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Weapons of Resistance: The Material Symbolics of Postclassic Mexican Spinning and Weaving

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2019

Geoffrey G. McCafferty  and
Sharisse D. McCafferty
Geoffrey G. McCafferty*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada
Sharisse D. McCafferty
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada
*
(mccaffer@ucalgary.ca; corresponding author)
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Abstract

Material culture studies demonstrate how objects may act to communicate information regarding social identity. In this study we consider ethnohistorical, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence for Postclassic spinning and weaving as symbols relating to female ideology in ancient Mexico. We then relate a contextual interpretation of texts and images to contemporary symbolism, particularly associated with members of the female earth/fertility deity complex depicted and described in precolumbian and early colonial pictorial manuscripts. For our case study we analyze decorative imagery found on baked-clay spindle whorls from Postclassic Cholula, Mexico. This collection is representative of an iconographic system relating to female ideology. Whorls, as well as other spinning and weaving tools, paralleled male-oriented weapons to create a symbolic equivalence or, as we argue, a usurpation of the male symbols within a female worldview as a form of resistance to male domination. We conclude that the symbolic system used on spindle whorls and in other aspects of female practice created a communication network understood by Postclassic women.

Los estudios sobre la cultura material muestran cómo los objetos pueden comunicar información sobre las identidades sociales. En este trabajo consideramos evidencia etnohistórica, etnográfica y arqueológica del proceso de hilado y tejido en el Postclásico como símbolos relacionados con la ideología femenina en México antiguo. Se relaciona la interpretación contextual de textos e imágenes con el simbolismo contemporáneo, particularmente vinculado con miembros del complejo de deidades femeninas de la tierra y la fertilidad representadas en manuscritos pictóricos precolombinos y coloniales. Se utiliza a la iconografía de malacates de Cholula, México, como ejemplo de un sistema simbólico de ideología femenina. Los malacates, al igual que otras herramientas de hilado y tejido, presentan un paralelismo con armas atribuibles al hombre lo cual crea una equivalencia o, como sugerimos, una usurpación de los símbolos masculinos dentro de un cosmovisión femenina, como una forma de resistencia a la dominación masculina. Concluimos que el sistema simbólico utilizado en los malacates y otros aspectos de la práctica femenina crearon una red de comunicación entendida por las mujeres del Postclásico.

Keywords

spinning and weavingfemale symbolismCholula, Pueblaspindle whorlsethnohistoryherramientas de hilado y tejidoideología femeninaetnohistoriaCholulamalacates
Type
Article
Information
Latin American Antiquity , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 707 - 723
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology

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