Indigenous Clothing Research Articles

Traditional Symbols of Yoruba Pattern Designs As Insignia of Cultural Identity On Indigenous Clothing

Traditional Symbols of Yoruba Pattern Designs As Insignia of Cultural Identity On Indigenous Clothing

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ANDROID-BASED TRADITIONAL INDONESIAN CLOTHING IMAGE GUESSING GAME

In terms of cultural traditions, Indonesia is home to a wide variety of very diverse practices. As a result of different regions of the country, Indonesia is home to diverse cultural traditions. Traditional clothing is an important aspect of the Indonesian culture. The traditions and culture of each region are reflected in the clothes worn at traditional ceremonies; in addition, traditional clothing is a decisive feature of the culture of each region. Concern for the maintenance of national culture, which relates to the wearing of indigenous clothing, has been significantly reduced because of the passage of time. For example, one of the main reasons why people's interest in traditional clothing is not as strong as it used to be is because there is not enough socialization and presentation of Indonesian culture in society. The goal of this study project is to create a learning app for Android based on the guesswork of traditional Indonesian clothing. Research and Development techniques were selected as the proximity used for this investigation. Research and Development As a consequence of this research, an educational game that allows users to predict photos of traditional clothing from Indonesia will be produced on the Android platform. This game will also provide information to players about traditional musical instruments that can be found in Indonesia. It is hoped that educational video games will help in the process of exposing children to pre-existing cultures, and such games can also be seen as offering new perspectives to children. It is possible to draw the conclusion, based on the findings of tests conducted using the black box approach, that this application is capable of functioning in an appropriate way. Moreover, it can provide android smartphone customers with instructional games.

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

Iconic 21st Century Activist "T-Shirt and Tote-Bag" Combination Is Hard to Miss These Days!

The Kagan folktales in Mindanao Island of the Philippines

This study investigates Kagan folktales to understand the culture present in oral literature. It utilized a descriptive method and ethnographic process in the study design. The collected folktales mirrored the following components of culture: 1) Social practices, i.e., Rido (family rivalries), use of gong and balao (musical instruments), wedding, use of native baskets, dowry system for courtship, slavery, use of malong (indigenous clothing). 2) Economic practices, like farming, fishing, and barter trading. 3) Political practices, including Datu and Sultanate systems. 4) Religious practices. The analysis shows that the folktales reflect the life and works of the Kagan in Pantukan municipality, Davao de Oro, and Lupon municipality, Davao Oriental, of Mindanao Island of the Philippines. The cultural role of folktales is getting diluted in the Philippines. However, this study found that folktales have a serious purpose of preserving, developing, and sustaining indigenous culture for a better future. In conclusion, the Kagan and their folktales reveal the transcendence of folk beliefs, customs, and traditions to benefit their culture in an acculturated society today.

Sustainable developments and corporate social responsibility in Vietnamese fashion enterprises

PurposeThe purpose of this research is to investigate the status of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility in fashion enterprises in Vietnam.Design/methodology/approachThis paper is qualitative in nature and utilized a multiple case study approach (questionnaires and face-to-face interviews) to achieve the objectives of the research. NVivo was used to analyze the data.FindingsFindings showed that by collaborating with the local artisans to create the unique clothing lines, the fashion brands try to blend and upscale the traditional indigenous clothing styles with modern design concepts to promote the diversity of Vietnamese ethnic culture. The findings also suggest that both the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises (LEs) should maintain their corporate social responsibility (CSR) concepts to comply with the legal obligations such as salary and welfare benefits for employees, work safety, gender equality and promotions. Further, the CSR activities should address the social issues with their target stakeholders, particularly with the local communities.Originality/valueThis study sought to provide a snapshot on the current sustainable practices followed in Vietnamese fashion enterprises.

