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In Huamachuco, descendants of royal weavers produce beautiful, world-renowned belts and blankets.
Text: Joseph Fabish y Horacio Rodríguez
Photos: Joseph Fabish, Amadeo y Segundo Pérez
 In 1977 the only way into Tulpo, Mollepata, and Mollebamba, towns located within the boundaries of the ancient hacienda of Tulpo, was on foot or by horse. I recognized that something had happened that set these people and their blankets apart from others in Peru. The textiles around Tulpo, Mollepata, and Mollebamba were just far too different and beautiful to think otherwise. More than twenty-five years later I was to learn why.
Highland Project
The Huamachuco Textile Project was an effort by a group of experts in anthropology, history, symmetry, and other disciplines brought together to understand the blankets' history as well as analyzing other textiles collected over a period of thirty years (1977-2006). Although blankets have been woven in the Peruvian highlands for thousands of years, this tradition evolved over the last 100 years or so. Striped blankets used by the indigenous population around Huamachuco were woven on pre-Hispanic back-strap (callua) looms while banded and checkerboard patterned blankets were woven on treadle looms introduced during colonial times when obrajes (textile manufacturing centers) were established, particularly on large haciendas. In the obrajes Merino sheep, introduced by the Spanish, provided the dominant fiber used to manufacture textiles. Large herds of sheep soon replaced the native camelids of pre-Hispanic times, especially in the region around Huamachuco.
 History of a Royal Belt
The ancient lands around the Tulpo hacienda make up the blanket area. Since the time of the Inca Huayna Capac to around 1572, these lands were used as royal pastures (soto reales) for the camelids whose fleece was used to weave cumbi, mostly tapestry woven textiles for the Inca and Huamachuco nobility. There was another type of cumbi, however, that was also woven for the nobility during Inca times and used in belts. During one of her trips into the blanket area, Dr. Lynn Meisch, an Andeanologist, weaving expert and anthropologist at St. Mary's College in Moraga, California, observed that I was using a hand-woven belt to strap my sleeping bag. I had used the same belt for more than twenty-five years, not only because it was very beautiful but also because it was very different from most of the belts woven in the region.
Dr. Meisch had learned about the belts from a paper presented by Sophie Desrosiers at the Junius B. Bird Conference on Andean Textiles in 1984. Desrosiers had decrypted and interpreted coded information taken from the last page in the previously lost original (Galvin) Murúa chronicle written around the end of the 16th century. The document was a technical description on how to weave a belt used only by the coya (Inca queens and princesses) during important festivities and events. Desrosiers wove two examples of the belt but concluded that the technical description encoded by Murúa was wrong and that it was probably impossible to weave the belt described in four colors. However, the belt around my sleeping bag looked similar to the one woven by Desrosiers and described by Murúa in four colors.
The Survival of Murúa's "Chumbi Sara"
 In 2004 I, along with Horacio Rodriguez, located a belt weaver in the town of Tulpo. I showed her one of the coya belts and asked her if she knew what it was. When she said that she did Horacio began to record the interview on video. She told us that the belt was known as a "sarita" and in order to weave the belt she first had to weave a sampler because of the many sticks (24 of them) used in the manipulation of the warps in such a tiny width of 5 centimeters (using the Callua technique). After we returned to La Yeguada I informed Dr. Meisch of our findings. She was so excited by the news that we decided to return that same evening to collect more data from the belt weaver. "Sara" is the Quechua word for corn and the colors of the belt described by Desrosiers in her analysis of the Murúa document were red, yellow, purple and green.
In 2005, Dr. Meisch and I, along with Horacio Rodriguez, presented a joint paper on the coya belts, now properly named saritas. We concluded that the colours of the belt were related to those of the varieties of corn grown around Cusco. More important we concluded and proved that Murua was accurate in his technical description and that, miraculously, the sarita belt was the only documented unbroken weaving tradition to survive from Inca times.
