Tuffs and Tassles
Notes: the card table on the porch has been in disarray since the end of the strada easel contest, my cosmic seashell effort...end of September!...so, this morning I cleared away the art things, and moved the lap top out to the porch...and Maya my dog wont take here eyes off me, so anxious she is to pounce on me...and all that's near me become a chew toy...the why I have fenced her off...on her side is the bunk bed, an old side of a dog cage for a barrier on the end, supplanted by a black refrigerator, which not long ago ceased being cold--a small one now sits atop it....and the porch door is over on that side, so she's in and out all she wants...hers is the backyard and the porch...mine, sorta, discounting what my tenants have taken over, which is about everything, is the other side of the porch, which I share with another refrigerator, each to their own, and a ladder to reach Maya's side...an odd arrangement, I know...I've posted pics before...and like the rest of the house and yard, refurbishing the porch is on hold for lack of funds..."At night, it's possum time!"...told neighbor walking their husky, and they answered, "Mine has gotten three so far this year!"...lol...she's shedding, needs a flea bath, due for rabies shot, license renewal...and has the best of it...of me at least...so, it gets worse...browsing Mitla, Oaxaca, I found a clip...brb...
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54:26 screen capture
Los significados prehispanicos de la greca escalonada en los palacios de Mitla
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qdEVrLEJQw&t=7s
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It's an hour long clip...longer...and in Spanish...I 'skip read' it...moved the youtube slider red dot line thingy through the clip, trying to figure it out...and, dropped off a wan comment...comments...
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Oh, does the stepfrettriangle originate here or in Peru?...an angled row of steps, a curl, a right angled triangle...the stone motif presented at very start...it's Andean...😑
Oh...at 55:02 is comparison?...sorry, I'm skip reading/viewing...and not enough Spanish to follow narrator...who looks to be going on about the stepfrettriangle being pan- American...not many do...he has the Puma/Jaguar by the tail, I'd say...and for me a task to closer study his presentation!☺
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narrator's name is Robert Markens...and that clip is about it for things of his on the web about step frets...some papers on other subjects behind paywalls...but those pics enough of a clue, lead!...wanted to look up Zaachila...brb...
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Following the fall of Monte Alban, Zaachila became the last Zapotec capital.
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This is the legend of the Zapotec princess Donaji, the granddaughter of the Zapotec king. When she was born, the Zapotecs, established in Zaachila, were immersed in a long lasting war withe the Mixtecs, who had settled in Monte Alban after the Zapotecs abandoned the city many decades ago.
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I've posted the sad tale of the Princess before...and that her head now embellishes the Town's logo...the other step fret, from Chan Chan, I can't pin down...but thereabout are so many like it, and from the other Andean cultures too, which are posted a lot in previous post, I'm okay with not finding that particular one...there are some in the Monte Alban tombs and temples too...the step, the fret, the triangle...all of them are identical...oh, Chan Chan means Sun Sun...and a new double word for my collection of double words!...PizzaPizza!...for sometime soon the Puuc trail and the step frets...oh, almost forgot, hope I can find it again...I got to thinking how the motif got from one place to another...South America to Central America...both have really old examples...BCE...and thought, it must have been textiles...and there must have been like an Emperor, or Pope, whose regalia included the step fret, and too the chicana, the quadripartite step motif...this is really cool if I can find it again...brb...
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The iconography is based on the overlay of three different textile structures
to produce a rectangular representation module that is reiterated in almost all
of the garments. This consists of a reticulated ground weave, at the center of
which is a tapestry containing a stepped cross design surrounded by human
figures with staffs, and double circles. Appliqués of tapestry and volumetric
looped tassels and representations of different vegetables, including cotton,
maize, and tubers are also sewn onto the ground weave. Different edging and
fringes finish off the textile composition.
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at the site, the pics are much better...part of a slide show, so hard to study...that one, and the rest too, have the chacana...which is up there in Puuk Land too...these are Chimu, the occupants of Chan Chan...another caption explains those are feathers...it's just miraculous, one, for its motifs and design, and two, it has survived in such good shape...seems a shame to disturb the dead for such wonders, hopefully they haven't been denied their rest surrounded with their wonders!...oh, that one may just be tuffs and tassles...feathered ones for sometime!
:)
DavidDavid
