The Composition and Use of Indigenous Women’s Headcloths from the Viceroyalty of Peru

Abstract: This article will discuss the composition and function of three small rectangular warp-faced headcloths woven in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by Indigenous women in the Viceroyalty of Peru (modern Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina). The compositions of these three headcloths from The Textile Museum’s diverse collection are extremely intricate and novel, departing from many previous traditions as their makers absorbed foreign silk and silver yarn into their material repertoire and took inspiration from imported fabrics. Documentary and pictorial evidence suggests that although folded headcloths were worn by Indigenous women during the time before the Spanish invasion, this particular style featuring small warp-faced woven designs was developed in the eighteenth century and became synonymous with elite Indigenous women in the popular imagination. One of their most unusual features—the creation of complementary warp (also referred to as selected warp) striped patterns with two colors almost identical in shade—suggests inspiration came from different forms of foreign cloth than those connected to the more well-known colonial Andean tapestries.