The costumes illustrated in the codices are rich and varied with each stratum of society governed by rules, apparently even laws as to proper dress. Basically, Pre-Columbian garments and their modern native American survivals are lengths of textiles taken from the loom and draped in different ways. Apparently there was no cutting or tailoring of garments. Many of the designs shown may have been embroidered, painted, or tie-dyed as well as woven, for it is impossible to say from their painted representations just how they were executed. Women, who are often shown in the codices weaving, used only the backstrap loom. This is a simple frame with one end tied to a tree or house support and the other end tied around the weaver's back. The tension was adjusted by the woman leaning forward or backwards. Only rather narrow textiles can be produced with this type of loom. Larger garments are fashioned by sewing two or more widths together, with or without decorated seams. Fabric woven this way is finished on all four sides, that is, it has four selvages. One of the most common male garments was the tilma, a long rectangular cloak that fell to mid-calf and was tied at the neck, often on the left side. This garment was apparently never worn by women.
Many Pre-Columbian styles have survived in modern regional Indian costumes. Women's clothes have remained more conservative, while men took up European costume, that is, a tailored shirt and trousers, more quickly. Perhaps this so because men must deal more directly with the European outsiders, while the women still remain in the home with a virtually unchanged household routine and lifestyle. Priests and administrators were anxious to cover up bodies to meet standards of Christian modesty. However, most Pre-Columbian women's costumes already met these standards. Destruction of traditional costumes also served to destroy the religion and identities of the conquered peoples. Identity as part of a small community and a larger culture is in large part expressed by dress. The serapes in this collection signify not only the fusion of Indian and Spanish ideas but also the persistence of regional identity.
To this rich prehistoric textile tradition was added that of Europe. Although no longer true today in this international age of industrialization, every region of Europe had an identifiable costume that marked the wearer as an inhabitant of a particular village. These costumes were those of the peasants, for the garments of the aristocracy have apparently always had a homogeneous international style. Today these regional costumes are reserved for national folk-life festivals. Spain, like every other European country, had identifiable regional peasant costumes. Inhabitants of the town of Salamanca were called charros. This term is also used to describe the national horseman's costume of Mexico. The outfit consists of a broad brimmed hat, a short waist-length jacket with narrow sleeves, and tight breeches (Palencia 1926),65-68). Why this name from the region of Salamanca was transferred to the national ladino costume of Mexico is unknown. Wearing blankets or cloaks were common throughout the Mediterranean world and this becomes part of the charro costume. Called the serape, it is used as a wrap or slit open and worn as a cape or poncho. Most commonly it is not worn at all but displayed neatly folded over a man's shoulder or over the back of his saddle. This serape becomes a mark of identity for the Hispanic Mexican male as surely as the huipil or certain colors and designs is that of the Indian woman. Ramon Mena (1926/1981/, 1-3) describes the derivation of the world from the Nahuatl Indian work tzalanpepechtli, tzalan meaning interwoven and pepechtli a thick, coarse, quilted cloth to hang on something. The Indians also called them tilmapepechtli; the tilma, as just mentioned, was the ancient man's cloak. The word is contracted to tzalapech, then tzalape, and finally zarape.
Naturally the full range of ancient dyes was available to Mexican weavers, and vegetal dyes such as indigo and cochineal probably were used longer in Mexico because they were grown and produced there than in other parts of the world where they were costly imports. However, the chemical or aniline dyes discovered in England in 1847 quickly spread allover the world and took over the market in all but the most primitive areas of the world. A lovely shaded type of dyeing is common in Mexican weaving. Here is a description by Elsie McDougal1 of how this shaded or ombre dyeing was done in Jalisco in 1937: "The yarn was wound in skeins; one end of each skein was looped and used as a handle and so remained white. The skein was then dipped in the blue, dyed, taken out, and dried. The dry skein partly dipped again, the handle and some of the light blue being reserved. Successive dipping produced the shaded yarn." (Start 1948, 83-84)
Weavers of serapes for the most part were Indian men working in or for small factories or workshops.
