Villagers Dyeing Yarn in Clay Vats

Beneath distant blue mountains, women in embroidered huipils gather around wide clay vats of dye, lifting dripping skeins of red, gold, and green yarn on long wooden paddles. Racks strung between adobe houses hold rows of drying wool in every color, swaying above the dirt courtyard, while one woman kneels tying yarn into hanks and another sorts finished skeins into baskets. A weaver works a backstrap loom to the side, and a man carries a jar past terracotta pots of powdered pigment. Tiled roofs and a hillside dotted with trees complete the view behind the drying racks. Each vat holds a single color, yet the skeins hanging above them already promise the striped and patterned cloth they are destined to become.