Textiles and Natural Pigments in the Mayan Commerce.

Trade is one of the most important socio-economic activities in the life of ancient and contemporary Mesoamerican peoples.

This immense cultural manifestation has been studied intensely from the moment that the academic interest, of the different Mesoamerican schools of archeology and anthropology, for the abandoned cities deep in the jungle and the different ethnic groups remaining from the great pre-Columbian civilizations arose.

Many commercial products have been identified throughout decades of study of Mayan art in archaeological sites, standing out among all those goods trade objects, cocoa, jaguar skins, quetzal feathers, ceramics, obsidian, jade stone, hallucinogenics, shells and many other goods.

Above all I would like to point out in the vital importance of textile and natural pigments, being one of the important reasons for the commercial relationship between the Mayan highlands and lowlands.

Each of the cultural regions of the Mesoamerican area is distinguished mainly by its environmental characteristics and that is why mention is made of the Maya highlands and lowlands.

The highlands simply are higher comparative altitudes and their landscape is mountainous, sometimes exceeding forty-five hundred feet above sea level. While the lowlands are the plains of northern Guatemala and southern Mexico that hardly exceed fifteen hundred feet above sea level.

As the agricultural production is varied in the different regions, the commercial activity had to be intense and generate an enormous amount of work for the different societies of the past in Mesoamerica.

Not all people had access to commercial goods such as cocoa, jade or quetzal feathers or jaguar skins and it is very difficult for these goods to be considered as indispensable for daily life in the community. But clothing, the raw material for making textiles, was a much needed commodity in any of the civilized regions of Mesoamerica.

Cotton was cultivated in Mesoamerica before the arrival of the Spaniards and was one of the raw materials in the elaboration of the garments of the Mayan communities

The indigenous communities of the highlands of Guatemala, mainly, still know the techniques for making natural pigments to dye their cotton threads that they themselves grow, even in the patio of the house

Using bark from neighboring forests, fruits, seeds and minerals of vulcanic origin and with an intensive production of vegetable fibers such as cotton, Mayan producers met the demand of the different sectors and social classes of cities and towns.

Large merchant caravans left from the highlands to the lowlands and vice versa to trade their products. Some of the villages on that road had specialized in weaving, others in making the dyes, others in cultivating the plants to obtain the fibers and at the end of the day the traveling merchants had acquired enough quality goods to visit the markets of the big cities.

To this day Guatemala is recognized in the world market for its great textile production. In the last decade, large groups of indigenous weavers have been formed to satisfy the demand of large national and international companies that use indigenous fabrics to make fashionable clothes.

The important thing of all this is to show that for three thousand years the custom of the Mesoamerican peoples is still preserved and it is even possible to visit the local women who still dedicate themselves to the production of pigments and raw materials for textiles in the kitchen of their house.

Before and today the greatest exponents of Mayan textile art are women. Evidence of this ancient tradition are the murals of Calakmul, a classic archaeological site (A.D. 200 - 900) in the Maya lowlands of southeastern Mexico.

Photographs of this publication were taken in the workshop of pigments, threads and textiles of Doña Cristina (her kitchen actually) on the southern shore of Lake Atitlan in the town of San Pedro la Laguna. Solola.

Last picture taken from: Blog of the SIBARIS group. 

In order to ilustrate about textiles of the clasic Maya peoples.

Reseñas de gastronomía, turismo y eventos; 

La Gastronomía impresa en los Murales de Calakmul. 

https://sibaris.com.mx

eliasalvatierra@yahoo.com.mx

Ecology and archaeology tour guide.