Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Cecilia Vicuña, from "Word & Thread," trans. Rosa Alcalá


To speak is to thread and the thread weaves the
     world.

*

In the Andes, the language itself, Quechua, is a
     cord of twisted straw,
two people making love, different fibers united.
To weave a design is pallay, to raise the fibers,
     to pick them up.
To read in Latin is legere, to pick up.
The weaver is both weaving and writing a text
that the community can read.
An ancient textile is an alphabet of knots, colors
     and directions
that we can no longer read.
Today the weaving no only "represent," they
     themselves are
one of the being of the Andean cosmogony. (E. Zorn)

*

Ponchos, llijllas, aksus, winchas, chuspas and
     chumpis are beings who feel
and every being who feels walks covered in signs.
"The body given entirely to the function of signi-
     fying."
René Daumal
A textile is "in the state of being textile": awaska.
And one word, acnanacuna designates the clothing,
     the language
and the instruments for sacrifice (for signifying,
     I would say).

*

And the energy of the movement has a name and
     a direction: lluq'i,
to the left, paña, to the right.
A direction is a meaning and the twisting of the
     thread
transmits knowledge and information.
The last two movements of a fiber should be in
     opposition:
a fiber is made of two strands lluq'i and paña.
A word is both root and suffix : two antithetical
     meanings in one.
The word and the thread behave as processes
     in the cosmos.

The process is a language and a woven design
     is a process re-
presenting itself.
"An axis of reflection," says Mary Frame:
"the serpentine
attributes are images of the fabric structure,"
The twisted strands become serpents
and the crossing of darkness and light, a
     diamond star.
"Sprang is a weftless technique, a reciprocal
action whereby the interworking of adjacent
elements with the fingers duplicates itself
above and below the working area."

The fingers entering the weave produce in
     the fibres
a mirror image of its movement, a symmetry
     that reiterates "the concept
of complementarity that imbues Andean
     thought."

*

The thread dies when it is released, but comes
     alive in the loom:
the tension gives it a heart.
Soncco is heart and guts, stomach and conscience,
     memory,
judgement and reason, the wood's core, the stem's
     central fiber.
The word and the thread are the heart of the
     community.
In order to dream, the diviner sleeps on fabric

     made of wik'uña.

1 comment:

  1. To speak is to thread and the thread weaves the
 world.

*

In the Andes, the language itself, Quechua, is a
 cord of twisted straw,
two people making love, different fibers united.
To weave a design is pallay, to raise the fibers,
 to pick them up.
To read in Latin is legere, to pick up.
The weaver is both weaving and writing a text
that the community can read.
An ancient textile is an alphabet of knots, colors
 and directions
that we can no longer read.
Today the weaving no only "represent," they
 themselves are
one of the being of the Andean cosmogony. (E. Zorn)

*

Ponchos, llijllas, aksus, winchas, chuspas and
 chumpis are beings who feel
and every being who feels walks covered in signs.
"The body given entirely to the function of signi-
 fying."
René Daumal
A textile is "in the state of being textile": awaska.
And one word, acnanacuna designates the clothing,
 the language
and the instruments for sacrifice (for signifying,
 I would say).

*

And the energy of the movement has a name and
 a direction: lluq'i,
to the left, paña, to the right.
A direction is a meaning and the twisting of the
 thread
transmits knowledge and information.
The last two movements of a fiber should be in
 opposition:
a fiber is made of two strands lluq'i and paña.
A word is both root and suffix : two antithetical
 meanings in one.
The word and the thread behave as processes
 in the cosmos.

The process is a language and a woven design
 is a process re-
presenting itself.
"An axis of reflection," says Mary Frame:
"the serpentine
attributes are images of the fabric structure,"
The twisted strands become serpents
and the crossing of darkness and light, a
 diamond star.
"Sprang is a weftless technique, a reciprocal
action whereby the interworking of adjacent
elements with the fingers duplicates itself
above and below the working area."

The fingers entering the weave produce in
 the fibres
a mirror image of its movement, a symmetry
 that reiterates "the concept
of complementarity that imbues Andean
 thought."

*

The thread dies when it is released, but comes
 alive in the loom:
the tension gives it a heart.
Soncco is heart and guts, stomach and conscience,
 memory,
judgement and reason, the wood's core, the stem's
 central fiber.
The word and the thread are the heart of the
 community.
In order to dream, the diviner sleeps on fabric
 made of wik'uña.

    ReplyDelete