Woven From the Past

2 enero 2010, Arequipa

A few days ago, we visited a wonderful little, two room museum which shares a building with the community offices of Yanahuara on the opposite side of the plaza from Iglesia San Juan Batista. The museum features artifacts from the Pre-Inca Chiribaya culture which flourished between 800-1250 AD, in the Ilo Valley of Southern Peru. At its height it may have covered an area of 25-30 thousand square kilometers (10-12 thousand square miles). They were the most significant grouping in the south coastal region of Peru and had settlements as far inland as present-day Arequipa, about 80 kilometers (50 miles).

The Chiribaya emerged as the Tiahuanaco culture, 200BC-1200AD, centered in the southern shores of Lago Titicaca, was dissolving and the Huari (Wari) concentrated in the central highlands of Peru—southeast of Lima and west of Cuzco—was withdrawing.

The Tiahuanaco is renowned for the agricultural practices at high altitude. Their primary city was at 3850 meters (12,600 feet). They created raised fields, 10 meters wide, with canals running along side. During the day the sun heated the water in the canals, and at night the water radiated its warmth protecting the crops from frost. Experiments revealed that the crops grown, potatoes, Andean tubers and grains, produced seven times higher than the average yield.

The Chiribaya copied this technique in its areas of settlement, and especially in river valleys on an extremely dry coast. Along with their highly productive agriculture they were well advanced in the technology they used for fishing. They crafted copper fishing hooks and harpoons, had arrowheads of quartz, and stone fishing weights. They also crafted rafts for ocean fishing.

Their beautiful ceramics usually had a geometric motif and can usually be recognized by the use of white dots to delineate borders between colors.

Chiribaya textiles are made of vegetable fibers, cotton, and wool from llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas. They used the natural colors of the fibers and variety of pigments from stone, soil, and plants to create the colors in the textiles. The designs, geometric, anthropomorphic, and zoomorphic are brilliant, and the quality of the weave rivals any textiles I have seen.