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Ethnohistory 47.3-4 (2000) 836-838



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Book Review

Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador


Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador. Edited by Ann Pollard Rowe. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998. xxii + 328 pp., preface, maps, 268 black and white +16 color plates, glossary, bibliography, index. $50.00 paper.)

Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador represents the first major attempt to present the costume and textiles of a broad region since Donald and Dorothy Cordry’s Mexican Indian Costumes of 1968 (data collected and photographs taken in the 1940s and 1950s). Although Ann Pollard Rowe edited the volume, most of the text was written by Lynn A. Meisch, an anthropologist and textile specialist whose many years of research and widespread kin ties in the country were invaluable in obtaining photographs and information. Laura Miller and Rebecca Tolen also wrote substantial portions of the text in the areas of their fieldwork and expertise in the [End Page 836] central highland province of Cañar. The result is an invaluable resource for anyone doing research on the Andes, whether on textiles and costume, ethnohistory, or a myriad of other topics.

An important part of this book is its lavish illustration. Textiles, mainly in the collections of the Textile Museum of Washington, DC, are shown in excellent photographs with captions that point out the salient aspects of spinning, weaving, or design. Many garments are also shown drawn flat to demonstrate their construction. It is the ethnographic photographs, however, that really make this book so useful (and enjoyable). People are shown spinning, weaving, at work, at home, and on ritual occasions. The photographs, a large number of which were taken by Meisch, not only document the costumes but name the person(s) and often their relationships to each other and the situation (home, market, showing off new clothes for a fiesta). Meisch is open about being able to draw on the cooperation of her fictive kin in sequences, for example, of how an Otavalo woman folds the different styles of headcloth now being worn. Other photographs were taken by Earthwatch volunteers who worked on the project under the direction of Meisch and Miller or by other anthropologists working in Ecuador. The facts that individuals in the pictures are named as well as the situation noted and that each ethnographic picture notes the year it was taken make this an invaluable resource for the history of costume and for studies of culture change. The editor and the contributors are also to be commended on the large number of color plates, which add immeasurably to the effect of the book and make it easier to comprehend the effect of color in the traditional landscape.

The text is equally rich in content. Beginning with a brief description of Ecuador and its history, there is a discussion of fibers available in the past and present, of dyeing and spinning, and of loom construction. Differences in warping and in who spins (women and men) and who weaves (men) are noted. There is a very useful essay by Meisch on the effects of the 1964 agrarian reform and the formation of indigenous ethnic identity, something that is extremely useful to a consideration of costume as a visual signal of one’s affiliation. She also talks about how and when people switch ethnic affiliation by means of costume. Throughout the book the contributors are very clear about the specific effects of changing from a subsistence economy to wage labor to participation in the global economy and transnationalism on a substantial scale and its effects on life and costume.

The book is organized by province and community north to south, beginning with Otavalo (Imbabura Province) and related communities and ending with Salasaca (Loja Province). Each section contains information on fibers and spinning, and on the history, economy, and changes through [End Page 837] time in costume and its component materials. The book’s organization makes it easy to check on a given area and the inclusion of substantial data on history and costume change as well as the social and economic causes of costume...

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