Americas - RAMM

Highlights from this collection include a very fine 18th century Nuu-chah-nulth whalebone club, which was collected at Nootka Sound. There is also contemporary traditional costume from Guatemala and Oaxaca, Mexico.

The Latin American textile collection also includes a late 18th century leather coat from Mexico, which is colonial-styled and embroidered with silk thread. The Amazon material includes an early bird’s wing bone apron and an Achuar feather work tunic from Ecuador.

Woven textiles from Oaxaca, Mexico and the highlands of Guatemala have come to Exeter through a number of recent donations. Certainly most of this material was made by women using a traditional backstrap loom. This old tradition continues today as a means of generating income and as a means to promote a cultural identity.

One notable item is a Mixtec wrap-around skirt that incorporates hiladillo, or cochineal-dyed silk, a dark blue cotton dyed with indigo and a lilac cotton that was dyed using the secretion of a shellfish (purpura). This is harder to obtain than the conventional modern dyes are so easy to obtain in the markets.

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  Mixtec wrap around skirt
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  Amusgo huipil
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  Tzotzil rebozo
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  Trique huipil