Recently added to our site is a fantastic collection of hand crafted vases from Nicaragua and Peru. The selection includes classic Mayan designs as well as modern pieces capturing the spirit and essence of the Latin cultures.

Like all Peruvian tapestry, Ayacucho is named after the region in which it is made.  This tapestry was originally created in Santa Ana, which is a smaller town just outside Ayacucho.  Interestingly, Ayacucho tapestry comes in three distinct grades.  First, you have the street quality, which is made from virgin wool and natural dyes. Second, there is the special quality Ayacucho tapestry, made from pre-washed wool and aniline dyes.  Third, you have signed, which is woven and sighed by the master makers.
 
Typically, Ayacucho tapestry from Peru is created in geometric designs of nature, often taken from Codices such as ancient Aztecs, Mayans, or Incas, as well as temple carvings.  In the town of Ayacucho, alpacas and sheep are raised specifically so the wool can be used to make this type of tapestry.  Most often, the imagery seen in the tapestry has influence of the Incas along with Nazca people from earlier times.
 
You will also find tapestries depicting things such as flowers, birds, butterflies, and many other Andean cultural aspects.  All of the sheep wool is handspun, and then naturally dyed with native vegetable, mineral, and animal dye.  Unfortunately, with the growing gang violence and lack of proper food, women will work 15, 16, and 17 hours a day to create Ayacucho tapestries.  Although the work is hard, they are courageous, creating true masterpieces.
 
Another common theme scene in Ayacucho tapestries is ancestral things and mythological creatures.  Many times, you will find tapestries such as this made from a blend of 70% alpaca and 30% wool, which means durability, strength, and a beautiful piece to last for years.  As you can imagine, this type of weaving over long hours provides the women and men with significant income.  However, with violence looming, we see many people being forced from the weaving industry.
 
Regardless, for the Ayacucho tapestries that survive, they are amazingly beautiful and well made.  With such vibrant colors and designs, the Ayacucho tapestry is in wide demand.  The skill learned from ancestors continues being used today, creating some of the most amazing tapestries in all of South America.

Cambodia Ancient HistoryArchaeological evidence indicates that parts of the region now called Cambodia were inhabited during the first and second millennia B.C. by peoples having a Neolithic culture. By the first century A.D., the inhabitants had developed relatively stable, organized societies, which had far surpassed the primitive stage in culture and technical skills. The most advanced groups lived along the coast and in the lower Mekong River valley and delta regions, where they cultivated irrigated rice and kept domesticated animals. 

Scholars believe that these people may have been Austro-Asiatic in origin and related to the ancestors of the groups who now inhabit insular Southeast Asia and many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. They worked metals, including both iron and bronze, and possessed navigational skills. Mon-Khmer people, who arrived at a later date, probably intermarried with them. The Khmer who now populate Cambodia may have migrated from southeastern China to the Indochinese Peninsula before the first century A.D. They are believed to have arrived before their present Vietnamese, Thai, and Lao neighbors. 

CambodiaEarly Indianized Kingdom of FunanAt about the time that the ancient peoples of Western Europe were absorbing the classical culture and institutions of the Mediterranean, the peoples of mainland and insular Southeast Asia were responding to the stimulus of a civilization that had arisen in northern India during the previous millennium. The Britons, Gauls, and Iberians experienced Mediterranean influences directly, through conquest by and incorporation into the Roman Empire. In contrast, the Indianization of Southeast Asia was a slower process than the Romanization of Europe because there was no period of direct Indian rule and because land and sea barriers that separated the region from the Indian subcontinent are considerable. Nevertheless, Indian religion, political thought, literature, mythology, and artistic motifs gradually became integral elements in local Southeast Asian cultures. The caste system never was adopted, but Indianization stimulated the rise of highly-organized, centralized states. 

Funan, the earliest of the Indianized states, generally is considered by Cambodians to have been the first Khmer kingdom in the area. Founded in the first century A.D., Funan was located on the lower reaches of the Mekong River in the delta area. Its capital, Vyadhapura, probably was located near the present-day town of Phumi Banam in Prey Veng Province. The earliest historical reference to Funan is a Chinese description of a mission that visited the country in the third century A.D. The name Funan derives from the Chinese rendition of the old Khmer word bnam (meaning mountain). What the Funanese called themselves, however, is not known. 

