Mi Contra Fa

Incan Tunic - Completed

Well, that was an adventure.

Dyeing the Fabric

I hemmed both pieces all the way around prior to dyeing, because I had time before I could go dye shopping.  This might not have been the best idea.

The dyeing did not go as expected.  The orange piece dyed just fine.  The dark blue-black lost almost all its color after the rinse, remaining a (lovely, but not what I was looking for) dove grey.  I used enough dye for the fabric by weight, so what was the  problem?  I didn't use the Rit Dye Fixative, so maybe that was it.  I bought a bottle and did it all over again, this time in the washing machine (because my shoulder got sore from all the stirring.)

Same. Darn. Thing. Only now with a few color blotches. Sigh. I went ahead and used the grey fabric.

Sewing the Tunic

Pinning the orange "interfacing" to the longer grey "undertunic" was harder than I expected.  Here is where pre-hemming the fabric was a bad idea, as the edges did not always exactly line up. I did my best to fold and fiddle things into alignment. I sewed around the neck slit first, cut it open, flipped the orange through, and then sewed down the orange on the outside.  The neck slit wanted to rip, so I reinforced each end with some buttonhole stitch (on my machine).  I suspect on the original, this was woven in.

I turned it inside out again and sewed up one side, keeping about a 5/8" seam allowance except where I wanted the armhole to stop.  I angled out to the very edge of the fabric there. See, since the layers were already hemmed, I wouldn't be folding them under. If I'd just stopped without angling it out, there would have been a 5/8" step from the seam to the sleeve.

Turning it right-side out, I laid the yellow ribbon down along the waist at this point.  I used a commercial yellow satin ribbon, I think 1.25" wide.  Obviously not period, but I was not up for dyeing a long strip of cotton yellow just for this.

Inside out again, to sew up the other side and tuck the ribbon edges under themselves to prevent fraying.  Then, because the hem wasn't even, fold up one side so that it was.

Cats!

My wool felt arrived in time.  I blew up the image of the cat and used it as a pattern.  The yellow eyes were more of the yellow ribbon, stabilized with Wonder-Underish stuff.

The cats were all sewn together. I have lots of experience sewing felt faces, thanks to my son's insatiable need for felt plush toys!  Yellow eyes to red eyes to face; white teeth to red mouth to face.  I considered needle-felting the pieces together, but I don't have a lot of experience with that, and the examples I've seen of it didn't have crisp lines. 

Cultural Appropriation Panic!

It was at about this time that I stopped to wonder if these were jaguars.  I still don't know a lot about Incan culture, but I'm pretty sure jaguars were sacred animals.  Was I making the equivalent of priestly vestments for casual wear?

I did a quick Google search for jaguars in Incan art.  They uniformly look different, with large fangs always represented at either side of the mouth.  Plus, there are several species of smaller wildcats in South America.  The Pampas cat can have a black coloring, and its (modern) range includes the Rio Ica region where this tunic is from. 

So... okay.  I might still be doing something wrong, but at least it's not the sort of big, obvious thing.

Finishing

The only thing left was to attach the cats to the tunic.  I seem to have gotten the proportion slightly off - when I positioned the cats with their faces about the right distance apart, I had more margin by the sleeves.  I am okay with that.  One cat got sewed down.  I got impatient with the other cat and Wonder Under-ed it.

Accessories

Wikipedia and other lousy Internet sources describe the llawt'u headdress as 'cords wrapped around the head' or 'a turban.'  Most of the images on the Internet are only from the front, and show something like a wide headband. Sometimes there are ornaments at the center forehead.

I found some great pictures of Inti Raymi, a re-enactment of an Incan sun festival in Peru. While many of the photos center on the more spectacularly-dressed nobles, here are as close to some 'regular guys' as I could find. In one or two images, I thought I saw a simple tie in the back. 

I tried a Storvik llawt'u, with a red and white striped band and a drekkar ornament.  It... did not really go with the tunic. At all.  So I got a piece of trim with appropriate-ish geometric designs.  The feathers were bought for quill-making but have found new life.

