It's a rainy day and I am supposed to be cleaning up the bills, paperwork and the house. This was in our recent 'Panama papers'. It's an interesting article on molas and the Kuna Indians./drf
Textile Art of The Cuna Indians - - - Molas
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR; AN
INTERNATIONAL DAILY NEWSPAPER; MONDAY, MARCH 9, 1992; THE ARTS; By David Clark Scott. Staff writer of
The Christian Science Monitor: PANAMA
CITY
THE queen of mola marketing is undoubtedly Flory Saltzman. This diminutive, brash
Jewish grandmother has probably the biggest collection of new and used molas for
sale in Panama.
And if you don't know a mola from a
Monet, be warned: Everyone who crosses the
threshold of her shop outside the
Panama Hotel takes "the
test."
Flory grabs your elbow, tosses two molas
on the linoleum floor, and demands,
"Which are you going to choose?"
You
hesitantly point to the design on the left. "Ha! Wrong!" she says
delightedly for probably the
10,000th time.
"Ladies
underwear. See? There are six pairs," says Flory, using a walking stick to tap the
garments hidden in the design.
"You want ladies underwear on your wall? Of course you don't. You should
have chosen this turtle. That you can put on your wall and be happy." she
states firmly.
Flory recalls a stubborn European tourist
who declined her lesson. "He did not want to listen. He wanted to be ignorant.
I'm telling him: 'I pay the rent, I
do the talking.' "
Between
educating customers in her own
sledge-hammer style, Flory bargains
with a non-stop stream of Cuna Indians who arrive to sell the unique carvings in cloth.
But
the fact that she buys almost
everything means the Cunas know they can rely on her when they
need funds.
Molas
are created by Panama's
indigenous Cunas, who number some
40,000. Most live on the San Bias
archipelago running along the Caribbean
side of Panama.
The term "mola" refers to the
multilayered, hand-stitched panel (about 13 by 16 inches) of cotton cloth worn
by Cuna women on the front and back of their
blouses. It's believed the mola
evolved from a Cuna tradition of
body painting, which became cloth painting, and then
sewing of decorative belts.
Today's
mola style came into being about 125 to 150 years ago, according to Captain Kit
S. Kapp, who studied the Cuna
culture for more than a decade and wrote the
book "Mola Art from the San Bias Islands."
Each
mola panel is comprised of two to
seven layers of different colored cloth. Made almost exclusively by Cuna women, the
average contains three or four layers basted together.
Designs are usually sketched out first with pencil and then
snipped out layer by layer, exposing the
different colors. The rough edges of the
cloth are turned under and hemmed to the
next layer of cloth, concealing the
stitches. Additional detailed decorative stitching, such as animal claws or
cat's whiskers, is more common today
than a few decades ago.
The
motifs are primarily zoological or related to Cuna religious beliefs. Molas
showing everything from water
demons, medicine men, celestial objects, crabs, ducks, and butterflies were
recently displayed by Cunas hawking their
work at Stevens Circle,
a market area near the Panama Canal Zone.
But
molas also reflect what's happening in Panama. Some
of them depict aircraft, trademarks
(such as the RCA Victor dog), and
astrological signs. Political views and historical events can also be traced
through molas. At Flory's shop one can find molas dedicated to the invasion by the
United States:
"Operacion Causa Justa -20 Dec. 1989."
Flory Saltzman deplores what she calls
"tourist molas," which are bold, bright-colored, geometric designs that look like "comic books." Until educated, "that's the kind of molas people think they want. And the
Cunas will make what sells," she says.
Attempts
have been made to increase mola production with sewing machines and therefore provide a better income
for the Cunas, Flory's approach is
to take "good" molas and make them
more marketable by repackaging.
For
example, she will stitch together a
dozen mola panels of similar style to create a wall hanging or a quilt. The feisty marketeer
hopes that by continuing to educate mola buyers, she can slow the adulteration of a "dying art."
A NOTE FROM FLORY
"MOLAS"
"Molas"
are a a wonderful brightly-colored artistic expression designed and handmade by
Cuna Indians even today. They consist basically in a number of different colors
of pieces of cloth laid one top of the
other, the
maker then cutting down through the layers forming primitive and ingenuous designs
of natural figures, and mythological or geometric
concepts, and then sewing the layers with incredibly small and perfect
stitches.
"Mola"
means blouse, and a Cuna woman
always makes a pair with related though, not identical themes
which she then wears, one to form the back and the
other the
front of her blouse. They usually measure 16x13 inches each.
Different,
attractive, decorative, ingenious, unique, are some
of the ways to describe this art of
great beauty and mysterious origin.
Tel.:
(507) 223-6963
In
Front of Entrance Hotel El Panama
Frente
a la Entrada del Hotel El Panama
Via
Venetto, Via Espana
E-mail:
info@florymola.com
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