During this early period in Funan’s history, the population was probably concentrated in villages along the Mekong River and along the Tonle Sab River below the Tonle Sap. Traffic and communications were mostly waterborne on the rivers and their delta tributaries. The area was a natural region for the development of an economy based on fishing and rice cultivation. There is considerable evidence that the Funanese economy depended on rice surpluses produced by an extensive inland irrigation system. Maritime trade also played an extremely important role in the development of Funan. The remains of what is believed to have been the kingdom’s main port, Oc Eo (now part of Vietnam), contain Roman as well as Persian, Indian, and Greek artifacts. 

By the fifth century A.D., the state exercised control over the lower Mekong River area and the lands around the Tonle Sap. It also commanded tribute from smaller states in the area now comprising northern Cambodia, southern Laos, southern Thailand, and the northern portion of the Malay Peninsula. 

Indianization was fostered by increasing contact with the subcontinent through the travels of merchants, diplomats, and learned Brahmans (Hindus of the highest caste traditionally assigned to the priesthood). Indian immigrants, believed to have arrived in the fourth and the fifth centuries, accelerated the process. By the fifth century, the elite culture was thoroughly Indianized. Court ceremony and the structure of political institutions were based on Indian models. The Sanskrit language was widely used; the laws of Manu, the Indian legal code, were adopted; and an alphabet based on Indian writing systems was introduced. 

Funan reached its zenith in the fifth century A.D.. Beginning in the early sixth century, civil wars and dynastic strife undermined Funan’s stability, making it relatively easy prey to incursions by hostile neighbors. By the end of the seventh century, a northern neighbor, the kingdom of Chenla, had reduced Funan to a vassal state.

For the very first of the rubber story we may thank a little wood-boring beetle, and the way nature has of helping her children to protect themselves. The thistle of the meadow is as safe from hungry cattle as though fenced in by barbed wire. A cow must be starving that would care to flavor her luncheon with the needles that the thistle bears. The common skunk cabbage would make a tempting meal for her after a winter of dry feeding, had not Nature given it an odor that disgusts even a spring-time appetite. The milkweed welcomes the bees and flies that help to distribute her pollen where she wants it spread, but she has her own way of punishing the useless thieves that trespass up her stalk. Wherever the hooks of an insect’s feet pierce her tender skin, she pours out a milky juice to entangle its feet and body, and it is a lucky bug that succeeds in escaping before this juice hardens, and holds him a prisoner condemned to die. All over the world there are plants with the same ability that the milkweed has, but it is especially true of certain trees and vines of the tropics. As soon as the little beetle begins to bore into the bark of one of these trees, there pours out a sticky, milky fluid that kills the insect at once. If this were all, the wound would remain open, ready for the next robber who came along. In order that the break may be healed, a cement is necessary, but not a hard, unyielding one, for that would crumble away with the motion of the tree in the wind. This juice is not the sap of the rubber tree. Sap, which is the life-blood of the tree, flows through the wood, but the juice we are describing is contained in the inner bark, a thin layer directly below the outer bark. Scientific men call this juice latex. It is like milk in three ways: it is white, it contains tiny particles that rise to the top like cream, and it spoils quickly. The Hevea tree grows sixty feet tall, and when full grown is eight or ten feet around. It rises as straight as an elm, with high branching limbs and long, smooth oval leaves. Sprays of pale flowers blossom upon it in August, followed in a few months by pods containing three speckled seeds which look like smooth, slightly flattened nutmegs. When the seeds are ready to drop the outer covering of the pod bursts with a loud report, the seeds shooting in all directions. This is Nature’s clever scheme to spread the Hevea family. The tree grows wild in the hot, damp forests of the Amazon valley and in other parts of South America that have a similar climate. The ideal climate for the rubber tree is one which is uniform all the year round, from eighty-nine to ninety-four degrees at noon, and riot lower than seventy degrees at night. The Amazon country has a rainy season which lasts half the year, though the other season is by no means a dry one, and so for half the time the jungles are flooded. These rubber storehouses had been growing for thousands of years in the Amazon jungle with their wealth securely sealed up in their bark, the peck of a bird, the boring of a beetle, or the scratch of a climbing animal being the only draft upon their treasure. The trees around the mouth of the river supplied whatever was needed for the little manufacturing that was at first done. But the discovery that made a universal use for rubber changed all this. Brazil was surprised to find what great treasure her forests contained. Large rubber areas were found a thousand miles up the river and she began in a serious way to develop a large crude rubber business. 

