Parallelism and meaning: Understanding molas as twinned pairs

Abstract

For over 100 years, Kuna Indian women and girls have sewn and worn the mola blouse as part of their dress ensemble. On the front and back of the blouses are mola panels, conceived and created as a pair. The pair of mola panels may be nearly identical or different. The relationship between a pair of mola panels is discussed in terms of the impact on the designs of Kuna culture and ethnoaesthetic criteria, especially layering, filler techniques, symmetry and colour preferences, as well as sewing techniques and material usage. Aspects of Kuna sociality, cosmology and verbal oratory are explored. In most cases it is possible to establish a thematic relationship between the back and front mola panels of a mola blouse. An object-based material culture approach contributes to an enhanced understanding of the complexities of mola making, including the technical skills required to design and manipulate layers of cloth. The importance of understanding mola panels as twinned pairs is highlighted by evaluating individual panels in pairs based on the examination of mola collections from six museums. This research also provides practical information for museum curators and others to establish which individual mola panels in collections may constitute a pair, originating from the same mola blouse.

Teaching International Development Locally: Using Museum Collections to Ground Students’ Learning

“…Kuna adult women are constantly engaged in making molakana in between daily chores, and these are made in the home and by hand and is a way to enjoy the company of kinswomen (Margiotti 2013, Marks 2014). Some suggest that molakana have their roots in bodypainting and that molakana developed as a result of trade and commercial relations that allowed for the purchasing of fabrics as well as thread, needles, and scissors (Fortis 2013; Marks 2016). The mola then provides an entrée to discuss issues not just of commerce and trade but also indigeneity, culture, gender, intergenerational relations, and identity, among other development-related themes.…”

“…Specifically, in this first worksheet, we included questions about who and how molakana are made, a detailed description of technical aspects (e.g., embroidery, fillers), and asked students to describe what we could learn about the maker and what questions they had for the maker of the object. To accomplish this, during each visit, we had an excerpt from Marks’s (2016) work on mola sewing techniques and terms available to all students on tables where the objects were displayed. An example of a technique used in mola making that we expected students to identify and reference in their projects is bisu-bisu , an overall geometric maze or pattern filling a large part of the mola with sharp changes to angle, a snake-like or labyrinth pattern, which is central to the design in Figure 1.…”