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The Rebozo (stole-like mexican garment)
By Eduardo Rincón-Gallardo - October 2006.
 Part of the indigenous women’s attire, the rebozo is worn in many ways at different times in a Mexican woman’s life. In Puerto Vallarta it is even celebrated with an annual gala evening.
The rebozo is a piece of fabric 7ft by 2ft, though dimensions vary from region to region. This typical garment has been an inseparable companion of Mexican women for many centuries.
Rebozos are made from wool or cotton. They are colored with dyes made from local plants, insects and marine molluscs. Rebozos take their form and colors from the local resources and climate.
A connoisseur can tell the origin of any rebozo by its material, its design and its colors.
 Apart from protecting a woman from the cold and the sun, the rebozo is the ideal garment used by a mother to keep her child by her side at all times. By tying her rebozo it becomes a sling, and her hands are free to wash, cook and go about her daily routine and duties. The rebozo gives the mother flexibility to breast-feed, talk and sing to her baby, or pray while carrying her child at her waist, on her back, on her shoulders, or wherever her motherly love’s creativity will allow.
Even before birth the rebozo can be of great help; women know how to use the rebozo to position the baby and facilitate birth in complicated cases.
In Mexico the high veneration rendered to a mother is not gratuituous. There are strong ties like the rebozo that greatly strengthen the weave that traditionally unites Mexican families.
Eduardo Rincón-Gallardo
E-mail: toureps@prodigy.net.mx |
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