A Study of Non-Western Dress History

Abstract

The Guna (Kuna) Indians, an indigenous people living in Panama and Colombia, are well known because of the mola blouses worn by Guna women. The mola is part of their dress ensemble that evolved over the second half of the nineteenth century. The history of this ensemble could be explained by a process of cultural authentication, a concept developed by Eicher and Erekosima in the 1980s and previously applied to the mola blouse. This paper proposes that an important influence of the addition of the headscarf and wrap skirt is related to a close affinity of Guna women with indentured East Indian women in the Caribbean as a result of the close Guna ties with Jamaica. This research highlights the cultural response of non-western women to outsiders and strengthens the notion that studies of cross-cultural adaptation benefit from the study of dress history.