Vintage Guna Yala Mola Textile Art (Panama)

Vintage Original Hand-made Guna / Kuna Mola Textile Art (Guna Yala, Panama) | An original Guna Yala hand stitched 2-layered Mola depicting 4 spread winged birds, 1968 | Framed | Approx. Size: 26.5" W x 24.5 H x 2" D.

Notes
The Mola or Molas is a hand-made textile that forms part of the traditional women's clothing of the indigenous Guna people from Panamá, Central America, and Colombia, South America. The full costume includes a patterned wrapped skirt (saburet), a red and yellow headscarf (musue), arm and leg beads (wini), a gold nose ring (olasu) and earrings in addition to the mola blouse (dulemor). In Dulegaya, the Guna's native language, "mola" means "shirt" or "clothing". The mola originated with the tradition of Guna women painting their bodies with geometric designs, using available natural colors; in later years these same designs were woven in cotton, and later still, sewn using cloth bought from the European settlers of Panamá. Guna Yala, formerly known as San Blas, is a comarca indígena (indigenous province) in northeast Panama (Official Gazette of Panama). Guna Yala is home to the indigenous people known as the Gunas. Its capital is El Porvenir. It is bounded on the north by the Caribbean Sea, on the south by the Darién Province and Emberá-Wounaan, on the east by Colombia, and on the west by the province of Colón.