152 



CONSUMER GOODS 



Doubtless in years past cotton spinning was prac- 

 ticed in Panajachel; I do not know if any women 

 still Icnow how to do it but certainly none of them 

 practice the art. They use the whorl, however, 

 for twisting thread. Factory-spun cotton is 

 bought in skeins in the stores or markets. The 

 first task in weaving is to wind the cotton on a 

 ball, by use of a wooden winding frame that is 

 bought."^ As it is rewound, it is usually 

 ( ?) doubled ; and then it is twisted with the aid of 

 a simple spindle. This is a long and tedious 

 process. The ne.xt stage, warping, is done on a 

 wooden warping frame that is bought. Then the 

 loom is set up, and the heald prepared. The 

 woman weaves kneeling on the ground or on a mat 

 in the patio or corridor, occasionally in the house, 

 the near end of the loom fastened around her back 

 with a strap, and the far end tied to a tree or a 

 pillar of the house. Since not all women who 

 know how to weave know how to work in the 

 designs on the women's huipiles, a weaver at this 

 point in the process finds a specialist to complete 

 her huipil. The last step is to cut and sew a 

 garment that requires it. This in Panajachel 

 (where the Indians do not use sewing machines) 

 is a minor task done with a steel needle. 



Of the 133 Panajacheleno families, there are 54 

 in which women engage in textile arts besides 

 simple sewing and repairing. On 2 others I have 

 no data, but the remaining 77 apparently have no 

 women doing this work. On the "foreign" house- 

 holds my information is poorer. Besides the 

 Sololateca who spun cotton and wove, there was a 

 Jorgena weaver and a Pedrana who wove clothing 

 for herself and her family. The Totonicapdn 

 women do not weave. An Atiteca, a Sololateca, 

 and a Nahualena that we knew did not weave. 

 On most of the others of this class I have no 

 specific information; but I believe that few if any 

 of them practice these arts. 



In Panajachclefio households (which include a 

 few "foreign" women) there are 84 women and 

 girls who twist thread, sew, and weave. Their 

 age-distribution (table 59) indicates that while 

 ordinary weaving does not seem to be disappearing 

 as an art, women who know how to work figures 

 into huipiles are not being replaced as they age. 



•*' The technology of weaving in Panajachel need be discussed here only 

 insofar as it is necessary to explain the economic aspects. Textiles of Pana- 

 jachel and other communities of Guatemala were studied In 1936 for the 

 Carnegie Institution of Washington by Dr. Lila M. 0*Neale; see O'Neale, 

 1945. 



It is likely (as informants agree) that fewer women 

 than formerly practice weaving,'" since changes 

 in costume render weaving less necessary in the 

 community as a whole. At the same time, how- 

 ever, women in Santa Catarina, Solola, and Con- 

 cepci(5n "take in" Panajachel weaving. In those 

 towns, where women are far less important in 

 agriculture than in Panajachel, it is probably 

 easier for Panajachelenas to find weavers; also, it 

 may be cheaper, since the value of a woman's 

 time is almost certainly less than in Panajachel. 



The following account of costs comes from a 

 weaver who laboriously worked them out with 

 me. Although I checked the results against other 

 information, I became convinced of her accuracy 

 through the following (not isolated) instance, 

 quoted from field notes: 



With the aid of his wife, who was sitting weaving a 

 huipil, I obtained figures on the cost of making a huipil. 

 Figuring in the material, and figuring the woman's labor 

 as worth 15 cents a day — as these informants insisted — 

 I came out to some $4.68 for a completed huipil. Without 

 mentioning this sum, I asked how much the huipil would 

 sell for if occasion arose (a rarity here) and the woman 

 said $10. I tried to get her down, but she refused to come 

 lower than $9. I said "Wouldn't you sell it for $5 7" and 

 she blurted out in reply that it cost her 350 pesos to make! 

 Three hundred and fifty pesos come to $5.86, so I asked her 

 why she said that when according to our calculations the 

 total was $4.68. Then she called to my attention that we 

 had not figured the job of cutting and sewing the neckline 

 and sewing the huipil. The former is a job that only 

 experts can do, and one must not only pay the woman 50 

 cents but must ask a formal favor with a large gift of food. 

 Calculating the value of the food, and adding that and 

 50 cents to the $4.68, I came out with a total cost for the 

 huipil of $5.83 just 3 cents short of the 350 pesos that the 

 woman knew all the time! 



'"Sewing" here refers to the specialized sewing required on women's 

 huipiles, shirts, etc., not ordinary repairing. 



'" An informant, who later helped me make the census of weavers, told me 

 that "only 10 or 12 women weave their own clothes, and 3 or 4 weave for 

 others." He grossly underestimated, of course, but that emphasizes that the 

 general impression is that ''weaving is no longer practiced." 