The Jaguar

The jaguar is the Western Hemisphere’s most powerful and largest wildcat, even larger than the leopard.  The jaguar is a magnificent animal with a multiple colored coat although typically, this animal has a brown/yellow coat with black spots although a few are white.  The adult male can reach between four and seven feet in length, not counting the tail, which can measure an additional 17 to 30 inches and approximately three feet tall.  A full-grown jaguar can easily weigh as much as 300 pounds, making it a fierce competitor. With a body consisting of heavy muscled shoulders and forearms, the jaguar is capable of finding and capturing prey.  The head is huge, the legs thick and long, and the hind legs are flexible and strong for climbing.  Each of the front paws has long claws that retract, which is also used for climbing and holding onto prey.  The tongue is similar to that of a standard housecat, so rough it can actually peel skin off the prey’s flesh and meat from the bones.  Interestingly, while the jaguar is strong and built for endurance, it also has a soft, loose underbelly that when kicked by other animals, does little, if any injury. Jaguars are found in the United States to include Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, along with Asia and Africa. However, jaguars are also common in both Central and South America, particularly in the rainforests.  One of the most spectacular of all jaguars is the black species that can be found in South America.  This particular animal likes to live in lowlands, tropical rainforests, or swampy areas.  On occasion, you will also find jaguars in grasslands and forests, generally around lakes, rivers, marshland, in caves, or under rocky ledges, and sometimes, in shrubbery.  However, wherever jaguars live, they prefer the ground to be soft, often using things like leaves to rest on. While some cats such as lions live in families or packs, jaguars tend to be loners.  In fact, they become exceptionally protective over their territory, not wanting any other animal to come near their den.  The behavior of the jaguar is fierce, in fact being the fiercest of all cats.  As outstanding hunters and swimmers, this cat will find food both on land and in the water.  When on land, they will often stay hidden in the shadows, watching and stalking prey.  As other animals stop by the water’s edge to drink, the jaguar will quickly pounce and devour. In all, about 80 different animals are the jaguar’s prey.  For example, they often feed off cattle, making them a threat to ranchers, as well as rodents, sheep, birds, deer, turtles, tapir, fish, armadillos, wild pig, iguana, capybaras, and even crocodiles.  Jaguars are even known to hide tall in rainforest trees where they prey on monkeys.  Even with such a great appetite and variety of food supply, it is rare for a jaguar to attack a human.  While there have been some reported instances, again, this is very uncommon. When jaguars live in the rainforest, they will generally mate any time of year whereas when in other regions, they mate only late in the year.  During the mating and pregnancy season, the male and female will cohabitate.  The female will remain pregnant 95 to 110 days at which time she will have a litter of one to four cubs.  Weighing just two pounds or so, the cubs will not reach maturity until age three for females and age four for males.  Regardless, both the male and female jaguar lives about 20 years. While the babies are growing up, the male jaguar will remain with the female, teaching them to hunt, defend themselves, find shelter, and all the necessary life lessons.  The mother’s role is to feed the cubs and to help them hunt during the first two years of life.  Sadly, jaguars are hunted in Central and South America for a number of reasons.  Sometimes, they are hunted to protect cattle, sometimes for sport, and sometimes for the beautiful hide, which has great demands.  While poaching of these fine animals continues today, it is not as bad as it once was.  When in Central or South America, perhaps you will be fortunate to see one of these amazing and beautiful animals up close.