Size: undetermined or adult; probable wearer: undetermined or male. Plain weave with a vertical camelid fiber warp and camelid fiber weft. Camelid fiber embroidery. The iconography represents a bird with an animal-like head. Also see 86.224.96 in the Brooklyn Museum collection; these fragments are obviously from the same original even though acquired at different times (Ann Rowe).

This skirt was made for an adult male. The plain weave, dark blue background is woven with horizontal camelid fiber warps and camelid fiber wefts. Yellow, olive, red and dark green camelid fiber embroidery is used for the alternating colors in the border and the paired bands. Two 'sprang' ties are at each end of the skirt and terminate in long, bulky fringes. Crossed looping is employed at the edges and as the tassel holder (at the base of the fringe). The skirt is incomplete; the left and right sides have been cut but the embroidery area is complete. From Mary Frame's notes: Seven different figures alternate irregularly on the borders and in the paired bands, and it is unusual to have that many different figures represented on the same textile. They are felines and mythical figures, usually shown with a streamer emanating from each side of their heads and often ending with a trophy head being represented. The background color squares alternate regularly, and continuous color lines run on the S and Z slant diagonals. The embroidery style differs from the 3 styles described by Dwyer and Paul (linear, block color and broad line). Here the figures are presented in "silhouette" with little interior detailing other than facial features and pelt markings. One of the figures, the cat standing on two legs (a human stance), also appears on a fragment in the Brooklyn Museum collection (64.114.20).

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Size: adult; probable wearer: male. The plain weave dark blue field has a horizontal camelid fiber warp and weft. Camelid fiber embroidery in red, dark blue, yellow and green is used for the designs. The lack of any indication of borders suggests that this textile may have been used as a headdress. The abstract design represents a smaller cat in outline, which is nested within a larger elongated cat figure; the cat tails end in a distinctive triangular shape. Filler figures are small cats. Several pieces in the collection have the same feline figure on the borders (34.1555 and 34.1591). A variant of this back-to-back feline figure occurs on a mantle in the collection (34.1584), where it repeats in paired bands; however the tail terminates in the complete body of a small cat, rather than in a triangular shape. A looped headband (34.1596) also has a design which represents a similar feline figure.

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Size: adult; probable wearer: male. Plain weave, horizontal cotton warp and cotton weft. The decorative elements have been achieved through the use of camelid fiber embroidery and the crossed looping technique. This textile consists of two sides of a linear border with a fringe at the outer edge; most of the center cloth is missing. Remaining traces of the central textile are tan-colored, a somewhat unusual color for this section which usually is dark blue or green. Another textile in the museum's collection (34.1546) has a similar type of central field. The linear-style embroidery on the borders represents feline figures nested within an outline. Small felines emanate from the tail and streamers of the larger figures. Filler figures are cats and birds. The borders have a red background with the embroidered design executed in green, yellow and blue colors.

Alfred W. Jenkins Fund

Size: adult; probable wearer: male. Plain weave with horizontal camelid fiber warp, camelid fiber weft and camelid fiber embroidery. The mantle has a crimson ground with a pattern of large bird-like figures with outstretched wings repeated over the entire textile. Each corner has a black (purple) square border with fringe and one-faced crossed looping, and is embroidered using one-faced stem-stitch curvilinear embroidery to create a single bird figure. Green, yellow, blue, purple, white, khaki and pink colors are used for the figures on the borders and in the field (NK). There are four variants of the figures represented with a fifth figure type in one of the border sections. From Mary Frame's notes: The mantle does not appear to have had long borders; however, the fringe band may have originally extended across the long sides as it is cut at the relevant 4 interior points of the border squares. It is possible that the long borders were removed, or never attached. Two of the 34 bird figures in the field of the mantle are unfinished and lack hand-held ornaments, one of the figures holds only one ornament and the remaining 31 each hold two ornaments. The figure's body is bilaterally symmetrical; it is only the differing hand-held objects that make it asymmetrical. The rows and columns are arranged in translational symmetry and therefore rotational symmetry between the rows and columns. The lower right corner border contains an aberrant color block image. This figure type combines human attributes (arms and head) with the body of a bird (likely a falcon from the tail markings) shown in flight with its wings outstretched, representing the mythical transformation from human to bird. A snake-like protuberance extends from the mouth and two trophy head-like figures appear at either side of the snake. Two snakes adorn the bird's back. In the Museo Nacional de Antropologia y Arqueologia, Lima, Peru, bundle 310 contains a ponchito (41) with similar figures. This figure was called a "goat sucker" by Junius Bird, but Mary Frame refers to it as one stage in the mythical transformation from human to falcon. The mantle format, with corner blocks but no borders on the long sides, is not among the types diagrammed by Carrion-Cachet, 1931, figs. 14 and 15. It remains a possibility that its borders were carefully removed, or never attached. Two mantles in the Boston Museum of Fine Art (16.31 and 16.33) are in the same state.