WEAVING FOR THEIR ANCESTORS

For 1,000 years, the Paracas people of Peru expressed their vivid conception of life and death through textiles

- Roger Atwood

DRY, DESOLATE, AND NEARLY uninhabited, the Paracas Peninsula juts into the Pacific Ocean on Peru’s south coast. Since at least the nineteenth century, the peninsula has been known as the site of ancient tombs, and looters would pillage its graves and sell the dusty textiles they unearthed to antiquities dealers. But when Peruvian archaeologist Julio C. Tello began excavations there in 1925, he was nevertheless astonished by what he found. Digging in places the looters had missed, in an area known as Cerro Colorado, Tello turned up two huge groups of graves. One group, which he called Cavernas because its long underground passageways resembled caves, contained mummies wrapped in earth-colored weavings surrounded by hundreds of ceramic jars decorated with animal forms. In the other, located about a mile away, which he called the Necropolis, there were few ceramics, but hundreds of vibrantly colored weavings made of vicuña and llama wool, cotton, tropical bird feathers, and human hair. Some textiles featured flying humanoids clutching knives, grinning as snakes crawled out of their mouths. Others depicted bird and fish deities, flowers, and bold, abstract patterns, or men in fanciful headdresses and tunics holding decapitated heads by their hair. A few were as large as dining room tables.