 |
|
| Language Group: |
K'iche' |
| Department: |
Sololá |
| Elevation: |
2,467m |
Patron Saint &
Festival Day: |
Santa Catalina de Alejandra -
November 24 |
| Market Days: |
Thursday and Sunday |
|
|
Nahualá is located 19 miles from Sololá on the Pan American highway. Principal economic underpinnings are represented by agriculture and textile production. Other Nahualá products are grinding stones (metates), foot-loomed commercial-grade jaspe fabric and wooden masks, figures and furniture. Notable also are the many different styles of huipiles that are currently in use.
 |
|
The most popular huipil is made of three lienzos (panels), includes the "woven floor mat" design in the center, and the feathered serpent motif spanning the shoulders. Another style of daily use huipil features large stylized animal or human figures. Yet another three-lienzo huipil features the double-headed eagle motif in the central panel. Adorned with pink ribbons and a double-headed eagle motif in the central panel, it is used as a ceremonial cofradía huipil. The simplest daily use huipil is constructed of 2 lienzos of plain white backstrap woven cloth and is simply decorated with a single color randa. Huipiles from Nahualá are long and worn inside the skirt. |
A practice unique to Nahualá is to intentionally let threads bleed onto the white base fabric. The custom dates back to the use of silk threads, a high cost "status" material whose colors ran. Brocading is now done with cotton, acrylic or rayon, which could easily be purchased colorfast, but some women prefer the smears of color that result from the un-fixed threads and may even blot on extra dye to heighten the effect. Aldeas of Nahualá and nearby Santa Catarina Ixtahuacán, as well as coastal migratory agricultural settlements, wear variations of Nahualá traje.
Women wear a foot-loomed blue corte that is joined with a multi-colored randa (decorative seam) and features widely and irregularly spaced white pinstripes.
A broad faja (sash) is backstrap woven with colorful supplementary weft brocade at both ends on a blue base with narrow red or magenta warp stripes.
Ixcaco cotton stripes are often combined with other colors in the original women's baby carriers and utility cloths. A modern version uses bright acrylic threads. The women's cofradia tzutes, decorated with large brocaded animal figures, are either worn folded on the head or wrapped around the neck inside the huipil. |
|
 |
 |
|
A significant number of men still wear the traditional traje that consists of backstrap-woven short pants, shirt (distinguished by elaborate supplementary weft patterning on the collar and cuffs), a rodillera (wool kilt), belt and sometimes a long wool over-shirt. The faja is brocaded at the ends with double-headed bird motifs framed by zigzag "feathered serpent" figures. The men's ceremonial shoulder tzute, constructed of a single rectangular panel with fringes, features animal figures. Cofradía members also use a large white two-panel head tzute with the double-headed bird motif in the center. |
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'
Type mismatch
/pagestructure/itemstablesql.txt, line 18 |