Andean clothing, gender and indigeneity in Colonial Period Latin America

Abstract The material culture approach taken in this article combines theoretical perspectives on exchange in value and the gendered body politic. This theoretical framework is applied to three elements of costume changes in the early Colonial Period (c. 1532–1825) of the Andean highlands of South America. The impact of Spanish public policies, gender roles and social ideals is examined for the maskaypacha scarlet forehead fringe, the form and decorations on male Inkan unku tunics and decorative motifs on textiles. I argue that changes in indigenous dress are largely confined to males in the early Colonial Period, which mirrors the gendered nature of the Spanish body politic. This material culture reading of indigenous clothing changes provides a useful model for analysing the gendered categories of indigenous political symbols and costumes today as well as in more recent history.

Application of Digital Teaching Materials in Art Education – Example of “Ethnic Arts Research Topics” at National Dong Hwa University

This paper focuses on the use digital teaching materials and innovative method in instruction on the anthropology of art, including the world's cultures and ethnic arts. Taking the class “Ethnic Arts Research Topics” in the master's program at National Dong Hwa University in 2009 an example, this paper examines the relationship between ethnic arts and the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and also explores the nearly-forgotten oral cultures and art traditions of non-Western ethnic groups. From a geographical perspective, research on the world's ethnic arts may focus on Europe, Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Oceania, and each of these regions has its own artistic characteristics. Research on the relationship between Taiwan’s art and culture and that of other global regions is also included in this class, which combines the research methods of art history with those of anthropology, and it is hoped that this approach will enable a new interchange platform to be established. Thinking about artifacts also leads into the complex relationship between material culture and contemporary art. At least three stages can be identified when a historical perspective is applied to non-Western art: primitive art, colonial art, and contemporary art. The class also examines the historical development of Taiwan's indigenous art, and further discusses how contemporary ethnic art is handed down from one generation to another, while adopting innovations along the way. When designing teaching materials for the class, different sessions variously included ethnographic films, exhibits of cultural artifacts, displays of music and dance ceremonies and performances, field videos and photographs, introduction to e-Museum sites and relevant films, and use of a blog to discuss visual art and images with students. In general, digital teaching materials comprised an important part of the program. In addition, students’ assignments could be completed employing multimedia methods, including use of online materials, music, film, ethnography, tourism advertisements, exhibitions, cultural performances, and interviews. With regard to visual art, it was necessary to find images connected with cultural artifacts, and then convert them to PowerPoint documents. Topics requiring use of visual art included the cultural implications of Maya stone carving, the Kingdom of Benin’s sculpture, the consumptive function of visual art of Vietnamese restaurants, and transformation of Taroko indigenous cloth weaving into a cultural innovative industry. With regard to cultural heritage, many images concerning field research and films from community websites are employed in an introductory role. Some relevant topics in the class include

Textile Commerce and Songket Creativity: The Role of Heritage Entrepreneurs in Contemporary Gold-thread Weaving in Sumatra

The weaving and marketing of “traditional textiles” today in places like Indonesia often involve not only thread markets, weavers, customers, and ritual wearers but also savvy heritage entrepreneurs who conceptualize and promote such cloths as important icons of ethnic peoplehood. This article explores the key role of such heritage entrepreneurs in the contemporary design and production of metal-thread songket textiles in Pandai Sikek, West Sumatra, and in Palembang in South Sumatra. Drawing on fieldwork interviews with indigenous cloth heritage brokers and the weavers they mentor, the article focuses on specific cloths to illuminate dimensions of songket's striking resiliency and artistic creativity today. Long a cloth of the Asian marketplace, Sumatran songket today is emerging as a textile of social class mobility, a transition yielding new weaving styles “within tradition.”

CHANGING UNIFORMS FOR CHANGING CONFLICTS?

Just as Lawrence of Arabia famously wore indigenous clothing during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, is it time for British conventional forces in Afghanistan, currently engaged in a non-conventional war, to adopt the uniform of the Afghan National Army? Dan Medina argues that despite the inevitable complications and resistance, the potential benefits of a phased uniform change are too compelling to ignore.

