Every Mola is a Word
By Alson Zhao
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Mola
A word from Kuna
Kuna, people from Panama, San Blas Islands
Mola, by Kuna Women and girls
Mola, for Kuna Women and their daughters
Mola
A blouse
A rectangular panel of appliqué
A cloth
Mola
Covers where the hearts are
A blouse
begin with a pair of panels
The front and the back
like a heart has two sides
Sewn together with two sleeves
And a yoke on top
Before Mola
The world was painted
on naked body
After Mola
The world is layered
in a rectangle
Mola
The palm fronds
Mola
The clouds
Mola
The skin
Mola
The feathers of birds
Every Mola is unique
Every Mola is a word
Mola
Mola Mola
Mola is its own world
Top: Kalu, Church or House. 35 x 51cm, 1994
Bottom: Coral, Jungle, Medicinal plant, [cast] iron, or needle island, 35 x 51cm, 1994
(Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Picture 3.8A, 3.8B )
1950s - 1960s, Two sides of a heart, of how the blood flows. The bird travels with the human soul from birth to death and into the afterlife (Hartmann 1988: 274, Figure 15)
Example of a mola blouse (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, Figure 1)
Diagram of Mola, Diagram adapted from Mari Lyn Salvador, Yer Dailege! Kuna Women’s Art (Albuquerque, NM: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico,1978)
Mola come from the kalu Tuipis.
It was a dangerous place
Where skilled scissor-user lived…
They were very beautiful women.
No man could enter this Kalu
Not even a shaman, a nele.
If a man approached it, a woman came out.
She seduced him, made him her husband.
Then sent him away before he had entered.
So people called on Olonaguedili,
Sister of a shaman, a nele.
She could enter the Kalu Tuipis.
She went in, she looked.
She was the first to see the mistresses of the trees,
Who looked like women.
She was the first to see this place
Covered with figures,
With changing image like clouds in the sky,
With leaves, trunks, and stones
Like pure drawings and writings.
She was the first to see mola patterns.
She saw the women who cut,
And others who stitched.
There was a table, large cloths…
On her return, Olonaguedili told her children:
“The patterns are done thus,” said she,
“The cloth is cut thus, is swen thus.”
Women asked her questions…
That is why she is called Mother today.
That is what she learned, in the fourth level.
Before, women dressed in leaves.
(recounted by E.G. from Mulatupu [“Black Vulture”] Island, 1994)
Lobster, or crayfish, 33 x 53cm. 1982 (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Page 62)
Top to bottom: Kirikiri bird eating an animal 30 x 40 cm, 1991; Squirrel, or dog, 31 x 41cm, 1991; Bird, 36 x 42cm, 1991, (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Page 63.)
Mola is only a century old.
The first Mola was documented in 1906
Before Mola, Kuna people paint patterns on their body
（It was Olokikadiriai, a god like woman, who taught the Kuna the art of painting bodies and clothing）
Mola was created only after the British and Americans bought materials such as cotton fabrics, manufactured thread, needles and steel scissors to Kuna people.
（Another god like woman, Nakekiriai, who then discovered the secret of molas by entering Tuipis）
The size of the mola relates to the body of a Kuna woman, which fits to the Kuna woman’s torso.
Complete Kuna woman dress includes a mola blouse, a wrap skirt, and a headscarf. TAnd the mola panels are only partially shown when wrap skirts are worn.
1919, the Panamanian government instituted a ban on Kuna women wearing molas.
1925 Kuna revolution happened, and Kuna people won their right for autonomy.
(Kuna women wear mola to protest.
Mola became their “flag”)
1960s, with the tourism economic growth, molas that were specifically made for trade
began to appear.
(Mola, from part of the dress, to a collectible object, a souvenir, became a tradable commodity. But the creativity of mola did not disappear because of treading. It only grows.)
Early photograph of a group of Kuna Indians taken on the San Blas island of San Jose de Nargana at the end of 1911. ( J. Dyneley Prince, “Prolegomena to the Study of the San Blas Language of Panamá,” American Anthropologist 14, no. 1 (1912), pl. VIII. Photographer: I. N. De Long.)
Photography of San Blas Islands. (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. )
Photograph of a Kuna woman and her children in San Blas, 1936. (Aked (1940: 14). Photographer: George D. Aked, 1936.)
Illustration of a Kuna woman with a child, (Corinne B. Feeney “Arch-Isolationists, the San Blas Indians,” National Geographic 79, no. 2 (February 1941): 211. Photographer: Lieutenant Dayton Seiler, U.S.N.
My mother taught me when I was six years old.
