Textile Art of the Mayans

For the Mayans their process of making textiles (brocade) was scared thinking that it pleased their “gods”.

Brocade is a process of weaving intricate designs into textiles by adding colored yarn into the warp and weft of their loom.

For centuries Mayan people have used brocade to weave images of their so-called gods on to their clothes. Nowadays, they often depict the Virgin Mary and the saints on their textiles.

They also put textile patterns of different animals, plants, and objects on their textiles. Some examples of these are: flowers, diamonds, monkeys, toads, snakes, vultures, etc. In the picture at the beginning of this article is shown the pattern of a monkey.

Mayan textile art reminds me of the Romanian one. When my grandma was a girl she used to make clothes, bedsheets, and pillowcases with stitched patterns. It was used in other nations too, not only in the Mayan nation.