woven in tabby or "plain weave square count" with 10 warps and 10 wefts per
square inch. This means that within its dimensions there are 360 yards of warp
crossed by 360 yards of weft, total yarn content 720 yards. For various pur-
poses such a family might have five similar utility cloths in use, representing
3,600 yards of yarn. A hamlet of twenty hearths, as a reasonably small, humble
community, then would have 72,000 yards or roughly 41 miles of the crudest sort
of yarn employed in its low grade utility cloths alone.  One could multiply
this community many times over in coast and highland at any moment from the
time of Christ onward. And, of course, in addition, the fiber requirements for
medium and fine quality domestic cloths, garments, accessories, and grave offer-
ings of all classes of persons must be conjured up as the normal, maximal re-
quirement of fiber-in-use all at the same time.
Agricultural and pastoral pursuits produced the cotton and alpaca fibers
which constituted the bulk of Peruvian textiles; llama as the coarsest wool and
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victia as the finest represented lesser quantities at each end of the quality
scale. Indigenous to coast and highland, respectively, cotton and wool have
been one of the major evidences for an early established trade system between
these regions. Cotton was the fiber with which weaving began on the coast in
preceramic times, yet the advent of wool and its incorporation in textiles in
increasing amounts from pre-Christian times onward indicate that this fiber
already had been used in weaving in the highland area to which wool was indi-
genous. Unless wool had its own history of usefulness in textile production
it' would not have come down to the coast as a commodity. All alpaca wool in
coastal textiles was imported from the highlands; under primitive and prehis-
toric conditions acclimatination of these high altitude animals to a lowland
habitat was unlikely.
Planting, tending, and harvesting of cotton was an occupation in itself,
as was the breeding, herding, and fleecing of alpacas to supply the demands of
consumption   The rounding-up and capture of viculias, never domesticated even
in Inca times, probably called for a special class of hunters skilled in the
pursuit of this shyest of all the wool-bearing cameloids. All the raw materials
of textiles need prelimirary processing. Both cotton bolls and fleeces must be
cleared of refuse before deseeding or wool-washing can be done. Twigs, leaf
bits, burrs, sand, and mud balls infest one or both fibers at the source. Color
sorting, especially of wools from piebald pelts, might be done at this time
rather than after marketing. Whether baling and marketing was done by the grow-
ers or by special middlemen vendors, distribution to spinners and weavers had to
take place. In coastal valleys or highland districts, the native cottons and
wools would move in small circuits; between highland and coast the humble llama,
whose wool was disdained for good quality cloth, was the burden-bearer in cara-
vans which continuously traveled the routes of communication exchanging commodi-
ties between the grossly different environments.
The spinner's role was a vital one in cloth production, requiring patient
engagement in tasks onerous and monotonous. Even though the fibers were re-
ceived in a partially cleaned state, their final preparation was necessary be-
fore spinning could begin. Remaining seeds and minute detritus must be pulled
from cotton lints, and dirt and excessive grease washed from the wools. Stan-
dard Peruvian yarns show that paralleling of fibers was usually done; this to
make a smooth, even yarn. Cotton fibers can be straightened by pulling small
flocks- apart over and over again. Laid together until a large pad of the pre-
pared lints was formed, the pad became the stock from which the spinner drew
forth fibers while spinning. A similar method may have been used with wool
since wool cards were unknown and the combs found in ancient workbaskets are
too delicate save for a filal combing after preliminary finger straightening of
wool fibers. (The combs are supposedly battens for pressing down tapestry
wefts; they could have served both purposes.)
Even allowing for the fact that drop-spindle spinning can be carried on
while walking about--as to fields., market, or a neighbor's house--the amount of
time devoted to yarn-making must have been very great. Medium to fine quality
yarns required the supported-spindle method whereby the operator sat on the
ground with the spindle tip resting in a bowl or gourd to obviate strain on the
forming strand. This was not a side occupation, especially when hundreds of
yards of fine thread were to be produced. Rates of hand-spindle spinning differ
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so much by fiber and quality that it is fruitless to estimate even roughly what
the production rate might have been. But the quantities of good-grade cloths,
not to mention those of luxury quality, indicate that Peruvian spinners prob-
ably formed a group distinct from both the suppliers of raw materials and the
Weavers.
Spinning is a skill which even in its highest proficiency can scarcely
be called an art, yet that skill is an essential contribution to any textile
which has artistic status. Notable Peruvian tapestries with 250 wefts or more
per inch are popularly credited to the weaver's art, while the spinner whose
deft fingers produced yarn 1/250 of an inch in diameter goes unrecognized.
Length of yarn is impressive when the hundreds of yards necessary for even one
crude cloth are realized. But consistency of diameter with a uniform degree
of twist--whether loose, moderate, or tight--is the criterion of perfection.
Delicate cotton threads are the most difficult to make uniform while retaining
sufficient tensile strength to withstand the strain of weaving. Yet such
threads are far from rare in Peruvian fabrics. Wools, with their longer staple
often up to several inches, have the advantage of greater overlap in spinning.
On the other hand, alpaca and vicuna filaments are somewhat slippery and less
prone to stabilize by intertwisting on themselves than are cotton lints.
Beside the initial spinning of single strands, doubling or respinning
singles into two-ply thread was common practice, this task being a further
time-consumer for the Peruvian spinner. Yarns of multiple ply, such as those
for loom strings, sewing, tassels, and other special purposes, may well have
been made by the weaver as they were needed for work in hand. However, com-
Pared to single- and two-ply yarns for cloth construction, the amounts of
these special yarns were negligible. It was the gross yarn needs for cloth
in use and under construction, as well as the standards of excellence, which
suggest that spinners formed a separate occupational class in the old Andean
culture.
