Bolivian Textiles

During the Incan period, the most skillful weavers in the “Ajllay Wasi” temples produced the finest handmade textiles and tapestries for their idols, the Incan emperor and Incan nobles. In Sucre, “Ajllay Wasi” promotes Bolivian indigenous art displaying and selling a wide selection of the highest quality textiles. In this way it benefits and encourages rural textile art production.

In the Tarabuco region textile production continues to enrich and maintain the cultural identity of its inhabitants. The weaver, using the “pallai” technique, creates varied designs, organized in orderly and symmetrical patterns. She combines geometric symbols, animals from her environment, everyday life scenes, fiestas and important religious and pagan celebrations in perfect gradations of colors.

During the Incan period, the “Cumbicamayos” were male artisans devoted to the production of fine tapestry for rituals, the Incan emperor and nobles. The colorful tapestry of the Tarabuco region has recently been expanded using designs similar to the ones used by the female artisans. They display scenes of everyday life and fiestas such as Carnival with the traditional “pucara” arch.

Cultural inheritance and the “pallai” technique – in combination with the weavers ability and incredible imagination – allowed the various anthropomorphic and zoomorphic designs in the Jalq'a textiles to be both amazing and frightening. Mythical and pre-Colombian designs merge, both abstract and full of movement, creating disorder and emerging en masse on black, red, green, orange, pink and blue, typical colors of Jalq'a textiles.

During the Incan period, the “Cumbicamayos” were male artisans devoted to the production of fine tapestry for rituals, the Incan emperor and nobles. The use of tapestry, so extensive in the past, is again an important activity in the Jalq'a communities. Contemporary male artisans often inspired by the designs and symbolism of female artisans – create their own style, in particular a larger combination of colors.

Textile art is one of the mos creative, representative and prevalent autochthonous expressions in the Andean world. For over 3000 years the ethnic groups of what is now the Bolivian territory produced a wide variety of textiles showing techniques, designs and dies, that together or apart, are still visible indicators of regional identity.