British Attempt at Developing Cotton as an Export Crop from Esan, Edo State, Nigeria, 1902-1925

KEYWORDS Develop; cotton; indigenous export; crop; farmer; market; colonial period ABSTRACT Cotton (G. vitifolium) was indigenous in Esan cultivated and utilized for weaving of cloth and consumption of seeds as food. It met the needs of the people throughout the pre-colonial period and by the inception of colonial rule in the first decade of the 20 th century the demand for cotton assumed a new dimension. Foreign varieties of cotton seeds were introduced by British agents while Esan farmers were encouraged to cultivate it as an export crop. As long as the new type of cotton fetched a good price in the market, Esan farmers cultivated it side by side with the local type which they used in weaving the indigenous cloth. But during World War 1, when prices of produce including cotton fell Esan farmers lost will to cultivate cotton generally as more foreign fabrics came into the markets. This position remained until the end of the colonial period despite the fertile nature of Esan land for cotton growing and British attempt at developing cotton as an export crop from the area.

Taquile: A Peruvian Tourist Island Struggling for Control

Lake Titicaca, located in the Andean altiplano at an elevation of 3,815 metres above sea level on the border between Bolivia and Peru, has become an increas ingly popular tourist destination. Visitors to the region can make excursions to various small islands that are inhabited by indigenous peoples. A sought-after and widely advertised tourist trip consists of a two-day journey by motorboat that can be booked in Puno, the largest Peruvian city on the lake's shore. Normally, the tourists who take this trip first visit the floating islands of the Uros people, which are built from totora reeds. The tourists are invited to learn about the indigenous peoples' daily lives, and to buy handicrafts. The trip then continues to the island of Amantani, where the tourists are offered a meal and a bed in the house of a local family. If they are lucky, they are allowed to dress up in local indigenous clothing and participate in a festival. The second day of the trip is spent visiting the island of Taquile. The tourists disembark at the western part of the island. Within two to two and a half hours, they are expected back at the dock, where the motorboats are waiting to take them back to Puno. During their walk on the island, the tourists face a steep climb up 538 stone steps, but their endeavours are rewarded by the magnificent view of the lake and the many Inca terraces on the island that are still used for farming. The tourists have time to eat a quick lunch and gaze at the men who are knitting while standing at the plaza dressed in their typical indigenous clothing, or perhaps visit the community store to buy the beautiful textiles for which Taquile is famous. In the debate on sustainable tourism, the need to include and involve local peo ple in the tourism development process is increasingly being recognized. This in clusion is often defined as participation in processes initiated by external institu tions such as national and regional governments or development agencies. (Mow fort and Munt 2003, 212-217). Local participation has become a new buzzword among tourism planners and scholars who intend to alleviate poverty through tour ism development. The importance of local participation is being increasingly rec ognized in the effort to make tourism sustainable and responsible. Behind this line of reasoning lies the assumption that tourism is initiated by external actors and that the local population is passively waiting until outsiders present their plans. The case of Taquile is interesting in this respect for two reasons. Firstly, Taquileans initiated development tourism on their island themselves, and, secondly, just par ticipating in tourism is not sufficient for them they strive for control. Tourism to Taquile started in 1976, at a time when backpacking tourists began to travel to South America in large numbers. In those early days especially, Ta quileans managed to control the tourist trade, and they have reaped its economic and social benefits. Besides textiles, Taquile became known for its community based development model that served as an example for development projects worldwide. However, in the 1980s and '90s, Taquileans slowly started to lose con