Color is an outstanding characteristic of Peruvian textiles. Dyes were
applied to cleaned fiber stock before spinning, to tanks of spun yarn, and to
cloths taken from the loom (piece-dyeing). The last method apparently was the
least used for quality fabrics except when resist treatments were first applied
to reserve areas of the cloth from the dye bath in order to create designs.
The enormous range of tints and shades, estimated by analysts as more than 150,
was an early achievement in Peruvian textile history and one requiring expert
knowledge. Cottons are not amenable to the full absorption of dyes, although
'Wools are. With either fiber and with dye sources which varied chemically,
the successful production of uniform colors for large quantities of yarn and
Which did not fade or bleed depended upon consistent dye decoctions and mor-
dants that set the dye in the fibers.
Long periods of experimentation with many materials must have preceded
the stage of security demonstrated by polychrome textiles made some three hun-
dred years before the time of Christ and continuously produced throughout the
Pre-conquest centuries. Of specific dye sources little is known as yet since
the necessary laboratory analyses can be done only by a few experts. Of dyes
So proven the roster is surprisingly small: indigo, relbunium, cochineal and
shell-fish, with alum and iron mordants. The varying hues of the natural
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fibers, both cotton and wool, account for much of the color range possible in
combination with a few dyes. It seems probable-that more dye sources will even-
tually be revealed.  Whatever the circumstances, the procuring of raw materials,
the extraction, preparation, and composition of dye solutions, together with
their effective mordants, was an exacting task not haphazardly performed by ama-
teurs. That the base fiber colors were different in subtle degrees made a fur-
ther variable which the dyer had to take into account to achieve the desired
tone. Wherever dyeing was done in quantity and with competence in ancient Peru
a skilled artisan class can be postulated from the evidence of the textiles
which their art enhanced.
Catering to spinners' and weavers' needs may have been special occupations
too. Their equipment included an assortment of spindles with decorated whorls,
hardwood battens, bone awls and picks, combs, and workbaskets. These objects
are profuse not only in the general archaeological remains but sometimes in sin-
gle graves as well. A burial yielding over 250 stone, pottery, and horn whorls
certainly suggests that the individual had been a maker or vendor of these
small, essential accessories.
Thus, before the weavers began their own distinctive tasks, there were
numerous other persons involved in the preweaving stages. People on coastal
farms and in mountain pastures, in spinning centers and dye establishments, on
the paths to distribution--all were engaged in the production of textile materi-
als which the weavers could coordinate and transform into cloth. In modern
terms this is "the textile industry." In terms of a prehistoric culture it was
a coordinated activity representing a large segment of the population's economic
resources and productive enterprise.
The weaver's part in textile production is the one most familiar to us
today, yet it is often taken for granted without any real understanding of the
obstacles overcome in the actual construction of a cloth--more particularly when
the weaver worked with few manual aids and a loom lacking treadle attachments.
The Peruvian home-weaver as well as the professional was faced with certain com-
mon problems when making cloths for specific uses.  Ey and large, most of their
fabrics consisted of two identical webs seamed together to make up the desired
width. Warp length could extend to several yards, if so wanted, but weft width
on the backstrap loom in general use throughout the Andean world was limited to
the weaver's reach. The loom required the insertion of the battening sword, a
heavy wooden slat always at least two handbreadths wider than the warp plane.
About 27 inches was the practical limit for width, and most woven webs were nar-
rower than that, Consequently, even the crude cloth one yard square used above
as an example of yarn needs, would have been woven in two strips 18 inches wide
and 36 inches long, then sewn together. For the weaver this means that planning
for finished dimensions must be calculated for two warpings and two weftings,
and that patterned fabrics must be woven so that their parts will match when
seamed together.
Since all clothing was made to size the length and number of warps had to
be estimated for all webs composing a garment, e.g., for a shirt, two webs for
the body, two others if it were to have sleeves, and three more if there were
to be decorative bands on the sleeves and around the bottom of the body. Warp-
ing, the winding of the warp yarns before shifting them to the loom beams, is
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one of the most tedious parts of cloth-making. Length could be gauged when the
warping posts were set up, but each turn of the yarn around them must be neith-
er slack nor taut but of exactly uniform tension. Further, the heddle leases
had to be lashed precisely to every other warp; a lease loop too long or too
short would create trouble for the weaver when opening a shed and passing
through the bobbin and battening sword. A covert virtue of Peruvian fabrics is
the perfection of the original warping before weaving was begun, a seldom rec-
ognized skill of the weaver.
The weaving techniques at a competent weaver's command were several, and
a choice of the one or more to be employed would have been made when assembling
the yarns needed and setting up the warp. A cloth with a smooth surface, in
which the warps predominated, required that the warps be set close together,
or, for an opposite effect, as in tapestry weave, they would be spaced slightly
apart.  Complex weaves such as gauze, doubleface, doublecloth, or interlocking
.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
warp demanded excessive care in particular warping methods. These more diffi-
cult weaves were not uncommon and two or three techniques were often combined
in one fabric.
