Inca Clothing

The inca clothing had very few simple shapes but a large relevance for the incas society; The clothing during the inca empire define from where you are, what status you have and what do you do for living; The clothing was made mainly of cotton and llama wool, for special clothing it was use wool of Viscachas (rodents of the chinchilla family), alpacas, vicuñas and even human hair.

All the production of the inca clothing was responsibility of the inca government, the incas create houses call Acllahuasi, where the Tanticamayoc was the responsible of dyeing the wool with natural dyes; The dyes were made of plants, animals, insects and minerals; Then the Cumbicamayoc, who was the responsible of the textile productions, organize a group of women call Mamacunas or Acllas, ordering to them what kind of textiles has to be made, what quality has to have and for who it will be made for.

The mamacunas were the core of the inca clothing production during the inca time; This women were selected while they were young from all status of the society, because her beauty, her intelligence or any other reason that make her special; Then they were taken into the Acllahuasi or house of the chosen, the girls stay there doing textiles, cooking and preparing alcoholics drinks for life; When the girls grow into women, they were offered as wifes to inca generals and in rare occasions they were use as sacrifice for the inca god Wiracocha.

The inca clothing was made with a waist loom, it was hang from the wall and put in tension with the weight of the body; The incas had three types of textiles: First the Cosi, it was simple, with no special decoration, mainly use for blankets; Second the Auasca, it was the common textile to produce clothing for daily use, it has to contain the colors, style and images proper from the person that will use it.

The final type of textile was the Cumbi, this textile was use specifically to create inca clothing for authorities, royal family, priests and for the inca king; The Unku, was the basic standard shape of clothing for man and women, it was a robe with a rectangular shape, with a hole on the center top for the head, two holes left and right for the arms, no sleeves, until the knees and made of two pieces of textile that were sew on the sides.

The special unkus made with the cumbi textiles were call Tocapus; Each tocapu contains complex ideograms, with geometrical images, inside square areas, similar to a chess board, that explain the genealogy of the ancestors of the man that use it; Some tocapus contain more that 200 fibers per square inch, compare with the average 85 fibers per square inch in Europe and Asia, qualify the inca tocapus, as the most perfect textiles ever been made.

The inca clothing had a religious, social and military relevance: For example, priestess use fine textiles as sacrifice for the gods because the tocapus had more value than anything, the most important gifts for anyone was to be given clothing; The kids ones they became youngsters, they were given special clothing that represents their status in the community, ones a new culture was added to the empire, the inca king show up among that community using the clothing from that culture, showing respect for them.

The concept of inca clothing goes beyond our understating, because investigators believe that the tocapus were a type of writing with inca symbols, the sad thing is that all this knowledge is lost; Textiles had such importance among the incas society, that in the case of an inevitable invasion by the enemy, the most important thing to do was to burn the textiles, because it was believe that if your enemy has your clothing, he can kill you using magical spells.

The greatest achievement of the inca clothing was to communicate in one look, who is the person in front of you, from where he came from, what he does for living, what position he has in the society, etc; The inca textiles were an element of social meaning, hierarchy and membership of the community, the incas master the textile technics, by collecting knowledge of many cultures during centuries, giving us such beautiful textile legacy.

See Inca Clothing Tours

Do you have
any Questions?
Ask Me!

Anonymous Chat