In Northern Argentina, Wichi Weavers Preserve an Ancestral Art Form

"Deep in the forest of Salta, Argentina, I watch a group of women in long floral skirts expertly wield machetes. Metal blades as long as my torso whizz through the dry air to make a clearing among the treacherous spiked palo borracho trees, and colossal cacti with finger-length needles. Slowly, methodically, they wrangle the chaguar, another perilous plant, and peel the sharp spines from its sword-shaped leaves with their bare hands."

"Using the fibers of the chaguar plant, a wild bromeliad native to Gran Chaco's semi-arid landscape, Wichí women have woven fishing nets, clothing, textiles, small bags called yikas, and even armor during periods of war for generations. They rely on techniques passed down from their ancestors, weaving textiles with symbolic patterns drawn from the flora and fauna of the forest, which carry individual and collective stories, messages, and memories."

In the forests of Salta, Argentina, Wichí women harvest chaguar by clearing dense thorny vegetation and removing spines from sword-shaped leaves by hand. The Gran Chaco region spans over 250 million acres of biodiverse forest, grasslands, savannahs, and wetlands. Using fibers from the wild bromeliad chaguar, women weave fishing nets, clothing, textiles, small bags called yikas, and armor during wartime. Weaving techniques are transmitted across generations and feature symbolic patterns inspired by local flora and fauna that encode individual and collective stories, messages, and memories. Weaving functions as nonverbal communication, creative expression, resistance, and cultural preservation. For millennia, the Wichí lived as semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers and fishermen until violent incursions began in the 1870s.

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