Obviously, the qualities of yarns as fine or coarse, colored or natural,
make differences in the physical nature and visual effects of a fabric. Ano-
ther potent visual factor is the construction used--the ways in which-the wefts
interlace with the warps in the weave. This determines the texture of the sur-
face, the visual emphasis of warps or wefts, the intensity of colors, and the
adaptations of motifs. The weave or construction thus is not merely a necessary
mechanical procedure in order to build a cloth of warps and wefts but engrosses
factors of function and of aesthetics. This potency of structure, sufficient
to enhance or mar the qualities of yarns, colors, and designs, was a major mo-
tivation for developing the different methods of interlacing warps and wefts
which distinguish one weaving technique from another.  In their severalties or
in combination they augmented the satisfactions the Peruvians derived from
their textiles. The weavers independently developed and perfected a roster of
techniques which matched that of the Old World, adding a unique one of their
own, the interlocking-warp technique. Plain weaves, tapestry, brocade, gauze,
and doublecloth were already in use before the Christian era (in the Paracas
Cavernas period), indicating a prior experimental period in which cloth struc-
ture had been explored in conjunction with the potentials of fibers, spins, and
colors to result in a fabric production with controlled, professional competence.
That the home-weaving of cloths and garments ranging in quality from
shoddy to excellent was a normal household activity in ancient Peru may be taken
for granted. Nevertheless, the abundant remains of distinguished workmanship,
often to the degree of virtuosity, indicate the existence of a class of special-
ists. The group of expert weavers, screened for their proficiency, who served
the Inca rulers probably represent but one known instance of professionalism
which had been long established in Peru. Quality and quantity as known from
Paracas times onward make it inconceivable that such textiles were the products
of part-time home-weavers whose thoughts and energies were claimed by multiple
household duties.  "hether these professional weavers worked commercially, were
subsidized, or enforced to labor as for the Inca, there- is no telling. The
famous Mochica vase showing women at looms, a male supervisor, and a higher
ranking man seated on a dais is usually interpreted as a "factory" scene. It
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could as well be a training establishment or the working quarters in a great
household like those of Egypt and Medieval Europe. In any case, weavers are
depicted there as a discrete group, implicitly separated from housewifely rou-
tine of the ordinary sort.
Even further specialization within the professional class is implied by
the perfection of the complicated designs executed in the more difficult tech-
niques. A weaver might naster a technique and produce several exquisite fabrics
of that structure within a lustrum or decade but would hardly produce master-
pieces in all construction methods within the same period. Either as a life
work or by periodic changes the finest weavers must have concentrated on not
more than one or two techniques to produce, from planning to execution, textiles
of supreme quality. Collaboration of specialists may explain the finest com-
posite specimens, such as a magnificent shirt from Supe containing twelve sep-
arate webs employing beside plain weave, tapestry, open-work tapestry, and inter-
locked warp and weft techniques.
While the most splendid textiles and other objects were the possessions of
an elite class or of the upper degrees of a graduated society as evidenced by
their grave furnishings, it is clear that textile production was the concern of
large numbers of Andean people: growers, processors, distributors, spinners,
dyers, weavers, and finally the owners and wearers who clung to their fabrics
even in death. In short, cloth manufacture formed a significant economic and
occupational integral of ancient Peruvian culture.
Function
Every material i's idiosyncratic in its services to man.  Clay, wood, stone,
metal, ivory, bone, fur, feathers and fibers--each has advantages and disadvan-
tages for specific purposes and visual pleasures. The sub-species, so to say, of
each medium are proliferated variations of the virtues and vices of the parent
class. When incentive exploits the potentialities of many sorts of fibers the
resulting mats, baskets, ropes, nets, threads, and cloths perform a multiplicity
of services. The Peruvians early recognized these potentialities and exploited
them with increasing perspicacity from preceramic times onward. Their talent
for textile development is evident from the oldest findings; these predate suc-
cessful utilization in an equal degree of any other material then available in
coastal Peru.
The presence of a native cotton plant made this possible, but a recogni-
tion of the possibilities--if no more than by trial and error--tas fundamental
to the initial progression from the use of thigh-spun bast fibers to thigh-spun
cotton. That is, from a stronger, harsher, more refractory material to a weaker,
smoother, more amenable fiber for new purposes. The familiar basketry and mat-
ting technique, twining, was continued with cotton yarns, resulting in a flex-
ible fabric pleasant to the touch. The pliant yarns permitted easy manipulations
for designs and this virtue was early realized in the twined cotton cloths made
at such preceramic coastal sites as Huaca Prieta and Asia before 1000 B.C. The
numerous fragments recovered by excavation offer little indication of their
specific uses, yet they do show a recognition of and an esteem for the function
of cloth in the large sense: that it is a plane of soft, agreeably tactile
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material which can be a vehicle for decorative motifs.  The eventual abandon-
ment of twined cloth construction for the more versatile techniques of true
weaving multiplied the advantages to be derived from cloth, advantages extend-
ing beyond the utilitarian into the less palpable realms of social and aesthetic
values.  The advent of wharved spindles, the heddled loom, wool fibers, and
superior dyes hastened the development of textile functions into full status in
coast cultures by at least 500 B.C.
The practical utility of cloths as containers, dress, bedding, or hang-
ings needs no elucidation. That aesthetic pleasures come from color and design
is clear too. Other functions are less obvious--those of social significance,
especially as embodied in dress. Like costume of the Old World, that of the
higher civilizations of Middle and South America communicated several sorts of
cultural meanings. An aggregate of basically conforming costumes, varying only
in minor details, marks the nucleus of areal and temporal unity, i.e., a commun-
ity, district, or region through a period of time (in historic costume terms
"national" or "period" dress). Through form, fabric, colors and design content
several sorts of social conditions may be manifest:  economic (by quality and
amount), political (by prescribed or proscribed materials, colors, or motifs),
religious (by materials, colors, and symbolic motifs), and military (by practi-
cal adaptations and symbolic motifs). Degrees of social rank, classes of occu-
pation or of servitude can be distinguished by the textile components. Distinc-
tions of sex, age level, and marital condition are often shown by major or
minor differences in dimensions, materials, colors, or motifs. Whether or not
these diversities are governed by regulations or merely by custom, the apparel
as a totality of the tangible ingredients is also an expression of intangible
aspects of the society in which it is wornO
By no means all of these intangible components of costume are discernible
in the remains of Peruvian dress even though textiles were the prime conveyors
of social implications; a large share is known through information of different
sorts.  Inca dress and social regulations were pictured and described by Guaman
Poma de Ayala and the Spanish chroniclers. North coast culture left a pictorial
ethnography in its modeled and painted pottery from Mochica through Chimu times.
