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Clothing the Body in Otherness
energy, for the impulse for such new designs or for the revival of old
ones may come in a dream, signaling the spiritual onus such a task may
carry. The work is highly honored, and according to Vera, the cloth-
ing of the saints has been preserved over the years in the houses of the
Cofradias. While the clothing of the saint or of the Virgin represents
the most sacred deployment of traje, the annual cycle of saints’ days
and fiestas gives those who throng the streets an occasion to display
best clothing as marks of distinction and status. Dressing to be seen
at the procession is an act infused with excitement and social mean-
ing. Posed against the Westernized clothing of the numerically infe-
rior but politically dominant Ladino population, “traje is animated
not only by the person wearing it[,] but women wearing traje give the
gift of presence—signaling to the world that they intend to preserve
costumbre and participate in a dynamic Maya community” (Hen-
drickson 1995 , 167 ).
While the image of the indigena dressed in traje has been carried to
the world by such ambassadors as Rigoberta Menchú and through
countless reproductions of beauty and cloth in travel brochures and
postcards, the covering of women takes place (as with the tales) within
historical trajectories and specific political contexts (Nelson 1999 , 128 –
205 ). At present, as urban Maya nationalists within the Pan-Maya
movement assert, it is more important for women to continue to wear
traditional dress than for men to do so (Warren 1998 , 108 ). This con-
tinues the trend that began with the Conquest when men abandoned
loincloths and capes for the pants of the Spanish, while the form of
women’s costume remained virtually unchanged. Over the last cen-
tury, men, as itinerant workers on the coastal plantations, were sub-
jected to increased pressure to abandon their traje when it was stig-
matized as backward and feminized. During the decades of conflict,
it was not only socially problematic but also dangerous to be marked
as a traveler on the road, outside the supporting community. And cer-
tainly in our contemporary world labor market, with anonymity re-
quired of border crossers, the pressure for young men to dress in a
mode of dominant culture–homogeneity is constant.
Against this background, the production of cloth and woven iden-
tity becomes even more highly valued for its inscription of tradition
