The women in Guatemala often use raw cotton when weaving textiles. They must first prepare the cotton by picking out the seeds, cleaning it, and then beating it with forked sticks. Then they can spin it into yarn and dye the threads with natural dyes: indigo to produce blue colors, cochineal for red, etc.
Lidia Lopez describing the meanings of the patterns on a huipil from Patzicia, Guatemala.
Lidia Lopez showing a ceremonial huipil and a huipil from Tactic and telling the meanings of the patterns on them.
This is Lidia Lopez, a native Mayan woman from Guatemala, showing some of the textiles she has woven on a backstrap loom.
The Guatemalan woman in this photo is making thread from cotton.
Guatemala is known for fine sweet breads and other baked goods.
The Guatemalan women in this photo are wearing folded up ‘tzutes’ on their heads to shade their faces.