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85-159

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Po't Panel (huipil or blouse) (Kaqchikel)
Maker Once Known, Kaqchikel People (Santo Domingo Xenacoj, Guatemala)
Po't Panel (Huipil or Blouse) (20th century, pre-1970)
cotton, dye
72.0 x 119.0 cm
Gift of Clare Brett Smith and Burges Smith
85-159

This Po't panel is the weaving of a Kaqchikel woman from Santo Domingo Xenacoj. Made from two panels or webs of backstrap woven cloth in both plain weave stripes and supplementary weft brocade, this everyday huipil, or po't as they are called in Kaqchikel, could be finished by sewing the sides together, or it could be worn as is with the ends of the po't tucked into the woman's skirt. In a catalogue description of a huipil in the Brooklyn Museum's collections, curators note that
"in agricultural societies such as the Maya, clothing designs relate to the natural world and have the power to protect the wearer from supernatural harm. When opened and laid flat, the huipil design has cosmological significance: the head opening becomes the sun, surrounded by the four directions and other designs inspired by the natural world. The wearer is therefore placed at the center of the universe."
In Threads of Identity, Caroline West notes that women will also sometimes wear more than one huipil at a time, as layering options, (West 1992:55), and it is possible that this form of open sided po't is more conducive to this kind of layering function.

The panels of the po't are joined together, and the neck embellished, with a form of decorative embroidery called randa, which is a densely sewn stripe of thread (usually cotton as here, but sometimes silk). This time consuming technique is often used to join two sections of fabric, thus hiding the seam, or on the cut edge of the cloth (like the neck hole on this po't), as a method to bind the weave and prevent unraveling (West 1992: 62). In addition to this decorative band, we see quadrupedal animals in the weave. According to Thierry Gentis, HMA's Head Curator, "heraldic imagery introduced during Habsburg rule in the colonial era is a frequent source of decorative motifs in Guatemalan textiles, like lions, double headed eagles, or griffins." What do you think these animals are?