Textiles and Cholitas

Many indigenous women in La Paz, called cholas and cholitas, have adopted a particularly unique and now ubiquitous costume. It was originally imposed by seventeenth-century Spanish governors, but today it's a fashion, an identity and an outward display of wealth.

The women wear polleras, or gigantic petticoat skirts which emphasize the width of their hips. Over the pollera they wear lacy blouses and colorful shawls, often accented with sequins and fringe. Under the pollera they wear knee-high lace-up boots, or flat slippers. My favorite part are bowler hats, pinned at a jaunty angle over a pair of braids. It's unclear how they came into vouge. Some people say that a businessman imported too many and convinced the Cholitas that is was the latest Spanish fashion.

In general, traditional fabrics have been eschewed by indigenous women in the city as the mark of campesinas and tourist tat. However, I did meet this Cholita spinning in the street, and she told me a little bit about her trade and let me take her picture, which was a rare treat.

She was working with alpaca wool, which is prized over that sheep and llama, but below vicuña wool. She was pulling out clumps of wool, rolling them between the fingers of their right hand and on to a spindle that they keep moving with their left hand in one seamless motion. For everyday threads the spindle is spun counterclockwise. For ceremonial and special threads the spindle is spun clockwise. Eventually, she'll dye the wool with plants and minerals and weave it on a backstrap loom, as she has since she was a teenager and as her grandmothers for generations before her did.

Then she'll sell it for a fraction of what it's worth to tourists who have no idea the back-breaking, blinding work and hundreds of hours that go into their souvenirs.