Abstract
Both Mayan and Eastern European textiles, and especially women’s garments worn close to the body, contain an elaborated sacred code of symbols that reflect their vision of the universe, with a woman at its center. Both cultural traditions embodied in symbolic diagrams contain remnants of the quadripartite and the tripartite images of the world with the woman’s womb/fertile field and its four corners, as well as the three vertical dimensions of the heavens, the visible sky/earth, and the underworld. On contemporary embroidered Carpathian Hutsul blouses, the most important spatial arrangement is tripartite vertical, but remnants of the rhomboid composition can be observed in the front-central, most important portion of blouse, which is embroidered in the form of a rectangle. Moreover, the sleeves are always divided into three distinct vertical parts, as on the Tripolye-Cucuteni Neolithic ritual vessels. The Mayan huipil is woven in the form of a square, rectangle, or cross with an opening in the middle. It is usually formed by three pieces of cloth arranged vertically, and the horizontal design is tripartite as well. Taking into consideration that in Mesoamerican cosmovision temporal currents begin at the four directional trees, we can understand how not only spatiality, but also temporality is included in this garment’s design. Thus, the huipil is a sacred text that synthetizes the Middle American concept of the earth and the universe with its three levels and four directions, as well as the passage of time, and corresponds to the image of the Middle American cosmos.
Presenters
Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz PeralbaProfessor, Modern Languages and Literatures, University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Religious Commonalities and Differences
KEYWORDS
Mesoamerican, Mayan, Eastern European, Hutsul, Ancient, Cosmology, Designs, Symbolism, Huipil
