Andamarcan Textiles

Book excerpt: Distinct from all textiles in South America, with brilliant colors, varied motifs and patterns, and fine weaving, the textiles woven in and around the ancient lands of Andamarca located in the Huamachuco region of northern Peru represent an unbroken elite weaving tradition directly descended from the Incas.This remote area of the Andean highlands was designated by the Incas as a royal elite weaving community. Miraculously, its weaving traditions survived through the Spanish Colonial period to the present. Indeed, waistbands still woven today and referred to locally as "sara" belts are identical in pattern and colors found in a weaving code for a waist or head band described in a 16th Century Spanish Chronicle written by Martin de Murúa. Our interpretation is that this was made for the sole use of the Inca Queen, the Coya, and/or closely related princesses.Using ethnographic data collected through interviews with the indigenous population, blankets, waistbands, and to a lesser extent other cultural and ritualistic objects, are described and analyzed. A detailed, novel, and rigorous symmetry analysis is used to identify characteristics, patterns, evolution, references, style, motifs, and age.