And much can be safely inferred from the circumstances of burial, grave associ-
ations, and the textiles themselves from exhumations on the central and south
coast dating through the major chronological periods. Gross areal and temporal
differences in ancient Peruvian apparel have long been known, as well as indi-
cations of economic, official, priestly, and military diversities.  Social cate-
gories as expressed in costume can be augmented and better defined as systematic
study is applied to the accumulating archaeological evidence. Alas, the sepa-
ration of artifacts and cadavers from sites and graves for specialized research
has left, so far, a wide gap in our knowledge about dichotomy of the sexes,
especially as it might be seen in dress. If the more subtle badges of age lev-
el, marital status, or other personal conditions existed in Peru, they probably
never can be clearly recognized from the archaeological materials: too much and
too detailed bearing evidence would be needed.
The totality of men's dress as we know it from all Peru followed particu-
lar styles which characterized major sub-areas and time periods. Differential
features include relative dimensions and proportions of length to breadth, pres-
ence or absence of sleeves, location of design areas, and nature of decorative
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motifs. Readily recognized examples are the sleeved shirts of the north coast,
the shirts with heavy fringing at armholes and bottom edges from the south
coast (both of early period), the tapestry woven large shirts with vertical panr
els of Tiahuanacan motifs (middle period), and the Incan tunics with triangular
yokes and checkerboard patterns woven in tapestry (late period). Systematic
study of clothing undoubtedly would show more nuclear styles for places and
times, as well as determine degrees of variation in those already known.
The burial of miniature or token garments with the dead which correspond
in style with their normal-sized counterparts ramifies the importance of iden-
tification through dress, or at least the adherence to a contemporary style,
which held through most of Andean history.  For instance, examples from Paracas,
Vista Alegre, and Moche represent three coastal locales in early, middle, and
late times.
Regional differences like those mentioned above are significant not only
politically, as when Inca law forbade changes in community styles, but psycho-
logically as well: visual identification with family and fellow citizens of a
community or area. Clothing that is practically uniform is still worn by vil-
lage women of Guatemala, each village being distinguished by elements of pro-
portion, weave, color and design in the home-woven blouses. These discrete
styles persist in spite of long social and trade intercourse between the towns.
No such close differentiation between sites is ever likely to emerge from any
archaeological materials, even those of Peru, but it is not unreasonable to
assume that a sense of community attachment was an adjunct of local regional
styles, as known in Incan times.
Persons of high rank, priestly or official (possibly both-in-one) have
been identified by their rich accouterments in the graves of the Paracas
Necropolis. The custom of executing deity figures in cloth was already estab-
lished in an earlier Chavinoid phase of south coast culture. The florescence
of this art in the Necropolis phase is expressed in the costume--mantles, yokes,
shirts, kilts, turbans--bearing extravagantly fantastic renderings of composite
anthropomorphic felines, birds, and serpents. Quality is manifest in the labor-
ious polychrome embroidery of fine-spun wool, while quantity in excess of any
normal need is apparent in the huge mantles and the kilts which wrapped in
several layers around the hips. Status was communicated through costume, a
status that might have been based in religious concepts, in a governmental
structure, or in domination by wealth. Whatever the basis of superiority, lux-
ury fabrics made it known to fellow citizens. Other media, however beautifully
executed, were but minor in the sepulchral bundles, subordinate to the textile
furnishings of the deceased. Rarity of metals, especially gold, on the south
coast in pre-Christian times might explain one discrepancy of materials, but
not the lesser quantities of ceramics as possible status symbols of equal im-
portance.
Relatively greater abundance of other possessions, especially of gold
ornaments and utensils, by Inca times did not weaken the role of textiles as
status symbols. On the contrary, some of the best evidence of the function of
cloth qual ities as prestige indicators, as a material art alaed for social mean-
ing and for personal elegance comes from this period.  Preserved clothing and
documentary information show the concern felt by the aristocratic class for
120
impressive costume for themselves and adequate dress for the populace, when
cloth production, as all else, became a state monopoly. As in previous periods
it was the shirt, now of tunic proportions, which embodied not only elements of
a distinctive period style but those of rank as well.s Gone were the decorative
designs depicting or referring to mythological deities and natural animal and
vegetal forms. The clothing of noble persons depended, rather, upon ref'inement
of quality, the over-all organization of design areas, these areas incorporating
a roster of' small motifs executed in tapestry weave to communicate the wearer's
status. Organized in a checkerboard patterning, the series of small, glyph-
like devices covered part or all of Inca noblemen's tunics.
An analysis of these devices and their association with qualities of
wool, colors, and workmanship might reveal an hierarchical symbolism within the
elite class.  That is, whether all, some, or few of the motifs appear in par-
ticular types of tunics, suggesting the wearer's right to use certain of the
devices. Other interpretations are possible, of course: that, merely, the
finest tunics have the most complicated patterns and this proliferation of de-
vices was meaningful only in terms of the weaver's artfulness.  But this is a
side problem.
