Latin American Textiles

© The Field Museum, A113288c

In this photo, one sees the manner in which mola blouses were worn in the early part of the 20th century on the San Blas Islands, on Panama's Caribbean Coast. Note that the child's mola is long-- current mola blouses are shorter. The Kuna migrated to the San Blas Islands, from their homelands in Panama's Darien forest, in the mid-19th century. Kuna women acquired cloth from European pirates and traders who visited the island.

The Art of Being Kuna, Mari Lyn Salvador, University of Washington Press, 1997

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