Costume and History in Highland Ecuador

by Rowe, Ann Pollard; Meisch, Lynn A.; Austin, Suzanne (CON); Bruhns, Karen Olsen (CON); Rappaport, Joanne (CON)

• ISBN13: 9780292725911
• ISBN10: 0292725914
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Texas Pr

Summary

The traditional costumes worn by people in the Andes--women's woolen skirts, men's ponchos, woven belts, and white felt hats--instantly identify them as natives of the region and serve as revealing markers of ethnicity, social class, gender, age, and so on. Because costume expresses so much, scholars study it to learn how the indigenous people of the Andes have identified themselves over time, as well as how others have identified and influenced them. Costume and History in Highland Ecuador assembles for the first time for any Andean country the evidence for indigenous costume from the entire chronological range of prehistory and history. The contributors glean a remarkable amount of information from pre-Hispanic ceramics and textile tools, archaeological textiles from the Inca empire in Peru, written accounts from the colonial period, nineteenth-century European-style pictorial representations, and twentieth-century textiles in museum collections. Their findings reveal that several garments introduced by the Incas, including men's tunics and women's wrapped dresses, shawls, and belts, had a remarkable longevity. They also demonstrate that the hybrid poncho from Chile and the rebozo from Mexico diffused in South America during the colonial period, and that the development of the rebozo in particular was more interesting and complex than has previously been suggested. The adoption of Spanish garments such as the pollera (skirt) and man's shirt were also less straightforward and of more recent vintage than might be expected.

Author Biography

Ann Pollard Rowe was Curator of Western Hemisphere Textiles at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C., for most of her career and is presently Research Associate of Western Hemisphere Textiles there. She also edited and contributed to Costume and Identity in Highland Ecuador, which examines contemporary costume, and Weaving and Dyeing in Highland Ecuador, which investigates textile techniques and production. Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Series in Latin American and Latino Art and Culture

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xv
Introduction	p. 1
Ecuador before the Incas
The Geography of Ecuador	p. 11
An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ecuador	p. 13
Costume in Ecuador before the Incas	p. 22
Evidence for Pre-Inca Textiles	p. 49
Ecuador under the Inca Empire
The Incas in Quito	p. 70
Costume under the Inca Empire	p. 84
Ecuador under the Spanish Empire
An Introduction to the History of Colonial Ecuador	p. 96
Colonial Costume	p. 104
Historical Developments in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Ecuador	p. 111
Carchi Province (Ecuador) and the Department of Nariño (Colombia)	p. 119
Costume in Imbabura Province
Otavalo	p. 130
Natabuela	p. 156
Eastern Imbabura and Northeastern Pichincha Provinces	p. 164
Costume in Southern Pichincha Province	p. 169
Costume in Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, and Bolívar Provinces	p. 224
Costume in Chimborazo and Cañar Provinces	p. 243
Azuay Province
The Cholos of Azuay: Historical Introduction	p. 270
Historic Costume in Azuay	p. 279
Saraguro Costume in Loja Province	p. 297
Conclusions	p. 309
Notes	p. 315
Glossary	p. 331
References Cited	p. 337
Contributors	p. 367
Index	p. 369
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