Fringe at knees and/or ankles seems to be a thing in the pictures from the manuscript linked to last time. I bought some nylon fringe in red - doesn't really go with the tunic but I also wanted fringe for another project and red it is. I stripped some of the fringe from the ends of two lengths and tied them on at the knee.

Sandals were of llama rawhide. Not having any to hand, I'm substituting in a pair of Roman (?I think? Sylvanus Perrin made them ages ago) leather sandals.  I also found a pair of gold leaf-shaped earrings - big round circles would be better, but I don't have any.

 Some more resources, for future reference:

https://archive.org/details/elreinodelosinc00vegagoog

https://books.google.com/books?id=PQYQruNKzaYC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.peru.travel/en-us/what-to-do/festivities-and-events/inti-raymi.aspx

Odds and ends today

Spoon!

I thought I had lost my good wooden spoon. I bought it from a local merchant, not sure who anymore or if he even still sells.  It's based on a Coppergate, York find, and I love it.  I call it my "food shovel," and I finally understand how a spoon can be an all-purpose utensil.  I did find it, but I wondered what I would have done if I really had lost it.  So I spent about 45 min whittling down a cheapo wooden spoon from the grocery store, mostly to thin down the edges of the bowl.  For someone with no carving experience, I think it came out pretty well.

I used it to eat soup tonight, and it's not quite done.  Still a bit too thick to really get comfortably into the mouth.  But it does work.

Shoulder Sack

I have a bunch of stuff to return to people at Fall Crown, and it was looking kinda tacky in the plastic grocery bag I'd stowed it in.  So I made a shoulder sack.  Because of the size of the fabric I had, there are seams at the bottom of each satchel.  That's probably not the best design.  But all the items fit into it, it seems to settle nicely over my shoulder, so hurray!  I should try walking around a bit with it - things tend to slide off my shoulders, so I shouldn't assume it'll stay there stably.

Llawt'u

The barony is trying to get folks in livery hoods for Crown.  I want to wear my Incan tunic, so a European hood isn't going to go.  I've tried to make an Incan (male) piece of headgear called a llawt'u.  I've seen it described as "cords wound around the head" or "turban" or "headband."  The pictures look like a headband or head wrap, sometimes with a cord overtop.  High-ranking men seem to have bling sticking out of the center-front of it - and the higher the status, the more the bling.  Re-enactors dressed as plain soldiers, for example, just had two feathers.  The Emperor had big gold thingies.  Anyway, mine's made out of red and white striped fabric, and the blingie is the Storvik populace badge, backed on felt so it sticks up appropriately.

I'll have a final post on my Incan outfit in a couple days. I've ordered some (admittedly nylon) fringe for the knee ornaments.  I can't tell from the pictures I'm seeing if they were fiber or feather, but since they seemed to be on men of all ranks, I thought probably not feathers. I could definitely be wrong. (I should check the re-enactors as the solar festival...) I am not doing rawhide sandals - my Medieval Moccasins will have to do.   I will probably also skip the man-purse that seems to be a part of the outfit.  I don't have the right sort of patterned fabric - I used to, it was a souvenir from Texas that I got in 1989 or something, but I haven't seen it in years, so I assume it got de-cluttered sometime around college.  But I'll have the shoulder sack for carrying things around in.

The Fortunes of Men

"The Fortunes of Men" is a bit of gnomic wisdom in the Anglo-Saxon Maxims.  In brief: "Some people will die horrible deaths (like these); some people will have awesome lives (like these).  You get what you get and you don't get upset."  Michael Drout, of Anglo-Saxon Aloud, translated it.

For whatever reason, I decided it would make a good song. Maybe it's all the dying, just in time for Halloween?  Quite a lot of the phrases are right out of Drout's translation, but it was still some work making the meter and rhyme work.

Anyway. First draft. Syllables in (parentheses) are pickups or extra unstresses at the end of a line.  They're "good enough for folk music" but I'm still trying to clean them up.  The chorus has a tune, but not the verses yet.