A Pocket Eden: Guatemalan Journals, 1873-1874

In 1853 British entrepreneur Osbert Salvin made his first journey to Guatemala. Traveling ostensibly to explore the “commercial viability of [Guatemala’s] palm-nut industry,” Osbert returned several times during the next two decades to further survey business options and to indulge his passion for exploring and studying tropical flora and fauna. In 1873 Caroline Salvin accompanied her husband to Guatemala to chronicle the region’s biological cycle for one full year. Caroline, an accomplished amateur artist, spent the year sketching what she saw while recording her thoughts and observations.A Pocket Eden is an edited compilation of Caroline’s writings and drawings. Preceding the distinguished English photographer Eadweard Muybridge by one full year, Caroline provides some of the earliest known representations of flora, fauna, and indigenous customs in Guatemala and Central America generally. A Pocket Eden “paints a remarkably fresh, perhaps classic, picture of a Victorian lady’s confrontation with colonial culture,” providing in the process a telling firsthand account of the reach of Britain’s “informal empire” (p. 13).The editors propose to allow Caroline’s diary to speak for itself, “as if Caroline Salvin herself had brought them in for publication” (p. 25). Seen through her own words, Caroline emerges as an informed observer who “nevertheless shared the perspective and prejudices of the time she lived in” (p. 23). Her description of cocoa, howler monkeys, and the vivid colors of indigenous clothing capture the essence of daily life in the tropics. She depicts Guatemala as a beautiful, exotic place where life is frequently difficult and sometimes boring but where adventurous foreigners may experience the magnificence of nature rarely experienced by the timid.Her perceptions of the people she encountered are similarly striking, and editor Fiona Mackenzie King is to be commended for leaving her narrative intact. Caroline describes the old Guatemalan women she met, calling one “so very ugly” (p. 103) and another a “devout, brown old hag” (p. 107). Her observations regarding other foreigners in Central America are similarly lively. She describes the Americans and Germans she came across in Central America as “wearingly vulgar” and “slow” (p. 137), while denouncing the “Spanish butchery of the virgins of Cuba” (p. 227).A Pocket Eden does indeed provide readers a “rare glimpse of life in nineteenth- century Guatemala” (p. 25). The decision to publish this as a bilingual text, with the Spanish and English texts on opposing pages, insures that Spanish speakers will also benefit from Caroline’s diary and art. However, the text would have benefited from more helpful explanatory introduction and notes. The book’s 20-some pages of introductory narrative and comprehensive notes do little to place Caroline’s observations in any context. For example, the Salvins passed through Panama at a time that liberalism was beginning to collapse in Colombia, yet the editor writes only that “the local insurrection . . . worried them at the time they crossed Panama” (p. 19). When Caroline writes of “Panama during the revolution” (p. 61), the reader is left wondering about the context of her comments. Elsewhere, when Caroline writes her impressions of Justo Rufino Barrios, the editor describes him in a note as “the most powerful Liberal dictator in 19th-century Central America” (p. 101). Earlier Mackenzie King had explained the relationship between liberalism and modernity (p. 15), but the connection between the two is not intuitive in Caroline’s words. What relationship existed between Barrios’s regime and the Germans, French, and Americans Caroline interacted with?A fine editorial line exists between treating these journals as if “Caroline Salvin herself had brought them in for publication” and using footnotes “to provide background information and help today’s reader understand the context in which the entries are made” (p. 23, 25); A Pocket Eden occasionally strays too far in one direction. Despite this minor and understandable shortcoming, this book provides knowledgeable readers with a valuable firsthand glimpse at life in nineteenth- century Guatemala.

Home as a Place of Exhibition and Performance: Mayan Household Transformations in Guatemala