The textile medium as used in clothing also distinguished particular
social groups; two may be mentioned, first military units, second liveried ser-
wants. Mochica warriors wore clothing differentiated from that of every day
life: 'short shirts without sleeves, very short kilts, protective padded panels
for the body and thick cloth-covered helmets. Bold geometric motifs on the
shirt, panel armor, and helmet were matched. The outfit was an ensemble imply-
ing through its textile decoration a totemic, heraldic, or political allegiance.
The north coast custom of stripping weapons and all clothing from prisoners of
war indicates the value of clothing both as loot and as personal symbols of dig-
nity and rank.  (Mayan prisoners, as seen in the Bonampak murals, were permitted
to retain at least their breechcloths*)
Livery--matched clothing for groups of servants--is familiar in Old World
civilizations, but not necessarily a concept to be taken for granted. Inca
litter-bearers, as shown in Guaman Poma's drawings, were dressed identically,
even to the position of their tied mantles. The use of livery may have been a
late practice, yet the Inca were not wholly innovators, and elite households of
prior date well may have had domestic servants in particular styles of dress.
Knowledge of women's apparel in ancient Peru is so deficient at present
that it cannot merit discussion nor support inferences. In brief, from early
periods (Paracas, Nazca, Mochica) and the late period (Chimu, Inca) there is
Visual or actual evidence that the basic dress was a wrapped rectangle of cloth
pinned or sewn on one or both shoulders--like the dress of Pueblo women or the
chitons of classical Greece. Decoration was similar to that of the contempor-
ary masculine clothing but much reduced in amount. Short mantles and veil-like
headcloths completed the costume in the Paracas and Inca cultures. That quality
and quantity of their garments distinguished women of superior class or nobility
can be safely assumed, but nothing more. It is conceivable that women wore
shirts or tunics in some places or times of the old Andean civilization, as is
the habit: now with the women of some tribes in eastern Peru. Until the sex of
cadavers and their clothing from many grave lots are made known the ancient
dress of Andean women remains largely enigmatic.
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Distinctions of age levels by dress are known for boys and youths in Incan
times. Occasional child-size garments appear in collections, but without accom-
panying physical remains, no fixed practices about age-grading by costume can be
postulated for earlier periods. Again, excavational data are needed and are
quite unlikely to emerge in sufficient quantities for accurate information.
Textiles played their final role at death when the deceased, together with
garments, pouches and cloths filled with food and coca leaves, was wrapped in
several layers of fabrics and baled for burial Ranging from ostentatious to
modest, the grave accompaniments indicate the importance ascribed to textile
possessions in the future life. Nor were all grave cloths practical: a neat
bundle from a central coast burial revealed, when opened, many cloth scraps of
good quality in decorated styles. Were these little rags "token" fabrics (like
miniature garments) or pattern samples a deceased weaver was taking along for
future reference? We shall never know. A currently popular assumption that
sepulchral clothing was superior to or different from that actually used is
difficult to prove.  Certainly, elegant garments may have been made solely for
interment and never donned--by those who could afford the luxury. Nevertheless,
the Peruvian conception of a splendid afterworld surely was but a reflection of
the values in their culture as known and experienced. Ostentatious furnishings,
if somewhat "larger than life," were still expressing the basic realities of a
former existence as well as beliefs concerning the future.
The function of textiles in the ancient Andean world were many. They
served several practical purposes as containers, furnishings, and dress, and
signalized by their quality and embellishment the social status of their posses-
sors. Other uses as yet unknown nay be recognized eventually. That cloth or
garments were made for tribute before Inca times seems highly probable. Enor-
mous fabrics emanating from the south coast are still cryptic; one of these is.
12 by 87 feet, another about 23 by 162 feet, both have Paracas period associa-
tions. Except as tent-like ramada coverings or other temporary shelters their
practical utility is doubtful. Huge dimensions to express wealth or prestige
occurred in ancient Mexican paper and in Polynesian tapa cloth; for the same
reasons the monstrous Peruvian fabrics might have had display value in proces-
sions, as offerings at temples, and found final service as mummy bundle shrouds.
In spite of such mysteries--and there are many others with respect to cloth--
present evidence is quite sufficient to indicate that the Peruvians fully ex-
ploited the textile medium to perform a myriad of services which aided and en-
riched their daily lives.
Aesthetics
The separation of aesthetic aspects of textiles from their substantive
and functional characteristics seems artificial. Peruvian fabrics clearly dem-
onstrate that one of their major functions was to give visual pleasure.  While
medium, function, and aesthetics all interplay as inherent ingredients of a
textile object, the artistry merits separate consideration like that given to
materials and functions.
A visual art is basically material. Whatever its purpose and however in-
formed with a grandiose concept, its execution is through a physical medium
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having qualities which are at once its advantages and its fetters. The artist's
talent enhances the virtues and coerces the recalcitrancies of the material, ex-
ploiting them both to satisfy predetermined aims. The creative act of weaving
is like that of other arts in that materials are transformed into a new entity,
an object that did not exist before. Like a painter, with fixed dimensions of
canvas or wall, the Peruvian weaver began with an established plane of warps
limited in length and breadth. But unlike the painter, who can tentatively set
the total composition by sketched lines and work progressively in any part of
the field, the weaver builds the cloth by incremental weft additions. Initial
errors in judging the space to be occupied by design units will dislocate the
patterning throughout. Either what has been woven must be unravelled or the
remaining design units be modified in some unobtrusive way. So too with any
other misapprehensions, as of yarn quality, color combinations, or the construc-
tion technique; they become apparent and are fixed in the fabric as it grows.
Errors cannot be painted over, chipped away, hammered out, or covered with a
glaze. The manifest expertise of a high percentage of Peruvian fabrics indi-
cates their weavers' absolute control of all the materials, manipulations, color
and space relationships by preconception--the assurance that knows what should
happen will happen in the process of fabric-making.
