sumer bites without fair compensation returning to the weavers. The controversy seems to center on which party has fundamental ownership and control of the textiles. As an attractive consumer product there are many who seek ownership in order to profit from the textiles. A fuzzy boundary exists between protection and exploitation and depends on which authority is speaking. According to Alida Boer, the founder of MARIAS (formerly MARIAS Bags), a high-fashion model and former Miss Guatemala, her company is a protector of the artistry and a purveyor of Guatemalan culture onto a world screen. She doesn’t believe that theft of designs is real and thinks selling bags with fixed artistic textiles is a way to dispense knowledge and appreciation of the culture. “This is the way to promote our culture, because honestly, I don’t think anyone is stealing anyone’s designs. I think those belong to our country in general,” said Boer. When Boer went to London in 2007 on a Miss World trip she wore a huipil gifted to her by a community member.
Alida Boer, founder of MARIAS, stands flanked by indigenous women who help her plan the designs for her handbag, scarf and belt collections.
Boer’s products range in price from $125 to $1,300 and are arranged on their website according to departments and regions of Guatemala. The website devotes a lot of copy to connecting the stories of indigenous history to the end products, including an ethno-history of the designs and their connectivity with the lexicon of the region of origin. For instance, products inspired by the textiles of Nahualá are introduced with the information that the zig-zags represent a snake or Kumat’z in the Quiche language. Such information supports ...continued page 40
“They gave me a huipil. When I took it to London every single girl was interested in it. You can see when the tourists come to Guatemala they go crazy over the textiles. We in Guatemala have so many beautiful things to show the world,” Boer said. But the indigenous feel differently. They see the designs as their own history, a tableau of history and mindfulness relating to a unique culture dating back before the Spanish conquerors.
Detail of the Rupanplato, a rhomboid-shaped symbol representing the plates of flowers offered as sacrifices to the Maya descendants.
“Our ancestral knowledge and our weavings are knit together, we want to share it with the world, but in a fair manner, with rules that are clear. That is what we indigenous women are proposing,” Aspuac said. 21