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Handmade Belts from Guatemala are a Hit

Guatemalan beltThough it shouldn’t be surprising, it is, a little bit.  Our humble little handmade belts from Guatemala have been selling like hotcakes for months now.  They are colorful, versatile, and just right for oh-so many things.  Not only that, they are wonderful, traditional folk art items with a distinctive place in Guatemalan cultural history.

The ancient Mayans, whose ancestors compose a great deal of Guatemala’s current population, placed a high value on the weaving skills of their women.  Over a thousand years ago, the Mayans cultivated cotton for textile production. Vegetable dyes were concocted by the men, who also dyed the cotton fibers,  but from there the women took over. Spinning and then weaving the threads, they formed in intricate patterns on simple backstrap looms. Women of royalty were taught to a supremely high level of skill and used cotton fiber of the highest quality to create textiles of great complexity.  The peasantry did not, of course have access to the finest cottons, and the garments they made were often simpler, but in both cases the ability to weave was a measure of a woman’s worth.

Interestingly, ancient Mayan steles have been discovered by archaeologists who have identified the goddess of weaving, Ix Chel, busy at her work.  She is depicted as sitting with her backstrap loom, one end tied to a tree and the other affixed around her waist.  The Cosmic Weaver holds the shuttle in her left hand, poised to pass the warp threads through the weft, as generations of mortal women have ever since.

Today, Rosa creates our woven belts in exactly the same manner.  We have been buying her handcrafted textiles for years and always, the pride of her family, village, and culture is worked painstakingly into every piece.  We call them belts or hatbands, and in fact they can be used either way.  But that’s not all!  We have seen them affixed to mortar boards at graduations, used as trim on pants and jackets, and as curtain ties – all with great result!  They can be used to tie up packages, or to add color and Latin flair to small holiday trees and wreaths.  Though the origins of handwoven Mayan textiles go back millennia, the look is hot, hot, HOT today!

hatband from GuatemalaBlue hand-woven belt

 

Contributed by Linda for It’s Cactus


Visit Us Online!

Casey in the new retail office of It's Cactus, your online source for the finest in folkart

Casey in her new office!

It is a fait-accompli: It’s Cactus, which started out as a brick and mortar store in Carmel, CA in the early 90’s, is now online only, operating strictly out of our Salinas warehouse. In February, this was an idea, quick to gel. Today, it’s the way we roll.
Or at least we’re starting to. This has not been a small task, and there’s still a good distance to go, especially in the way of re-vamping the website. Though you will continue to have unmitigated shopping opportunity in the meantime, we are only going to get better. Coming one

day in the not-so-distant future (July, hopefully) the website conversion will be complete, with

There's lots of recycled metal in the Salinas warehouse.

It is widely suspected that there is more Haitian metal in the warehouse than there is in Haiti. Care to count?

oodles and boodles of great folk art of every stripe. From Haiti of course, with new designs and creations in wondrous array, but also a much larger presence of our folk art from Latin America. It was in the shop, and locals had access to it there, but now it will have full representation online. Equal folk art opportunity for all – how great is that?
We’re also going to have what, in the biz, is known as a responsive website. (I confess to have learned that terminology….um……recently. Like last week.) That means that our website will be easily viewed from desktop and mobile devices alike. No more pinching and widening and shifting from side to side. You’ll be able to see every page in all it’s glory, no matter how or on what you choose to view it. Now, isn’t that a wonderful thing?
We’re pretty excited about it all. The wave of retail seems to be evermore about access and evermore driven by convenience. Our aim is to be all of that, convenient and accessible on a much broader scale, yet to remain the friendly, trusted, personable – and very fun! – purveyors of folk art you’ve always known and loved. Visit us online!

 

Contributed by Linda for It’s Cactus

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