Textile:

Diversity of Dresses

Each Mayan community has their own dress different form the other Mayan groups. Only in Guatemala there are approximately 500 typical dresses. Women weave the dresses by hand and have in common the cotton, a strong and diverse coloring and the respective use of geometrical figures. It is usual to use waist loom, which is difficult because is necessary to keep the tension of the loom with the body so that the cloth comes smooth. Besides of the dress of daily use, they also have traditional dresses that are normally more elaborated and colorful than the others because they use them in feasts or religious celebrations, or also to dress the saints and gods.

Cosmology
Mayans believed that the moon goddesses, Ixchel, taught women to weave in the waist looms and reveled them the sacred signs that they had to use to decorate their creations. Therefore, the motives of the embroideries come form nature, universe and Mayan mythology. For example, a diamond means the universe and a snake represents the earth. A lot of communities also use special designs like weapon shields.
Frequently, the organization of all the decorative elements arises form the dreams of the weavers. It is very usual that each weaver embroiders in its work, his own style so that the craftsman can be identified and his origin town.

Products Line
The textile production has been extended to a lot of different products. Huipiles, cortes (rectangular clothes that are used as skirts), shirts, purses, knapsacks, packs, wallets, sashes, blankets, bedcovers, quilts, table linen, shawls, mufflers, bracelets, hair ribbons, etc.

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Wood Engraving :

WOOD ENGRAVING The wood engraving is an activity of the pre Hispanic epoch. It had great development since the colonial period. Today, this activity represents the second important craftsman labor, after the textile. Several different products are made.

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Ceramic:

The Guatemalan ceramic arises from the inheritance of two cultural flowing : the Mayan and the Colonial brought by Spaniards. Santa Cruz Chinautla and San Raymundo are the potter centers that continue with the Mayan tradition. The Spaniard contribution was focused in the technological introduction of lathe and the technique of the vitreous ceramic. This flowing is developed mostly in Antigua, Guatemala, Jalapa, Huehuetenango and San Miguel Totonicapan, with pieces of terra cotta painted with floral motives and other objects of daily use.

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In the jewelry business stands out the use of silver and jade . Jade is a semiprecious stone very appraised by the Mayas and you can find it, mostly, in the volcanic area of the country.

In Antigua Guatemala is usual the cutting of this stone for jewels and other ornament objects.

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Actual Mayas develop multiple craftsman expressions inherited by their ancestors, so through them they express the personality that has been making during centuries.

They also are great merchants of their products, so you will visit in a lot of villages, colorful markets and with a completely local taste, where the craftsmen sell their own creations. And, while you employ the opportunity of buying exclusive products made by hand, acute your senses so you will not lose the general movement, the word in strange languages mixed with Spanish, the cloth fabric colors and unfolded clothes, the sweet, sour or bitter smell and always clean smell of the fruits and tropical vegetables, the explosion of original forms, smells and colors of plenty of flowers, etc.

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