Embroidery Supports a Community

Zenobia Paricela and the Cooperative of Chijnaya:  Artisian Committee of Chijnaya, Peru

The story of the village, Chijnaya, is one of loss, restoration, and of how necessity can be the foundation of great folk art. In 1963, Lake Titicaca flooded a vast portion of Peru’s high country, where hardscrabble farmers, most of them Quechuan Indians, had raised llama, sheep, and subsistence crops. With their land now under water, the people had to relocate and many moved to a new village also called Chijnaya.

There they had to find a new way of supporting themselves and, at the instigation of a local Peace Corps volunteer, some of the local children began embroidering colorful scenes on scraps of wool. Their early work was, as everyone admits, crude. But in the years since, those same children have grown into master folk artists and their embroidery has become much sought-after and the foundation of the local economy.

The Artisans Committee of Chijnaya now includes more than 100 villagers, men and women, allowing the village to be economically sustainable and, in turn, to sustain the people’s Andean identity and traditions.  President of the Artisans Committee, Ms. Zenobia Paricela will come to the Market to represent the work of the village. The funds raised will be used to pay the artists, buy materials and supplies, and provide rotating loans for community development efforts, such as animal husbandry, home improvements (including smokeless stoves), and health care (visiting nurses, medicines, and preventive care).

The Art

Handmade embroidery is one of the most enduring traditions in the Andean regions of South America and the work of the Chijnaya artisans fits neatly into that tradition. Known as bordado, the artists’ embroidery is done with hand-dyed threads from alpaca fleece sewn into bayeta or strips of sheep’s wool. The bayeta are hand-woven on looms purchased with proceeds from the cooperative’s sales. Typically, the bordado depict lively scenes of both everyday life and the festivals of the Andean region.

They provide brief narratives, done in bright colors, immortalizing the lives of the artists and of the village. They can, as one observer says, “’speak’ in place of writing, record memory and history, mark space, landscape, identity, clan affiliation, and tell stories.”