The Fortunes of Men

Often it happens, a child is born
Into his mother’s fair arms
Teach him and tame him until the time comes
Trying to keep him from harm
Clothe him in colors, and care for him well
While at your full breast he clings
Nobody knows while the young child grows
Exactly what winter will bring

Chorus:
These are the fortunes of men, of men
These are the fortunes of men
Some are raised high, and some are cast low, and
Death comes for all in the end

Hoary-heath stepper, the wilding wolf
One man will kill and will eat;
Hunger another fells, mother will mourn
Son had no meat nor no wheat;
Loss of the light of the eyes for this one,
Feet which are lamed for that man;
One in the war in a red pool of gore
Dies for his lord’s last command

Featherless, falling from treetop on high
He seems to play in the air
Spirit departs, goes away from this world
(When he) falls on the tree roots all bare;
Wolf-head another, his misery cold
Treading an alien track
Friendless is he, has no lord to provide
(No) brother he has at his back

Bloody bone-coffin all broken on gal(lows)
Raven takes eyes from his head;
One at the mead-bench, he’s slain by a sword
Wine-words he should not have said
Steward serves the mead, and a man drinks his fill
Drinks it again and again
(Men) call him self-killer, his mouth slurred with drink
Angers his lord, is condemned.

Not all men’s lives are all toil and pain
Given to some is great good
Mead-cups and treasures, his wealth beyond mea(sure)
Hall made of stout and strong wood;
Battle-fame loud, or a master of war
Skill with the sword or the bow
Talent for table-games, played in the hall
Winning the dice with a throw

Wonder-gift given to goldsmith the skilled
Maker of glittering bands
Often he ornaments mail-coats of kings
Kings give him prizes and lands
Falconer trains the hawk proud on his hand
Slaughterer-sparrow he tames
Does on the jesses and feeds him in fet(ters)
Princes will give him word-fame

One man amuses his brothers at board
Brings to men cheer at their beer
At the lord’s feet, the old wise harper sits
Nails on the strings ringing clear
Song leaping out for the men in the hall
Tales given tongue when he speaks
(Of) all of these fortunes that someone might find
This is the fortune I seek

Incan tunic

Goal: A low-fidelity reproduction of a 15th-17th cen. Incan tunic.  Part of an effort to bring diversity to A&S. Also fun for Halloween.

Background: All the information I have directly about this tunic comes from its webpage at the Met. I've downloaded two of the three exhibition guides mentioned, but none of them have any more information on it - just a picture and the snips of info already given. It's cotton and camelid wool.  Other tunics in the same style in the Met collection are camelid wool only, with patterns woven into them.  The look like they're one piece - taken off the loom and worn, like a lot of very early European styles.  I don't think that's true of this one, though.  Looking at the right side of the picture, where the yellow band is - it seems to clearly overlay itself. It couldn't do that if it were part of the weaving.  There's also a hint of blue underneath the orange layer, showing at the arm hole. I'm not sure if that's an artifact of the picture, or if this is a blue tunic with an orange overlay, with the yellow band covering the seam.  The orange also seems to gather into the yellow band at the left side.  Again, might be because it's a 600-year old shirt.  But I'm tentatively thinking this is two pieces, joined at the middle with the seam covered. 

This is a men's tunic.  The Met has two women's dresses (one) (two).  This is from Dress One's page:

Women's wraparound dresses, made in the Andes of southern Peru during late preconquest centuries, were worn pinned at one shoulder and held in place by a wide belt. Basically such dresses when worn were large rectangles that were folded over at the top to form a kind of wide collar or double bodice. Those with panels of an intricately repeated pattern top and bottom, such as this example that is folded over at the top, were carefully balanced visually, the wide panels effectively framing the ordered diagonal elements in the center. Consistant with the Chuquibamba textile style, this dress is thought to have been woven in the southern Andean region near Arequipa, and to have been contemporary with Inca textiles that were made within a similar highland textile tradition. It was a tradition based on the use of camelid hair, here probably alpaca, with a design program of small scale repeated elements, and strong color of closely related hue. Two shades of red, a dark blue, and a dark green, were used here, all of which are well set off by a gleaming white.

