Andean Tapestry

Weaving Materials: Quality First

Before the arrival the Europeans, Andean tapestries were made with cotton warps and camelid fiber wefts [1]. Camelid fiber is the wool of camelids, in particular llamas, alpacas, vicunas, and guanacos. The Europeans brought sheep's wool, silk, and metallic threads. Sheep's wool was rapidly absorbed into other types of textiles, such as backstrap weaving, and was used in the obrajes in the production of cheap textiles, but remained uncommon in tapestries [1, 4]. Camelid fiber continued to be used in tapestries and was more common than wool [1]. Silk, on the other hand, seems to have been incorporated wherever it was available, and gold and silver metallic threads were incorporated "enthusiastically but sparingly" [1]. The Colonial tunic below is made of camelid fiber, silk, and silver and gold metallic threads on a cotton warp:

Sheep's wool was readily available in the Colonial Andes: as noted above, it was incorporated extensively into inexpensive textiles. Silk yarn, on the other hand, was technically illegal in Colonial America (but certainly available), and was a luxury item [1]. Why, then, was silk more readily incorporated into Colonial tapestry than sheep's wool? And why did camelid fiber, which if anything was diminished due to the search for Bezoar stones, continue to be the primary weft material? One answer lies in the properties of these materials: silk and camelid fibers form smooth, soft yarn, while sheep's wool, especially low-quality wool, is either smooth and hard or fuzzy and soft. Smooth, soft yarns are desirable for tapestry, since the smoothness yields a sharp image while the softness fills in gaps in the woven structure. Thus, in general, indigenous tapestry weavers chose quality over availability by using camelid fibers and silk rather than sheep's wool. Moreover, the partial adoption of new materials while maintaining use of indigenous materials indicates that indigenous weavers maintained ownership of the tapestry artform and incorporated new materials to the extent that they improved the final product.

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