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the town of San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Guatemala, has been incorporated into transnational movements of people, commodities, and ideas through tourism, development, and religious evangelism. The Kaqchikel Mayas living there have long looked outward from their community as they embraced, ignored, or criticized these global flows. Contemporary Kaqchikel Mayas have incorporated these global flows into the organization and maintenance of their households, while giving them local interpretation. Some families have made their homes place to enact their culture through exhibitions and performances for tourists. Such performances are indicative of the strategies increasingly used by Kaqchikel women, where the private household/ domestic sphere becomes public and also part of the global. These enactments have changed the economic and social organization of the household in terms of gender relations. (Guatemala, Kaqchikel Mayas, performance, tourism, gender, transnationalism, globalization) In 1912 article promoting tourism to Guatemalans and foreigners, San Antonio Aguas Calientes is described as one of the towns most frequently visited by tourists for its beautiful panoramas. With descriptions of clothing, occupations, and community traditions, it highlights women as an attraction by noting that when they are the street they use colorful and clean outfits. The article also calls attention to the economic links Antonecos have with Antigua and Guatemala City, where they go to buy thread for weaving and to sell produce and other items such as mats. The article encapsulates aspects of life in San Antonio Aguas Calientes which are still present; cultural and economic exchanges with tourists, economic ties outside the community, and the differences between indigenous people and Ladinos. The links to the nation-state and to global economic and cultural phenomena are further strengthened when it is recognized that San Antonio was one of the first indigenous towns in Guatemala to be missionized by Protestants. Reportedly, school was founded by U.S. missionaries in 1874 (Brown 1998:3). By 1909, the Central American Mission established permanent clinic and nurse training program (Garrard-Burnett 1998:34), and in 1917, Cameron Townsend, the founder of the Summer Institute of Linguistics/Wycliffe Bible Translators, arrived in San Antonio, where over the next twelve years he translated the First Testament into Kaqchikel Maya (Stoll 1982:33; Garrard-Burnett 1998:53). Since the beginning of the twentieth century, tourism and missionary activity have intensified. Much has been written regarding the relationship between tourism, craft production, and religion (e.g., Annis 1987; Ariel de Vidas 1995; Deitch 1989; Ehlers 1993; Garcia Canclini 1993; Nash 1993a; Stephen 1991; Tice 1995). Indeed, Kaqchikel women there are world-renowned weavers whose products are collected by American, European, and Japanese aficionados of indigenous clothing, but this article explores the use of households as sites for tourist performances. The focus on these public performances will also explain how in some households gender relations are changing. A well-known tourist destination, San Antonio Aguas Calientes is relatively prosperous town located near Antigua, Guatemala, with an indigenous population of 6,262 out of 6,740 people (Rodriguez Rouanet 1996:172). Additionally, San Antonio was one of the favored sites for development in the 1970s because for over 50 years farmers there had a reputation for being technically progressive, literate, and willing to innovate (Annis 1987:44). Although economic development projects are not as common in San Antonio as in the past, in part because it is considered to be relatively developed, educated Antonecos, as managers and caseworkers, are common presence in various development agencies operating throughout Guatemala. And farmers have not ceased being innovative, as in the case of one who turned chance meeting in Antigua with an English traveler into an opportunity to surf the Internet and gather information on making organic fertilizer with earthworms. …

Mother of Death, Mother of Rebirth

W ITHIN THE URBAN congestion of Mexico City, before a hill that was once the site of a principal pilgrimage center of the Aztec religion, stands the Basilica of Guadalupe. Enshrined in the church is a painting of the Virgin Mary, called Our Lady of Guadalupe, which has been the focus of Mexican religious life for 400 years. According to the pious tradition, this image is different from every other image of Mary because it was not made with human hands. On the hill of Tepeyac, former location of a temple to the Indian goddess Tonantzin, the Virgin Mary appeared to an Indian convert named Juan Diego in the year 1531. As a sign to the Bishop of Mexico that a church should be built on the site, Mary instructed the Indian to pick roses of Castile, which he would find growing on the December desert soil nearby and carry them to the Bishop in his tilma, a native cloak. Juan Diego did this, but when he spilled out the roses before the great Bishop in his episcopal palace in Mexico City, the real sign appeared: a full-length painting of the Virgin Mary miraculously imprinted on his tilma itself. The painting that hangs in the Basilica today is indeed painted on a course piece of indigenous cloth, six and a half feet long and three and a half feet wide, woven of fibers of the maguey plant. It shows a woman standing alone, atop a crescent moon, encircled by rays of the sun. It is widely considered among Mexicans, and by pious visitors, to be the most perfect image of Mary, since she herself painted it, and a prodigious or portentious image, a sign in which, to quote Octavio Paz, epoch and each Mexican has read his destiny (Lafaye: xix). This article explains the rise to prominence of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexican culture. First, I will show that the Virgin Mary

Indigenous Cloth Trade and Marketing in Africa

(1980). Indigenous Cloth Trade and Marketing in Africa. Textile History: Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 203-210.

Indigenous Cloth Trade and Marketing in Africa

Indigenous Cloth Trade and Marketing in Africa