From Rebozo Shawls to Bandannas

The Reinvention of Indigenous Dress

Abstract

The article’s goal is to describe and understand women’s current dress in Zapotec communities of Oaxaca’s central valleys, among subjects who have seen their apparel and traditional tastes expropriated to exploit meanings and aesthetics that serve as social-distinction markers among other social groups. Though this has occurred in numerous indigenous communities, we know little about how female producers and users have responded to the process. An example at San Bartolomé Quialana attests to the way that community’s women—when expropriated of their traditional dress—appropriated mass-produced apparel, materials, textures and colors that have let them reinvent their clothing in line with their own meanings, aesthetics and resources. It is a community where men’s emigration to the United States has to a certain degree been associated with facilitating women’s transition to new clothing styles.