Myth has it that Our Mother Moon, taught the first woman how to weave at the beginning of time. Since then, mothers have taught their daughters, from generation to generation uninterruptedly for two thousand years. In addition to its important religious and social aspects, historically weaving has been central to indigenous women’s economic contribution to their households. In a traditional Inca context, when a girl is born, the midwife presents her with the different instruments of weaving one by one and she says, “Well then, little girl” “This will be your hand” “This will be your foot” “Here is your work” “With this, you’ll look for your food” “Don’t take the evil path,” “Don’t steal” “When you grow up” “Only...
Handmade is a celebration of our contemporary lives, a living culture and not part of a mass imposed, one size fits all, consumer culture where everything looks the same and is easily boxed up. Each of our #incabag items is about people and not machines. It is about the time effort that goes into each piece of work, it is about skill of each of us, the technical ingenuity of the maker, the magic of an individual's imagination. This holiday season choose handmade.
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Ushcha Baltazar, a 70 year-old man, climbs up the mountains of Chimborazo twice a week so that he can sell the 20kgs of ice blocks at the Riobamba market. This ice is used in juices. It gives them the final touch embedding them with natural flavors. It is one of the most important ingredients of the procedure. He roams down the icy mountains carrying a shovel and an ice pick that he uses to carve out the mountain ice. Indeed, it is a physically demanding job. He is now the last ice merchant in the highlands. He has been doing this job for the last 15 years of his life. Unfortunately, it will be the last year. Global warming has...
The indigenous people have been around for a long time. They dress distinctively. The women wear bright white shirts with embroidered flowers and long black skirts, multiple layers of gold beads around their necks, and their long, glossy hair wrapped with a ribbon in the back. Men wear black felt hats covering their long braided hair, wearing wool ponchos, and often with bright white pants. They both wear a sandal that looks like a flat espadrille. The people themselves are small – I am taller than almost every man here at 5’6″ – but they have broader chests that allow them to easily breathe at such a high altitude.
