The Mystery of Inca Maize Belts: The Da Vinci Code Without the Murders

The Textile Arts Council presents Lynn A. Meisch, Professor of Anthropolgy, Saint Mary's College of California.

The only documented continuous Inca weaving tradition involves abstract maize-motif belts woven in the Andes of Huamachuco in northern Peru. Prof. Meisch identified these belts in 2002, and her research involved a 16th-century manuscript, French and American textiles researchers, museums, highway robbers, and the Peruvian spinners and weavers. Her talk covers the importance of maize to the Incas, the decoding of the manuscript, how local women warp and weave the belts, the challenges of doing fieldwork in this region, and the gendered significance of the belts, which have linked female fertility with maize agriculture for at least 700 years.