Page 596 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)
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452

            TUNIC

            early  colonial Peruvian
            cotton
                    2
            92 x  81 (36 /4 x 31%]
            Museo  de América,  Madrid


            Tunics continued to be made in the early colonial
            period, often by native craftsmen weaving  tapes-
            try  on commission for the  Spaniards, who greatly
            admired the  work of Inka weavers (see A. Rowe
            1978,  6). This tunic, probably woven shortly after
            the conquest, is no longer in a pure Inka style.  It
            retains the preconquest t'oqapu waistband and the
            V-shape (awaqui)  framing the neck area, but  the
            borders of the  V section and the  lower edge are of
            a later style; some of the  t'oqapu motifs are post-
            conquest variants;  and the plant that is the  major
            design is not an Inka motif.  It has been identified
            as datura or floripondio (Datura  arbórea), a plant
            with handsome flowers that grows in the Uru-
            bamba Valley near Cuzco, among other  places,
            and is widely used as a psychoactive ritual drug
            (Cabello Carro  1989; Herrera  1941, 365).
             This tunic was collected by Joseph Dombey at
            Pachacamac, in the  Lurin Valley, south  of Lima,
            in the course of a botanical expedition to Peru in
            1777-1787. In pre-Inka times,  Pachacamac had
           been a sacred place and a pilgrimage center  with
            an important  oracle. The Inka allowed the  site to
           continue as a sacred place and built a temple to
           the sun there. Many Inka-style objects have been
           found there, including a silver figure (cat. 448) in
           this catalogue.  Pachacamac was one of the  most
           powerful  wacas (sacred places) in the  Inka empire
           (Cieza de León 1959, 334-337;  Patterson  1985).
           Its oracle was consulted even by the Inka ruler
           himself.                           E.P.B.







           453
           TUNIC

           Inka
           wool and cotton
                   5
           88x 7i.8(34 /8X28y4)
           Staatliches Museum fur  Volkerkunde,  Munich

           The word qompi was used for fine, soft  tapestry
           woven by cloistered women for religious pur-
           poses—offerings  and cult images —and for  the
           Inka ruler;  it was also woven by the wives of pro-
           vincial administrative  officials  and by men who
           specialized in weaving to meet their labor-tax
           obligation to the government.  The wefts of qompi
           are invariably of two-ply  alpaca; the warps are
           usually three-ply  dark brown or black alpaca, or

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