Simultaneously, we learned that Isabel Fernandez had given a belt of similar description to Ann Rowe at the Textile Museum in Washington, D.C. She had documented textiles woven in Sincicap and San Ignacio. In San Ignacio, many women dress using an anacu (Inca woman's tunic) tied at the waist with a sarita belt. The sarita belts from San Ignacio are red, yellow, burgundy, green, and blue. During the first years of the colonial era, this hacienda, together with those of Tulpo and Yamobamba, belonged to the colonist overlord of Huamachuco, Juan de Sandoval, and his wife Florencia de Mora. Upon their death, they left the hacienda to the indigenous people, thereby ensuring that the old tradition of the saritas would be preserved down the centuries. In both haciendas, Sincicap and Tulpo, pedal looms were employed after being introduced by the Spanish everywhere from North America to Tierra del Fuego. The indigenous population around the Huamachuco region adopted these new looms and fiber, bringing them into their homes for weaving blankets, ponchos, bayeta, shawls, jerga, and other items for their own use.
 Blankets from the Royal Lands of the Inca
During the 1920s the rural inhabitants around the towns of Tulpo, Mollebamba, and Mollepata began to weave blankets using geometric designs taken from belts, including zigzags, chevrons, diamonds, and stars. Mining had an impact on the local economy and inhabitants were able to afford and purchase aniline dyes and therefore use a wider color palette when weaving blankets.
Through the 1930s these motifs began to dominate the blankets entire field.
By the 1940s side borders began to evolve using triangles and zigzags. In the late 1940s punto cruz (cross stitch) designs began to appear in blankets. Cotton also appeared, enhancing the beauty of multicolored and labor intensive textiles.
By the 1950s these side borders began to enclose the entire central field, which was filled with cross stitched and geometric designs. Pictorial blankets began to appear.
 By the 1960s all the designs which had evolved since the beginning of the twentieth century were woven into blankets as the towns and villages within the blanket area began to develop their own particular styles and design preferences and different blanket styles could be attributed to specific weavers.
By the 1970s synthetic colored fibers, although rare, began to appear in blankets. Hand-spun cotton began to be replaced by machine-spun cotton.
By the 1980s blanket weaving was a thriving activity. Nearly everyone used one or more of the blankets on their beds although manufactured blankets from the coast were gaining popularity. Many blankets were woven using cross stitched designs taken from magazines printed and published by the Rivera company.
By the late 1980s and 1990s blanket weaving nearly came to a standstill as a result of the worsening economy and the Sendero Luminoso and MRTA conflict.
By the turn of this century blanket weaving began, once again, to thrive. Some blankets were woven entirely from the synthetic fibres that had recently appeared in the area.
Huamachuco Textiles as Art
The Huamachuco blankets and sarita belts represent traditions that have been passed down since pre-Hispanic times. The traditional feathered clothing and drums used during the festival celebrated each year in Tulpo also have deep roots which are probably pre-Hispanic in origin. These and many other traditions continue to be passed down, preserving the identity of the Huamachuco culture and the region's indigenous population.
 The blankets are an example of the blending of European and Native American cultures, while the sarita belts, only woven for coyas, demonstrate a weaving technique that only the finest and most expert weavers of the Inca state would have performed. We can be certain that sarita belts were woven for the Inca and worn by queens and princesses and we suggest that it is possible that it is the descendants of these royal weavers who now make the blankets and the belts we see around Tulpo and San Ignacio to this day.
The Huamachuco blanket tradition is for Peru and South America what the highly esteemed Rio Grande and Navajo blanket traditions are to North America, where they have long been appreciated and valued. Perhaps that is why Huamachuco blankets figure in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Textile Museum of Washington D.C., the Gene Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and the Southwest Museum of Los Angeles. Undoubtedly, the sarita belts and Huamachuco blankets are among the most exceptional weavings produced in Peru today.
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