My name is Delia, and I am a 37-year-old weaver from Chinchero, Peru.
My village is high in the Andes, located over one thousand feet above the Urubamba River.
The view is breathtaking, but what makes Chinchero unique is that here, even though it is now 2008, we are preserving ancient traditions.
In fact, Chinchero is just outside the city of Cuzco, which was once the center of the mighty Inca Empire.
As a traditional master weaver,
I have the privilege and responsibility of teaching my skills to the younger generation, uniting the past with the future.
In fact, I'm waiting for Carla, a neighbor's daughter, to come and take her weaving lesson.
For many women like me, weaving is not just a craft but a way of life.
Peruvian textiles have a rich history that can be traced as far back as 2500 BC, long before the Incas.
By the time of the Inca Empire, in the 1500s, hand-weaving was widely practiced, even by men.
The patterns woven into our textiles have always told stories, so our history was not just expressed orally but was also woven into cloth.
More recently our weaving tradition was sadly being lost as many village people moved to cities, seeking money and a more modern way of life.
But some, like me, have stayed in the village to keep our traditional culture alive.
In 1996 a weaving center was established here, where women, young and old, can come to learn our unique weaving skills.
It is called the Center for Traditional Textiles, and I started to work and teach here in 2000.
The mission of the center is to celebrate the history and traditions of Peruvian textiles and to educate others about them.
After the women weavers gain expertise, their work is sold at the center or at local markets.
This allows the women to gain financial independence or contribute to their family's income.
Practice is a must for good weavers, for we do not rely on fancy, high-speed machines to do the work for us.
Our tools are our fingers—mostly our thumbs—and the yarn we weave comes from either alpaca or vicuna, animals that resemble small llamas.
The alpaca are especially important to our way of life because in addition to their wool, they also supply meat, fertilizer, fuel, and leather.
When I was a child, I often tended our sheep and alpaca.
As I watched them graze, I practiced weaving jakima strips,
small pieces that all the children in my village make to practice different textile patterns.
This practice prepared me to learn more complicated patterns when I was seventeen and began my lessons with an older weaver.
Alpaca and vicuna wool can be many shades of brown, cream, and gray,
but we also dye the wool using natural sources, such as cochineal beetles, which live on prickly pear cactus.
These beetles, when dried and crushed, yield a dye that makes our yarn a brilliant color of red.
We also use eucalyptus leaves and beans to make dyes,
and the vibrant colors from these plants range from pink to different shades of brown and green.
How bright or deep the color is depends on the color of the plant and how long you leave the wool in the dye bath.
Our weavers use a backstrap loom, which is very easy to use and carry around.
Whenever I start a new textile, I make a new loom!
First, I measure out the yarn for the warp, which consists of the threads that will run lengthwise in my textile.
Then, I tie the warp to something immobile, such as a tree or a stake in the ground.
For smaller textile pieces, some women use their own bodies by stretching out a leg and tying the warp to their foot.
The other end of the warp has a strap that is tied around the weaver's waist.
Then, I interlace threads of yarn horizontally across the warp to create the pattern.
The horizontal threads are called the woof.
With all the different colors of yarn, we can make lots of patterns in our textiles.
For example, there is a very special Incan pattern called the eye,
which can be combined with other patterns to represent many things, from the burning of the sun to a gentle whirlpool in a meandering river.
Each textile tells a story about our mountains, rivers, animals, and villages—sometimes even about the weaver herself.
Because patterns and colors are chosen by the weaver to make each textile distinctive,
dark colors may mean the weaver is sad, and bright colors may reflect the happiness she felt as she was weaving.
The most important family textile is the manta, a cape that has many functions—
from hauling fruit and firewood to carrying babies on mothers' backs.
Each village has its own unique manta pattern,
so when others see you, they recognize what village you come from by the colorful design of your manta.
When I weave outside, I sit on a manta, and whatever I am weaving, whether it is a belt, a hat, or a skirt,
I put a lot of time and effort into each piece.
Market day is special for the women of Chinchero, and we like to dress in our traditional handmade clothes when we go to the market.
We wear colorful jackets, braid our hair, and wear our hats, called monteras, proudly.
In our village everyone wears a montera with a round top.
The brim of the hat curves toward its center, and inside the brim is a secret fold where we can store our money.
When a tourist stops by and purchases one of my textiles, I just pop the money into my hat!
The weaving center helps with the sale of our work, but it is up to each weaver to negotiate a price.
To be honest, I don't make a lot of money, only about three hundred dollars a year.
But I am satisfied when I see how my weaving has made someone happy.
Oh, here is Carla! Someday she will make our village proud and weave beautiful textiles that will tell the story of her generation.