The textiles from Guatemala are of great artistic quality—true works of art. The Mayas used toothpicks to draw and dyed them with their special pigments that to this day keep their colors as brilliantly alive as they were in the clothes of the period before the discovery of America.

Upon their arrival, the Spaniards took note of the textiles of the Aboriginal people. What they realized was that the people of each region had their own unique designs.

The Spaniards took advantage of this for census purposes and for tax collection. However, our people used their colors and designs to send messages from one place to another—each color, figure, and symbol had a meaning. Studying what is left of them now is like having an open window into the history of the country.

This is why we had such a variety of costumes and colors. Many have not survived—for instance there are few examples of male clothing left and the women’s clothing from the municipality of Mixco no longer exists. This is, of course, very unfortunate.

What is perhaps even worse is that we have not been able to protect our designs under intellectual property laws or even simply patent them.

As a result, China has been able to take our ancient and elaborate designs and reproduce them on a computer. as well as implements of stones and beads mostacilla etc, the trajes made in sticks are real jewelry art that has been months of making each piece, in San Antonio Aguas Calientes Sacatepequez were declared Cultural Heritage as good.

Today there are hardly any places where the public can see early or even current examples of this Maya heritage work made by hand by Mayas: the cost and competition are driving this Guatemalan artisan-based work into extinction.

And while there are some examples of costumes that no longer exist in Guatemala at the National Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology in Guatemala City, there are some designs, such as the Chichicastenango’s men’s suit exhibited there, for which no one has been able to decipher its historical symbology and message.