Maya women spend days and weeks making the beautiful textiles you see at the markets in Guatemala, however did you know how middlemen often take advantage of the women and exploit their hard work to sell to tourists at higher prices?
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When I first visited Latin America in 2018, I was fortunate enough to volunteer for a corporation which empowers Maya women through their weaving. I spent a month with Trama Textiles, which introduced me to the world of weaving, the challenges these women often face when selling their work, and how others can ensure their are supporting the women directly when making a purchase.
Maya weaving: a cultural practice to be protected
When you think of Maya women, the first thing that often comes to mind is their incredible, traditional woven clothing. This clothing generally includes a huipil (shirt with intricate details), a falda (skirt) and a cinturon (belt). Each community across the Yucatan Peninsula will have their own designs, each made from different colours, shapes, and filled with various motifs.
The process to make the huipiles can take weeks to months, dedicating hours each day sitting in front of what is known as a backstrap loom. I wrote an article on the weaving process for Trama Textiles which you can read here.
It is possible to purchase the amazing textiles made through the process online, at cooperatives or at the local mercados. They can be bought as scarves, table runners, blouses, placemats, pillows, bags… the list goes on.
However, there is a hidden exploitation of these women which often goes unnoticed by tourists wishing to own one of the amazing textiles.
Weaving as an Income Source
One of the reasons cooperatives such as Trama Textiles (in Xela) or Asociación de Artesanas de San Juan (by Lake Atitlan) have been set up is to support the economic prosperity of Maya women.
From 1960 to 1996 an armed conflict was raging in Guatemala between the government and a number of leftist groups, including the Guerrilla Army of the Poor.
The Guatemalan army targeted Mayan communities during this period as their rural locations were claimed to be “the perfect base for guerrilla operations”, and therefore a risk. Many people were killed as the army employed “scorched-earth” policies, which is exactly how it sounds. Whole villages were burnt to the ground and many people lost members of their families. The Ixil Triangle – the area between the three remote Maya towns of Santa María Nebaj, San Juan Cotzal and San Gaspar Chajul and many smaller villages – were some of the most drastically impacted communities.
Now, there is a lot of controversy within Guatemala surrounding how many people died or ‘went missing’, and what the motives were behind the targeting of remote towns, however the impact on the families who lived through those years is still evident today. During this period, many Maya people died, but the men were hit the hardest: grandfathers, fathers, brothers, and sons were lost. An estimated 200,000 people were killed during those 34 years.
Because of the armed conflict and its aftermath, Maya women often became the providers for their family. As Maya textiles are highly sought after for their beautiful and intricate designs, weaving has offered a great potential source of income. This has continued to be a source of economic empowerment for women and to help contribute to the wages previously earned by their husbands and sons.
While there are multiple places across Guatemala where tourists frequent and are looking to purchase Mayan textiles (for example the huge Mercado in Chichicastenango), not all women living in rural areas have access to these places. That may be because of distance, costs of travel, health or age related challenges, or needing to care for family and therefore are not able to travel.
Exploitation of Maya Women
And this is where middlemen have seen their chance to exploit the weavers for their own profit.
Middlemen are essentially the go-betweens between the artisan and the public. They are able to travel to these remote areas and provide the women with ease of selling their products without having to leave their homes. However this comes at a cost. The middlemen offer an incredibly low price for the weaver’s work, just enough for the women to sustain themselves and their family and agree on the price, however nowhere near as much as their pieces are valued at.
For example, we heard of many women who had sold their pieces to middlemen for as little as $5 USD. This amount is accepted due to the challenges for the women to get themselves to places where they can sell their items, level of spoken Spanish, and because of the pressure from the middlemen.
These middlemen can then take these beautiful textiles to the mercados, artisan shops or to private buyers and sell them for $50-200 USD. None of the additional profit is returned to the artisan herself.
How you can support Mayan women and purchase ethical fashion
Of course, in a story like this, it’s important to share the actions that we can take to ensure we are supporting the artisans themselves and not businesses that pay middlemen to get the products for cheaper prices.
Artisan-owned cooperatives and shops
There are many organisations and cooperatives across Guatemala who work to support the economic empowerment of Maya weavers. Each has its own approach but are centred around supporting the women to receive fair wages for their work.
Here are a list of some cooperatives who support the women in their community. They are good options of where to purchase textiles from:
- Trama Textiles in Xela/Quetzaltenango: Trama Textiles works with communities across the south-west of Guatemala. Each community will have its own representative who speaks the local Mayan language and Spanish so they can advocate for the weavers. The weavers are able to decide on the price of each product and are paid upfront. Trama Textiles also has an online shop with free shipping to the US and Canada.
- Asociación de Artesanas de San Juan, Lake Atitlan: Artesanas de San Juan is the oldest association of Maya weavers in the cultural town of San Juan la Laguna. They are an association of 25 Tzutujil weavers who live in San Juan and its aldeas (surrounding villages). Each product is the weaver’s own design, and they earn 90% of the profit from the sale. The association offers a weaving demonstration for visitors and they also support locals who act as tour guides, offering small commissions for the business they bring.
- Casa del Tejido y Tours, San Juan la Laguna, Lake Atitlan: Also based in the cultural hub of San Juan, Casa del Tejido y Tours offers a demonstration of the textile process, from creating the thread and dyeing it to the backstrap weaving. This association supports over 40 families: the women are paid 85% of the worth of their products with the other 15% going to administration and payment of staff.
- Cooperativa Utz B’atz‘ Chichicastenango: I was unable to visit here on this trip to meet the owners of the cooperative, however it is run by 10-15 Maya women who create and sell their own products. I’ve read some positive feedback so if you’re heading to Chichicastenango for the market, I would recommend visiting them near the Market Square, next to El Calvario Church (8A Calle 3-14).
Tips for purchasing at the mercados
At the mercados there are many people you can purchase from: an endless number of shops and women walking around with the textiles in bundles over their shoulders.
Often as a rule of thumb I always purchase from women, however this does not always mean they have been the artisans.
The easiest way to learn whether the money is going directly to the weavers is to have a conversation. Obviously it helps if you speak the same language, however through new translation technology you can make the conversation work.
You can ask about:
- the symbols and what they mean
- if the woman herself made it and if not who did
- how long it took to make
- who taught her to weave
- why she chose those colours
The most important thing to remember during this conversation is to have it with curiosity, it is not an interrogation! This also means you’ll have a deeper connection and understanding of your new textiles.
This is just a brief insight into tips to make sure your purchase is directly supporting the women who spend hours, days, weeks making these incredible textiles.
Additional Resources for more information on this exploitation
Below are a series of brilliant articles on the exploitation and cultural implications I found which I recommended reading:
- Recycled Huipiles?: Brenda Rosenbaum, the founder of Mayan Hands, wrote an article on the supposed “recycled huipiles”, outlining how the resellers pressure the women into selling their huipiles and how calling them “embezzled huipiles” is a more appropriate term.
- Intellectual Extractivism: The Dispossession of Maya Weaving: The Intercontinental Cry (IC) Magazine has published this brilliant piece in which explores how the exploitation and cultural appropriation of the Maya textiles is a form of intellectual property theft and is equally as dispossessive as the taking of land.
- Surrounded by Water, Drowning by Thirst: Y’abal wrote an article on how the artisans in Chichicastenango (a massive marketplace and supposed textiles hub) struggle to make a living from their work as all the stores are held by resellers.
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