The physical qualities of the generally superior fabrics will be discussed
before proceeding to a consideration of their designs in relation to the cultur-
al context.
Yarns, whether of cotton or wool, were spun to an extraordinary degree of
perfection. The aesthetic aim seems to have been just that: uniform diameter,
tension, and color perfection in all grades including those of exquisite fine-
ness. Such yarns are found in all types of textiles but are most apparent in
the gauze weaves, the lace-like veils of spider web delicacy. Compact tapestry
weaves indicate by their smooth surface that the wool wefts are hard and fine
though individually barely visible, and their color interest serves as a barrier
to immediate perception of them as yarn. When heavier grades of yarn were de-
sirable, uniformity of diameter and color were still maintained. In fact, this
rigidity of standards evidently prevented the exploration of other attractive
possibilities in yarn construction. These are, for example, the combination of
differently colored strands in one yarn, nodular color flecks, and intentional
irregularity of diameter. Such yarns can add interest to plain weave fabrics
and are the backbone of modern weaving to achieve subtle color and tactile
effects. Only in the Paracas embroideries were two-toned yarns employed with
any frequency and, even there, less for merits of their own than for expansion
of the color range of the embroidery threads. Apparently, irregularly colored
and spun yarns were associated in general with the poorest quality cloths (e.g.,
infants' "diapers," breechcloths, and crude work cloths) for which randomly
mixed white and brown cotton fibers were given hasty, slipshod spinning,
Nature provided cotton and wool fibers in tones from white to brown, aug-
mented to deep brown and black in the wools. In addition, Peruvian-experimenta-
tion developed dyes to create numerous tints and shades of every hue. An addic-
tion to strong color began early, as seen in Paracas fabrics, and continued un-
abated through the centuries. Regardless of how many hues were used in one
fabric, they were never incoherent nor incongruent, owing to the weaver-artists'
resourcefulness in making adroit juxtapositions and balanced color values in
123
their textile compositions. The problem was to devise new combinations of in-
terest to eyes surfeited with chromatic ingenuities. One solution, conveniently
termed "color juggling," was to suddenly vary the color order which had been
soberly followed through several repeats of a design unit. Rhythmically, this
is syncopation--seemingly whimsical, yet intentionally and instantly obviating
the danger of monotony. Although best exemplified in Paracas embroideries, the
device recurs in later periods, notably in Tiahuanacan and Incan tapestries.
Relief from blatant hues came in the late Tiahuanacan-Huari tapestries,
when color schemes were reduced to a series of muted colors centering around
red, yellow, black, and white. Reds ranged from garnet to rose pink, the yel-
lows from clear light to tawny browns, often infused with green, resulting in
mossy tones. Sparked by black and white with an occasional touch of blue, this
color scheme is one of the most restrained and sophisticated in Andean textile
history. That it was employed with idiomatic abstract motifs makes it especial-
ly appealing to our contemporary taste.
Paralleling the brilliantly colored textiles and often in use at the same
time were others dependent upon two markedly contrasting tones, usually brown
and white. They emphasized bold geometric or interlocking patterns which cov-
ered the cloths. Such fabrics were a counterpoise to the richly colored crea-
tions. At the opposite extreme were the gauze-woven fabrics which were seldom
colored or, if at all, as a monotone. Recognizing that the primary aesthetic
interest lay in the lace-like structure, warps and wefts of mixed colors were
eschewed. When colors were added to gauze fabrics, they usually were supple-
mentary, that is, in alternate bands of another weave or as separately woven
borders sewn around the edges, where they could not conflict with the gauze pat-
terns.
So remarkable and varied was the color factor in Andean textiles that
only these major characteristics can be mentioned here. A negative aspect
serves to emphasize the color quality. Namely, that in no period of Andean
history was a delicate or pastel color scheme in vogue, one of that sensitive
or effete sort which marks the eighteenth century in Europe. However miniscule,
precise-, clever, or fantastic Peruvian color-entries might be, they always had
strength:  they were brilliant and complex, or dark-light and bold, or nothing--
meaning natural fiber color.
This commitment to forceful color schemes does not altogether explain
another rarity in Peruvian weaving: the use of warps of one color and wefts of
another in tabby woven cloth. This device is frequently employed by modern
Gmtemalan weavers and is a forte of the handweavers of India.   Warp-weft cross-
ingsr of two colors produce either a muted overall tone or the opposite, a more
intense effect. Occasionally Peruvian cloths of middle or late periods exhibit
this feature, such as a deep green crossing violet (muting both), or a cerise
crossing henna (intensifying the redness), or black crossing white (appearing as
speckly gray). But such specimens are notable for their rarity and, apparently,
were not greatly favored by Peruvian consumers.
Like color, the complex subject of design can be only briefly character-
ized. The roster of designs through the centuries divide into two major classes,
representational and geometric. The former range from mythical creatures of
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elaborate fantasy to naturalistic humans, animals, birds, serpents, marine life,
and food plants. Renderings of these supernatural and natural forms were real-
istically curvilinear in embroidery and tapestry weave, but were reduced to
abbreviated angular lines in the more rigid weaving techniques. Geometric forms
are the expectable blocks, triangles, diamonds, and zigzags, with heavy emphasis
on stepped triangles and frets. Interlocking or reciprocal motifs, made by com-
bining opposed stepped triangles, frets, and stylized bird and fish heads were
stand-by solutions for borders or over-all patterns throughout most of Andean
hi story.
Organization of design, like the distribution of color, was symmetrical.
Or, when rarely deviating to the asymmetrical, was always in perfect balance.
