Before the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniards in the 1500s, the life of an indigenous women, from birth to death, was largely occupied with the sole production of weaving garments for herself and her family, as well as ceremonial clothes for use in the temples and for tribute (Cordry 5). The most prevalent and influential aspect of women’s clothing in ancient times is the huipil, which is still prominent in Guatemalan and Mexican culture today. The present essay seeks to interpret and decipher the meaning of a contemporary huipil blouse displayed at the Penn Museum Collections, by exploring popular designs and patterns found in the ancient Maya and contemporary Maya textile representations.
Ancient Maya Huipiles
In Mesoamerica, rarely have any textiles remains been recovered, for this reason, there has been extensive research done on other artifacts that display …show more content…
Those artifacts consists of images found on relief sculptures, altars and stelae, wall paintings, small terracotta figures, and manuscripts (Holsbeke and Montoya 22). Since ancient depictions found on these artifacts portray the upper class more frequently, more is known about what the clothing elites would have worn than textiles the common people would have dressed in. However, there are still numerous depictions of huipiles, where we can learn more about the textiles, designs and the purpose of these garments.
In order to better understand the significance of the contemporary Maya huipiles, we must first acquire knowledge of the ancient textiles that gave way to this form of garment. The ancient Maya huipil is considered to be the female tunic of the Classical period (A.D. 100-900), marked as having a relatively loose fitting and untailored sleeveless garments, sewn together by rectangular units of cloths. In contrary to the contemporary hupil, ancient hupiles are often looser and go beyond the waist line, extending to ankle-length. “Huipil” comes from the Nahualt language