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THE REVIVAL OF COLORED COTTON
One afternoon in 1971 I was struggling to work in the National Museum of Anthropology in Lima, Peru , in a small conservation laboratory that I shared with a resident population of fleas, rats, a snake and a monkey. I was examining pre-Colombian textiles through a stereoscopic microscope, thinking about how best to preserve them. A graduate student in archaeology, I had come to Peru several years earlier to participate in an excavation at the Chan Chan site in the northern Andes and had just returned with a modest grant from the Organization of American States to continue my studies. Little did I know that what I would see through the microscope that day would set me off on another trail altogether.
Inside the cotton fibers' walls I noticed some intriguing dark masses that imparted color to the fabric. Because the distinct brown spots did not appear to be the result of dye, I began to ask around at universities in Lima: Was it possible that some cotton was naturally pigmented? The answer -- often derisively given -- was categorically no; cotton is white. The coloration apparent in the microscope must be, the experts reasoned, the results of oxidation or of some other discoloration that came about as the now antique fabric had aged.
Unconvinced, I flew up to Trujillo, where I had worked several years before at Chan Chan with Victor Antonio Rodrigues Suy Suy, a professor of anthropology at the National University of Trujillo and a descendant of the Mochic ethnic group. He met me at the airport and informed me straightway that there was such a thing as naturally colored cotton. In fact, he drove just outside the airport and pointed to land alongside the road. In the sunken fields, which were clearly of pre-Hispanic origin, we could see rustic cotton plants clinging to the sandy soil. Cotton plants bearing reddish fibers! Entranced, I spent the next few months traveling the area,searching for plants and textiles with fibers that were naturally ecru, deep chocolate and many other shades of brown, and even mauve. It was challenging work because the descendants of the Mochica Indians of the north coast guarded their plants jealously.