Friday, April 19, 2013

Threads of Identity: Contemporary Maya Textiles


Maya peoples of Guatemala and southeastern Mexico are renowned for their time-honored tradition of magnificent attire. Today’s repertoire of Maya traditional clothing, called traje, developed primarily during the Colonial Period (1521-1821 C.E.) as a forced adoption of European dress. Today’s fashions, as adaptations of imposed, foreign modes to indigenous couture, are testimony to Maya perseverance in spite of hundreds of years of colonization, enslavement and genocide. [i]Threads of Identity: Contemporary Maya Textiles[/i], now on view at The Mint Museum, is dedicated to these historically rich and visually stunning garments. This exhibition features fashions of the Kaqchikel, Ixil, K’iche’, Mam, Tz’utujil, Chuj, Awakatek, Jakaltek and Poqomchi’ from Guatemala, and Tzotzil and Tzeltal from Chiapas, Mexico.






Information and images courtesy of The Mint Museum


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