Indigenous women’s hand spinning wool in the Ecuadorian highlands

PI: Lorena Isabel Toro-Mayorga
Collaborators: Mónica Alexandra Acosta-Torres, Cenia Córdova, and Dayana Carmen Mayorga-Paredes
Project ID: 2022SG16 | Location of Research: Imbabura and Tungurahua provinces, Ecuador
Host Institution: Universidad Técnica del Norte

The Ecuadorian highlands, like other high-altitude places in the Andean region, still preserve small spaces where practices anchored to the pre-Hispanic cultural heritage endure. This project documented the experience of the hand-spinning processes in two provinces of Ecuador, Imbabura, and Tungurahua, between 2023 and 2024.

This work aims to portray Indigenous women as protagonists of the art of spinning, a practice that was frequent until the last decades of the 20th century and at the same time enormously invisible and undervalued. The dataset shows the different phases of hand spinning, which go from sheep husbandry, shearing, washing, cleaning, teasing, carding, and spinning to obtain different types of yarn, known as shayuk and mini.

Spinning is practiced during everyday activities in various settings, such as in transit, on land plots, while running small businesses, in markets, on the street, or on the sidewalk. The resulting wool yarn has different styles and thicknesses, showing imperfections and irregularities when touched. Moreover, the wool yarn can hold a particular smell and texture that does not resemble industrialized products used for weaving. In Ecuador, the mastery of the women who whirl the siksi [spindle] to spin the wool fleece skillfully arranged in the wanku [bundle] may seem simple. However, producing a ball of yarn involves a complex process in which the boundaries between work, family, and affection become blurred.  In this sense, manual skills transcend the dimensions of the mind and the body, the subject-object duality, and the opposition between the traditional and the modern. The assets of this project show that the experiences of Indigenous women are heavily influenced by the social history of their environments, showing the similarities and differences among cultural practices in the Ecuadorian highlands.

Methodology

The methodology for ethnographic work began with the inclusion of two PI’s former students. Both are self- identified as Indigenous Kichwa speakers who graduated from the host institution, Universidad Técnica del Norte. Following the contact with the first informants, the snowball selection technique was used to include those participants who voluntarily and enthusiastically wanted to collaborate on the project. A key item that the project proposed was to recognition of the time and willingness of the collaborators through delivery of a small stipend once the work sessions were over.

The host institution facilitated the money from the grant that allowed the team and equipment to safely travel to the near rural communities in Imbabura and to the distant locations in Tungurahua. Data was collected during four field trips. The first field trip was carried out in the province of Imbabura in the months of July and August 2023. The second and third field trips were carried out in the province of Tungurahua, located 6 hours away from Ibarra, where the host institution is based, during October and November 2023 to the communities of the Salasaka people. A fourth field trip was carried out in the province of Imbabura in March 2024. All files were stored simultaneously in three locations: the external drive, the IP’s personal iCloud account, and one iMac computer at the University.

Fieldwork became progressively interesting as the team discovered native terms, both for the process of spinning wool and for the materials and instruments. It was a firsthand experience in the generation of knowledge that until then it was very superficial for the researchers. As the field work progressed, they noticed that the spinning process consisted of different stages, including sheep husbandry. The book created as a result of the fieldwork illustrates these emerging topics.

Selected Assets

The following cover the primary steps of the practice from wool collection to garment completion.

Acknowledgements

The EMKP thanks all the informants of this project for their genuine interest in contributing to the dissemination of heritage practices, knowledge, and memories. Special thanks to the indigenous students Cenia Córdova and Verónica Farinango and to Cecilia Pichamba for opening the doors to conversations with women from Imbabura and Tungurahua. Thanks to informants Martha Masaquiza, Flor María Masaquiza and Juanita Jerez. Thanks to the to the Research Vice-cancellor, the budget officers, and to the FECYT Dean at Universidad Técnica del Norte.