Woven Stories: Andean Textiles and Rituals

Andrea M. Heckman

The Quechua people of southern Peru are both agriculturalists and herders who maintain large herds of alpacas and llamas. But they are also weavers, and it is through weaving that their cultural traditions are passed down over the generations. Owing to the region's isolation, the textile symbols, forms of clothing, and technical processes remain strongly linked to the people's environment and their ancestors.

Heckman's photographs convey the warmth and vitality of the Quechua people and illustrate how the land is intricately woven into their lives and their beliefs.

Quechua weavers in the mountainous regions near Cuzco, Peru, produce certain textile forms and designs not found elsewhere in the Andes. Their textiles are a legacy of their Andean ancestors. Andrea Heckman has devoted more than twenty years to documenting and analyzing the ways Andean beliefs persist over time in visual symbols embedded in textiles and portrayed in rituals. Her primary focus is the area around the sacred peak of Ausangate, in southern Peru, some eighty-five miles southeast of the former Inca capital of Cuzco.

The core of this book is an ethnographic account of the textiles and their place in daily life that considers how the form and content of Quechua patterns and designs pass stories down and preserve traditions as well as how the ritual use of textiles sustain a sense of community and a connection to the past. Heckman concludes by assessing the influences of the global economy on indigenous Quechua, who maintain their own worldview within the larger fabric of twentieth-century cultural values and hence have survived everything from Latin American militarism to a tidal wave of post-modern change.

Winner of the Collier Prize for Still Photography from the Society for Visual Anthropology. The Collier Prize is awarded to a book or exhibition for exemplary use of still photography for research and communication of anthropological knowledge.

". . . is a nice introduction to the rural culture of the south central Andes for beginning students as well as Andean visitors who want more in depth detail than usually provided by guide books."--Choice

"Woven Stories is a testament to sight, a feast for the eyes. Andrea Heckman has created a breath-taking book through which the most casual reader will come away with new understanding of contemporary Andean textiles and a far broader vision of the cultures of the Ausangate"--The Santa Fe New Mexican

"Anyone interested in the rich textile treasures of the Andes, past and present, will find this book fascinating for its narrative style and its wealth of information."--Handwoven

"Handsomely illustrated, Woven Stories first details the history and styles of Peruvian textiles and then describes how the weavings document the lives and ceremonies of these Incan descendents."--Fiberarts

"Heckman is at her best when she escapes the constraints of acedemia and tells her stories straight from the heart-fortunately a frequent occurance. . . There is a good deal of art history and social history here, but it is the personal stories of co-op organizers . . .that make this book come alive."--Southwest BookViews

"Heckman provides a powerful ethnographic account of [Quechuan] textiles and their role in Quechua daily life, linking patterns and designs with the larger fabric of Andean society."--Midwest Book Review

"More than 100 excellent color photographs depict the textiles, the regional landscape, and its people. . . . Heckman's engaging writing style is accessible to general audiences."--Library Journal

"There seems little doubt that Heckman is correct in her central thesis of textiles as metaphors and, further, that the metaphors are in many ways alive and persistent in the identity of rural Quechua-speaking peoples. The book is certainly important to those who appreciate and value old and contemporary textiles and is an excellent example of the integration of textile research into aesthetic anthropology."--Journal of Anthropological Research

Andrea M. Heckman has a Ph.D. in Latin American Studies, focused on anthropology and art history. She is a photographer, weaver, avid trekker, lecturer, and cultural guide. She lives and teaches in Taos, New Mexico.

8.5 x 10.5 214 pages 124 color photographs, 8 halftones, 1 map