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CHAPTER 4: Belts with Supplementary-Warp Patterning
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CHAPTER 4 Belts with Supplementary-Warp Patterning Introduction ann p. rowe It is startling how similar the belts woven with supplementary -warp patterning are throughout highland Ecuador, not only in their structure but also in color and design motifs. Indeed, this type of belt is one of the unifying elements of highland Ecuadorian weaving. Yet, we found the numberof different techniques employed to produce them equally remarkable. It certainly appears that weavers in each area improvised their own methods to create a similar finished product. These belts are woven in Carchi, Imbabura, Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Chimborazo , and Loja provinces and before 1950 were also produced in Pichincha province (Stübel and Reiss 1888: pls. 14, 15, 17; Beals 1966: 65, 78). In southern Colombia, the indigenous people in the department of Nariño (example acquired by Joanne Rappaport in Cumbal in the late 1980s), as well as the Sibundoy (Cardale Schrimpff 1977: 45) and Páez (Nachtigall 1955: Abb. 189, 190), make similar belts. Chachis (Cayapa) fabrics from Ecuador’s western lowland forest in Esmeraldas province are also patterned in this manner (Barrett 1925: pt. II, 261–262, pls. CXII–CXV; A. Rowe 1977: 39, fig. 37). The structure is a warp-predominant plain weave with two ground-warp yarns alternating with one supplementary-warp yarn (Fig. 4.1). The supplementary -warp yarns often simply float over design areas on the front and behind background areas on the back. Larger solid designs may have the supplementary-warp yarns interlacing regularly over three weft yarns (forming a three-span float) and under one, with the floats commonly aligned in alternate pairs (Fig. 4.1). In larger background areas, there are often similar three-span floats on the back of the belt. In weaving, the supplementary-warp yarns are normally controlled separately from the ground-warp yarns. Varia- 108 Weaving and Dyeing in Highland Ecuador 4.1 Detail of a belt in white cotton plain weave with blue acrylic supplementarywarp patterning. Left, the front; right, the back. Otavalo area, Imbabura province. Width: 5 centimeters (2 inches). The Textile Museum 1986.19.24, Latin American Research Fund. tions, such as using two colors of supplementary warp in some Salasaca belts or areas of supplementary weft in Natabuela belts, are unusual. The plain-weave ground is almost always white cotton, and the supplementary -warp yarns are colored, formerly of wool, but since the 1970s mostly acrylic. There are side borders in plain weave without supplementary-warp yarns. These borders are predominantly white cotton but have some colored [54.198.146.224] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 09:47 GMT) Belts with Supplementary-Warp Patterning 109 warp stripes that match or harmonize with the supplementary-warp yarns. In the central design area, horizontal bars of supplementary warp passing over one, three, five, or seven weft yarns separate the geometric and animal motifs. Although there is nothing complex about it, the weave is actually rare among pre-Hispanic Peruvian textiles and has not been found, to date, among the few available pre-Hispanic Ecuadorian remains. The only postconquest examples known in the Andes outside of Ecuador and southern Colombia are a group of nineteenth-century ponchos from southern Peru and northern Bolivia made from strips that lack the end selvedges normally produced on indigenous styles of loom (A. Rowe 1977: 40, fig. 38). The belt style is definitely not Inca (cf. A. Rowe 1997). It may be native to Ecuador or it may be an innovation dating to the Spanish occupation. In either case, it is likely that its present wide distribution is at least partly the result of population movements or trade during the colonial period. As noted, the weaving process has many variations. For weaving belts with hand-picked patterns, we recorded six ways to set up the loom for handling the supplementary-warp yarns. For weaving belts with loom-controlled designs , there are further variations. Although we have fewer data on warping, this process appears to be equally variable. For example, sometimes all crosses needed for the weaving are warped and sometimes not. The methods of setting up the loom for hand-picked patterns can be divided into two groups: thosewhere the ground-warp sheds are made using one heddle rod plus the front part of the cruzera (or shed rod), and those where the ground-warp sheds are made using two heddle rods. The methods of setting up the loom for loom-controlled patterns fall into both of these groups. In the...