“Make a little mola, see, like this…”
That is how I began, with my mother
And then with my sisters.
My first molas were ugly.
I unstitched them in order to begin again.
“Why do you sew so clumsily?”
Mama would scold.
“Do it like this, you’ll learn.”
And I undid the stitches again…
It was a lot of work.
As I grew up, I learned little by little,
I sewed molas for myself,
I stitched and stitched and stitched…
I finished them with my friends,
And then dared to wear them.
I began with surgeon mor,
Molas that have names: frog mola,
Hermit-crab path mola,,,
Thus my knowledge grew…
I taught my daughters likewise.
I made them undo it,
Because I don’t like lumpy molas
that look wrinkled!
Now they sew very well.
I do not invent much, I copy.
I have invented two-layer molas,
Never more.
But the ones I like best are surgeon,
I make molas for myself,
I like them too much to sell them,
It takes so long to make them!
I will always make molas.
Sometimes it goes fast, and is fun.
Other times, it takes much work
and is boring…
But I will grow old thus,
Always stitching and stitching…
Only when I’m dead will I stop sewing.
Because making molas is our way of life,
We cannot stop,
Only women who go blind stop.
If the eyes hold out, you carry on…
(Rcounted by G.A., Ustupu Island, 1992)
A mola gets old
and a mola retires
A retired mola retained
So the young daughters can copy
A retired mola will be removed from blouses
So the mola join other old molas to form large rectangles
Sometimes the mola will go to line the walls of huts
Sometimes the mola will just stay on the floors
For Kuna babies to lie upon
Photography of how Kuna people live in their hut.(Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Picture 3.8A, 3.8B )
What does a mola mean?
Every Mola is a word,
A word of bird
A word of bird become demon
A word of a man
A word of a man meets mermaids
A word of an herb
A word of an herb that is shy
Sometimes, mola is a word of stars
A word of stars that only Kuna chief know where they are
Sometimes, mola is a word of things from other lands
A match box with a parrot
A coin from 1820s
A corn grinder, that looks like a sun from top
Sometimes mola is just a word of an open maze
A maze for your eyes to trip
A maze that echos your dream
Cloud, or gust of wind. 42cm x 53cm. 1991 (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Page 92.)
Left to right, top to bottom: Wickerwork, basket pattern, or stairway, 35 x 44cm, 1989;
Basket pattern, or medicinal cross, 35 x 46cm, 1996;
Stairway, or pathway, 26 x 38cm, 1992; Coral, scorpion’s nest, wickerwork, or stairway, 34 x 41 cm, 1989;
Wickerwork, 34 x 41cm, 1991;
Old traditional mola using the “Just as it comes” approach, 33 x 48cm, 1991
(Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Page 91. )
Animals with striped fur
Change into demons, nias,
Transform themselves into demons,
And over there demons are changing.
THey are changing into Koenaka stags,
The demons over there, at the foot of the trees,
In black garments, their horns entwined,
Crying me-me
Wasena stags now change into demons,
They are transforming themselves into demons,
The demons are transforming themselves…
Into soso birds the demons are now changing
Themselves,
Over there, in black garments,
They are singing tuli-li
The soso birds then change into nias,
And the demons transform themselves…
Nia butterflies are the masters of this place,
The nias, lords of this place,
All take the appearance of butterflies…
Nias change into beings of all kinds…
(from Nia Igar, “The Way of the Demon,” recounted by E.G. :Severi 1983, p. 161-167)
Birds, fish, and human mola. 1960s-1970s. (Diana Marks, 2015, From Part to Whole: Developing an Appreciation of Kuna Molas as Collectibles, Textile, 13:2, 152-175, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2015.1045196, figure 9.)
Medicinal herb plant. Old design, c.1930s (Ventocilla, et al., 1995:85‒86)
Four Frogs mola, c.1950s. An ancestral design (Perrin 1999: 99). Other interpretations include iguana, skeletons, sea
turtle, lizard (Perrin 1999: 98; Salvador 1978: 28, 1997: 173).
Medicinal herb (mimosa pudica) mola. Old design, 1940s‒1950s. Kuna people describe this design as a touch-sensitive plant. (Salvador 1997: 235).
Fish mola. (Diana Marks, 2015, From Part to Whole: Developing an Appreciation of Kuna Molas as Collectibles, Textile, 13:2, 152-175, DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2015.1045196, figure 10.)
“A fisherman can disappear at sea,
Victim of a mermaid:
If he dreams of a young girl,
If he makes love with her
And if he feels nauseous, if he is anxious,
He must be bathed in a drug.