For example, large color areas were sometimes opposed diagonally in late period
shirts, in a manner reminiscent of Medieval parti-coloring. Spot motifs were
usually evenly spaced in vertical, horizontal, or diagonal rows. A variation
of late times, especially Incan, filled the field with contiguous, rectangular
compartments in which motifs changed form and color in a diagonal direction.
Floral motifs were almost entirely ignored except in Paracas and Nazca
fabrics; even there, food plants and their products were the vegetal themes of
interest. The Nazca flower-and-bird embroideries were the chief exception in
centuries of fabric designing which never utilized the full graces of plant
forms. The design potentials of flowers, leaves, stems, and tendrils, such as
undulate in trellis patterns over Old World textiles, were left unexplored.
Generally absent too were medallions, confronting animals, and interlaced bands
which were the standard devices of Persian, Byzantine, and later textile de-
signers of Europe.  While Peruvian weavers independently developed structural
techniques (tapestry, brocade, doublecloth, gauze) identical to those contem-
poraneously in use in the other world, their motivations for design were
grounded in different aesthetic ideals. The historic bases of design concepts
differed in the two hemispheres and ensuing developments continued to exhibit
their disparate ancestry.
In combination, then, perfect yarns, energetic color schemes, and a ros-
ter of supernaturals, humans, felines, birds, fish, stepped triangles and frets,
reciprocal motifs, and symmetrical organization were recurrent features of Peru-
vian textile art. On the whole, the styles which distinguished the fabrics of
periods or areas from one another were never entirely novel. They were readap-
tations of old themes, stressing some components of style and repressing others,
rearranging or recombining elements of design, narrowing or expanding color
schemes, and favoring particular weaves to the partial neglect of others. This
continuum through some fifteen to twenty centuries is remarkably stable. No
want of imagination or assiduous application to textile design was the cause.
On the contrary, the tremendous variety of design within this framework resulted
from continuous ingenuity in devising permutations of traditional ingredients.
The persistent core of aesthetic ideals seems to have been a form of Classicism
wherein canons of quality, design, and color usage were early established and
never wholly abandoned in spite of periodic mutations.
The weavers' pursuit of superlative qualities in their products was prob-
ably engendered, at least in part, by the elite class for whom they wove. A
class composed of connoisseurs who, without being practising artists themselves,
125
were yet aware of the means employed to achieve special effects and who were
quite capable of making critical judgments on the style embodied in a Iabric.
The-nature of Andean life was such that even the noble, rich, or official per-
sonages did not live in isolated unawareness of their artisans methods--par-
ticularly not those of weavers and potters.  There was not the abyss of ignor-
ance which separates consumer from producer in a modern industrial society.
Hence, one suspects, that the search for the peerless was stimulated- by a cli-
entele cognizant of the general methods of production and appreciative of the
niceties in superior fabrics. The degree of excellence reached very early in
Peruvian textile history, a few centuries before the time of Christ, intimates
that even then weavers and embroiderers were being pushed to new levels of pro-
ficiency. Regardless of the conditions of demand--forced labor or benign pat-
ronage--the response is palpable in the artistry of the fabrics from early to
late times. Interactions between weavers and patrons could have been of marr
sorts, and were sufficiently close and vital to make the textile arts a con-,
stantly dynamic factor in their culture.
Clothing and other textile appurtenances of public and private life were
important visible evidences of authority. The expediency of "keeping up appear-
ances" would consciously or unconsciously motivate the acquisition of impressive
fabrics by those who could command them.  Other potent reasons may well have
been mere habituation to luxury and a true aesthetic enjoyment of the beauty of
such possessions. Standards of the ruling class are usually emulated to what-
ever degree is possible by those of lesser ranks. Thus directly or indirectly
the general excellence of average quality Peruvian fabrics is probably attribu-
table to the extremely high standards, the absolute virtuosity, of the best.
Sumptuary laws controlling certain usages in dress and possessions, as in Incan
times, are in themselves evidence of ascending standards Sumptuary laws are
invoked to protect upper classes from imitation by the lower orders; that in
general they have been ineffectual and new devices of prestige must be sought
was probably as true in the New World as in the Old.
From the earliest known soft fiber textiles, those of twined cotton, it
is evident that the medium was recognized as having potentials for aesthetic
pleasures and communications of ideas. The designs done in twining techniques
were the forerunners of an art which, with ceramics, bore the burden of concep-
tual meanings in Peruvian civilization. Because textiles could serve many pur-
poses, were sizable, flexible, colorful, and transportable, their capacities as
symbol-bearers and eye-pleasers were more versatile than those of ceramics or
any other medium in the restricted technological stage in which the Andean area
remained up to the Spanish conquest. The head start, so to say, which textiles
had over ceramic, metal, and mural decoration may have established a lasting
priority for the textile art as the primary means of visual communication.
Interplay between textile design and religious concepts is evident in
Andean fabrics. The art style of Chavin, appearing early in ceramics, goldwork,
and architectural decoration on the north coast, and in diminution in ceramics
and gourds of the south coast, is represented on the central and south coast by
a few surviving textile examples. The dominant figure of this style was a crea-
ture with feline characteristics.  From roughly 500 B.C. to 1200 A.D. this
protean figure recurrently appears in new guises as a textile motif.   Other asso-
ciated motifs came and went in varied forms. How often these were significant
126
as religious or cult symbols and how often dissociated as purely profane decor-
ative elements cannot now be known. But in their most fully developed forms as
supernatural or "deity figures" in Chavin, Paracas, Nazca, and Tiahuanaco-Htiari
art it seems safe to assume that they carried meanings as visible manifestations
of mythological concepts.