The Chuquibamba textile style has only recently been distinguished from the larger body of Inca work, and women's dresses isolated from among other large rectangular pieces that have been called mantles.

Random Internet Sources have said the dresses pinned on both shoulders, like peplos.  I could see either being worn, to be honest.  The one near-contemporary image I've found of a woman in a dress without a mantle is in profile and only shows one shoulder:

This is from El primer nueva crónica y buen gobierno (The First New Chronicle and Good Government).  The whole thing, all 1200 pages of it, is available online, with transcriptions of the text that Google Translate kinda sorta works on.  Guaman Poma, the author, was a Quechua noble, writing in the early 17th century (the book was finished around 1615). He wrote and illustrated the book, which contains a biblical history, then a history of the Incan peoples before the Spanish came, and then chronicles their mistreatment by the Spanish. He sent it to the Spanish king to protest their treatment.  It is a handwritten manuscript, but Poma followed the typesetting conventions of his day (including the black and white pictures) in the hopes that the manuscript would be published.  It was not, and it somehow ended up in the Danish Royal Library, where it was found in the early 20th century.

Most of the pictures of women in the book are of queens.  They are just about always (so far - I'm only 400 pages in) shown with a mantle pinned over the top of the dress:

When drawn from the front like this, the dress is consistently rendered with those two lines near either side, as if showing the fabric overlapping or perhaps seams.  When shown from the side, these aren't evident. 

On the other hand, the drawing style is clearly heavily influenced by European models.  Some of the dogs and critters wouldn't look out of place in an average 13th-14th century bit of marginalia.  Drapery (like skirts) looks a lot like illuminations in European manuscripts.

All of that is a lead-up to say that I don't think the cat tunic would make a good dress.  The design and decoration of ladies' dresses appears to be very different from men's tunics.

Methods and Materials:

The cat tunic measures 31" wide by 41.5" long.  My plan is to make it slightly wider (because I am fat) and a smidge longer (so it reaches about to my knees).  I'd feel comfortable wearing that in mixed company.

I am assuming (the Met gives no detail, and my email has gone unanswered) that the tunic is cotton and the confronted cats are camelid wool felt.  Their other tunics are wool, but this one is also from the Rio Ica area.  This is near the coast, where Random Internet Sources say that cotton was more often worn. This sort of makes sense - it's cold in the Andes mountains, not so much on the Pacific coast.  And felt cut-outs wouldn't fray.  Also, I don't want to wear wool next to my skin.

I am not sure if I want one large blue tunic with orange on top, or two pieces sewn together to make one layer.  Given that it can get chilly in October... maybe a full blue tunic would be better.

I have a high thread count white cotton sheet that has a luster similar to that seen in the picture of the tunic.  I don't know what the weave ought to be, but the image of the backstrap weaver seems to show four shed bars, so a twill isn't out of the question.  I bought some Rit dye in orange and indigo to dye it.  For the yellow, I got a 1" yellow synthetic satin ribbon.  I've ordered black, red and white wool felt for the cats, crossing my fingers it gets here ahead of Harvest Wars.  I think their yellow eyes will be made from the ribbon too.

My plan is:

• Today, cut out the full tunic and the top overlay.  Weigh them, wash them, dye them, rinse them, dry them.
• Hem blue fabric all the way around.
• Sew orange to blue like the world's largest interfacing around the neck slit.
• Turn right sides out; press orange seam allowances under.  Sew orange onto blue.  (I may need to get orange thread.)
• Apply ribbon over join on either side.
• Wait for felt to come in the mail. Stress.  Print out a template for the cats, enlarge.
• Cut out felt cats, stitch together (probably by hand).  Stitch to tunic.
• Stitch up sides to tunic to at least the yellow ribbon, possibly higher for modesty reasons.