Otherwise, he will die at sea
Because he is antsÜnai,
Victim of a mermaid.”
(Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999, page 28.)
Three Mermaids, 38 x 57cm. 1991. (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999, page 28.)
Weaving stick mola. Weaving sticks or battens were used to push down weft yarn. 1930s‒1940s. Possibly showing the process of weaving a hammock (Hartmann 1988: 269).
Large vine hook mola. 1960s-1970s. Ancestral design (Perrin 1999: 99). Other interpretations include anchor and
medicinal symbols. The pointed arrowheads in the corners and center of the mola are thought to have symbolic
meaning relating to movement or transmission of power and are associated with carved wooden objects used by Kuna medicine men (Hartmann 1988: 266-267)
Example of mola blouse collected prior to 1925 compared to Panamanian coat of arms. (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 5.)
Example of mola blouse collected after 1925 showing a close replication of the Parrot Safety; matchbox label, on right. Panel width is 58.5 cm. 1941. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (204532 E); Matchbox label ≈ 9 cm wide (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 8.)
This mola has been identified as depicting the chute of a mechanical corn grinder looking from above. There also appear to be many small pieces of corn. Panel width is 66.5 cm. 1922. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (166358 E); On the right: mechanical grinder in current use, side view. Island of Ustupu, Kuna Yala, 2010.(Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 6.)
Some of the six circular objects on this mola appear to be old Colombian coins, ca. 1820. Panel width is 60.5 cm. 1932; Obverse and reverse of an 1820 Colombian silver coin (two real), ≈25 mm diameter. (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 9.)
An old mola
Like a word that used repeatedly
Loses its meaning
But the secret of a mola
Is always there
Behind the layers
Bird eating, head downward, 36 x 50cm, 1994, (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999. Page 41 )
Under the earth there are several layers, pillis.
In each layer lives spirits with their chiefs.
Only a nele, shaman, is able to visit them.
In the second layer, things are the same as here,
Except that its mountains are not so high.
The third layer is also like our world
Except that the landscape is flat.
Father than that the shaman cannot penetrate.
Only shamans of the past saw the fourth layer.
Beneath the eighth layer,
There is still another world.
(from Nordenskiöld 1938, pp. 84, 281, 356)
1. Layering
layers of fabric, mostly cotton fabric from all over the world by trading, and each layer are different colors, mostly saturated black, red, yellow, orange.
2. Reverse appliqué
A technique of sewing precisely cutted layers of fabric together to reveal the layer beneath.
Reason for doing reverse appliqué “the compactness ensures the various layers of cloth will not come apart after repeat washing” (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999).
3. Appliqué
A technique of sewing cutted fabrics on top of another layer of fabric to form an image or pattern.
(The thread color will match the fabric and the fine stitching will blend with the designs.)
4. Embroidery
A technique of using needles to apply thread and yarn or other materials on top of the fabric.
Molas in the collection at the TRC
Molas in the collection at the TRC
Reference Number: 6.61, 33cm x 38.8cm, three layers of reverse appliqué and multi colors of appliqué and embroidery
Reference Number:6.16, 32.1cm x 43.6cm, three layers of reverse appliqué and multi colors of appliqué and embroidery
Reference Number: 6.60, 40.5cm x 47.9cm, three layers of reverse appliqué and multi colors of appliqué and embroidery
Reference Number: 6.62, 33cm x 38.8cm, three layers of reverse appliqué and multi colors of appliqué and embroidery
1. The main bottom layer
2. The main second layer of reverse appliqué
3. The main third layer of reverse appliqué
4. The fourth layer, a reverse appliqué
5. The fifth layer, a reverse appliqué
6. The sixth layer, a reverse appliqué
7. The seventh layer, an appliqué
8. The eighth layer, a reverse appliqué
9. The ninth layer, an embroidery
10. The tenth layer, an appliqué
Resources:
Resources:
1. Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999
2. Diana Marks (2015) From Part to Whole: Developing an Appreciation of Kuna
https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2015.1045196
3. Diana Marks (2014) The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, Molas as Collectibles, Textile, 13:2, 152-175
https://doi.org/10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021
Classification:
Mola, weaving, clothing, costume, appliqué, reverse appliqué, embroidery
Alson Zhao
Alson Zhao
(MM Spring 2021 | BFA 2021)
Alson Zhao (School of the Art Institute of Chicago, BFA 2021) is from Yunnan, China. Finding inspiration from structures, production and patterns of textiles, poetry and mythology, he experiments by interlacing the two mediums of printmaking and experimental film in his recent work.
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