This periodic recurrence of highly elaborated supernatural creatures im-
plies contact between textile designers and erudite persons such as priests or
sages: the former illustrating by their art the principal legendary characters
in the dogma of the latter. The weaver or embroiderer precipitated palpable
forms out of the vaporous oral traditions. Whether such visualizations served
cult propaganda, were purely devotional or liturgical in purpose, or merely ex-
pressed a fashion for mythological themes cannot be conjectured. The important
inference is this: that once the practice of illustrating myth is established
the inter-action between "verbalizers" and "visualizers" may be reciprocal.
The artist may omit details because of technical problems, or may add others
out of creative exuberance. In the absence of written records, the pictorial
form can serve as the control or authority from which the priestly-narrators
(and especially less learned viewers) draw inspiration. Eventually the verbal
formulation may be augmented or modified "to fit the picture." For example,
the feline-bird-serpent combination as a deity seems indubitably derived from
religious lore, whereas the mass of subsidiary elements composing these figures
in embroideries and tapestries are unlikely to have been fantasied item by
infinitesimal item in verbal form. But the details added in the cloth could
then be interpolated in the verbal rendition. At the same time that art--tex-
tile or other--was stabilizing and publishing myth it may have been unintention-
ally and gradually influencing the body of knowledge from whence it derived.
Such interplay is not exclusively that of textile art; wherever myth is made
manifest by god impersonation, ritual drama, and graphic media, inter-stimulus
is expectable. While a reciprocal influence cannot be proven in a prehistoric,
preliterate culture, it leaves open the probability that Peruvian textile art
Was not merely a passive recorder of ideas from the realm of cosmical knowledge.
Textile decoration of the Tiahuanaco-Huari style shows a change from pic-
torial representation of deity figures in full form to an abstract style com-
posed of shattered elements of the supernatural,  einly eyes, nose, and teeth
arranged in rectangular compartments. This disintegration of an entire; coher-
ent design into a mosaic of remnant elements is one of the most fascinating
transpositions in Andean art; although most apparent in tapestries of the
period it is paralleled by designs of contemporary ceramics. The implications
are as mysterious as they are manifold, suggesting rebellion against an imposed
style, or the opposite, continuation in covert form of prohibited motifs, or
again, just gradual deterioration .of a style on the wane. Whatever the motiva-
tion, the conversion resulted in a new sub-style, one of the handsomest in
Peruvian texti le hi story.
This discussion is not meant to imply that meaningful designs in textiles
always preceded their appearance in other media. Initial use of particular
motifs may have been in one medium or another in different times and places.
Borrowing of motifs between crafts requires adaptation to the technical limita-
tionS of the new material.  Certain florid motifs of Late Nazca ceramics have
been adapted by weavers to tapestry and interlocked warp weaves with a resultant
127
reduction and angularization of the original curves. In the case of certain
geometric patterns on ceramics these are, perhaps, too often attributed to tex-
tile sources of inspiration without sufficient proof. Mutual stimulation be-
tween craftsmen ws probably as active as that between the craftsmen and the
aristocratic consumers for whom they produced their best work. Common themes
reflect the tastes and interests prevailing at the time.
As we see Andean textiles today, the individual specimens draw admiration
for their beauty and skilfull execution. How much more impressive must such
fabrics have been in the aggregate, as worn by rulers, priests, their retinues
of retainers, acolytes, and musicians at public ceremonies. Spectators of les-
ser ranks were aware of .the refinements and values of the costumes so exhibited6
The mass effect would be one of grandeur for a 'people who were seeing the ulti-
mate in perfection of an art which was but a household skill as practised in
their own homes. As spectacular apparel, only one material could rival cloth
on such occasions--the ponchos veneered with a mosaic of feathers imported from
the eastern Andes. The sheen and color of the plumage gave these garments a
luxurious glow analogous to that of the silk and goldthread vestments amongst
.the dull wools and linens of Medieval European dress. Yet the feather-surfaced
ponchos were few and ritual in purpose, and alone could not outbalance the am-
plitude of fine cloth in costumes and accouterments of the elite class on festi-
val occasions. At public ceremonies or on pilgrimages the commonality too
presumably wore their best, good quality even though not magnificent. One sees
a mass of well-dressed people to whom cloth ies not merely a necessity but a
pride, a pleasure, and an inspiration.
From grower to spinner, from weaver to wearer, in poverty and in wealth,
in the home and in the tomb, textile materials were intermeshed with the indiv-
idtal lives and the daily habits of every Peruvian. The production of cottons,
wools, dyes, spinning and weaving equipment, and cloth itself were part of the
basic economy. Improvements in weaving techniques fusing with social develop-
ments raised artisans to specialists of professional status. As symbols of
prestige fine fabrics were as much a necessity to the aristocracy as were merely
serviceable garments to the poorest laborers. When informed with theosophic
meanings textiles were the transmittors of religious concepts. This intensive
integration with many aspects of Andean culture made textiles one of the primry
stabilizing factors in a civilization notable for its progressive conservatism
through the centuries.
Bibliographic Note
A summary article does not permit itemization of all the publications
which have contributed to its contents; grateful acknowledgment is made to their
many authors. Pertinent works of A. L. Kroeber and Lila Re O'Neale are to be
found in the excellent bibliographies of Peruvian sources appended to:
Bennett, Wendell C., and Junius B. Bird. Andean Culture History. (American
Museum of Natural History, Handbook Series No. 15, 1960.)
Mason, J. Alden. The Ancient Civilizations of Peru.    (Pelican Book A395, Pen-
guin Books, Ltd., Baltimore, 1957.)
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