Although the serape or cloak may have developed in the 16th century, the earliest representation of a man wearing a serape is 1830. A lithograph executed in 1836 by Carlo Nebel (Sayer 1985,53) shows a wealthy landowner wearing a finely embroidered European style manga being greeted by his foreman who has a Saltillo serape rolled up behind his saddle. Thus, in spite of the time taken to weave serapes, they were not a garment of the aristocracy but of the upwardly mobile middle class. Thus the landowner identifies himself with the Old World and his foreman with the New World. Will Wroth, noted Hispanic textile scholar, says:
"While sarapes of some kind undoubtedly date from the early colonial period, those associated with Saltillo, Coahuila, cannot be dated much earlier than 1800. It appears that little sarape weaving was done in the Saltillo area prior to this date, only small-scale hacienda production mainly for the use of the workers on the hacienda. By 1810 to 1820 a small sarape-weaving industry began to develop in the area, in response to the desire to have local products made from local materials instead of continuing to pay exorbitant prices for sarapes imported from central Mexico. By the 1830s the sarape industry in Saltillo is well established and Saltillo sarapes are recognized as a superior and desirable product." (Personal communication, 1987)
Mena (1926 /1981/, 19) suggests that the serape was developed in the 19th century as part of the growth of the "fancy for horses." Pre-Columbian textiles as shown in the codices do not have any patterns resembling the Saltillo serape. Although diamonds are used as well as borders, the large central diamond or circle is un-Indian. Even early travelers to Mexico noted the oriental appearance of serapes:
Other Regions The Saltillo style spread possibly through the numerous trade fairs set up throughout Mexico (Mena, 1926 /1981/, 41-42). The style exercised a powerful influence on weaving from Guatemala to the northern Rio Grande area of New Mexico. From the Spanish settlers of New Mexico it spread to the Navajo. Indeed there is a remarkable change in the Navajo weaving from terraced running diamonds to large central diamonds with jagged zigzag edges around 1870.
The Saltillo serape style was produced also in San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato. The two regions are similar; it is not always possible to differentiate them; however, many San Miguel pieces have wide horizontal borders of stripes. One serape from the collection can be reasonably identified (by comparison with a contemporary photograph) as coming from the workshop of Diego de Sollano in the 1920s (Mena, Figure 47). Oaxaca is another weaving center and, although the design layout if similar to Saltillo, the centers are more often round and there is usually an attenuated floral or arrow-like motif extending from the central medallion. The center for serape weaving is Teotitlan del Valle where, in addition to copies of famous European paintings, copies of Navajo rug and blanket designs are now marketed and sold in the United States as Zapotec Indian weaving. Texcoco, perhaps because of the many prehistoric temples in the region, incorporates many ancient architectural designs in its serapes, most notably complex steeped frets.
It is intriguing to speculate why the serape spread so far in the New World. More than just the beauty of the design is involved. From all accounts it was an expensive, prestigious object and a symbol of the mystique of the horse and horseman, perhaps something akin to being a knight in an earlier period.
Blandford, Joanne S. "The Old Saltillo Sarape." Ethnographic Textiles of the Western Hemisphere, 1976, The Textile Museum, Washington, 271-292.
Jeter, James The Saltillo Sarape, 1978, New World Arts, Santa Barbara.
Mena, Ramon El Zarape, 1926 (1981), Monografia Nacionalista, Serie Luis Coto, Toluca, Mexico.
Palencia, Isabel de., The Regional Costume of Spain, 1926, Editorial Voluntad, S.A., Madrid.
Sayer, Chloe Costumes of Mexico, 1985, University of Texas Press, Austin.
Start, Laura E. The McDougal1 Collection of Indian Textiles from Guatemala and Mexico. Occasional Paper on Technology, 2, 1948, University of Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum.
