a trip to the doll-makers

The city is a interesting and puzzling combination of rich and poor, traditional and modern, indigenous and colonial, and it´s not always clear which is which. Furthermore, there aren´t even clear divisions between these classifications, since there have been multiple waves of colonialism, up until the present day under the banner of "globalization." For example. The school´s activity this afternoon was a trip to the edge of town to a house with about 10 workers (including 4 children) making realistic dolls in the form of indigenous persons wearing "traditional" Mayan dress, accurately depicting the different dresses of each region of Guatemala. This dress is traditional, and I only say that in quotes here because of the history they told us at this shop. Before colonization by Spain, the indigenous people of Guatemala wore plain, undyed, clothing woven from plant fibres. When Spain invaded they divvied out the land in large parcels to settlers, who then "owned" both the land and all the indigenous people living on it. In order to discern each other´s slaves, they forced the people to wear clothing in colourful patterns imported from Spain. Thus the pattern of each person´s clothing told who they belonged to. It must have been a very effective means of control in preventing escape or travel, because indigenous people then wouldn´t have had the means to replicate such colourful patterned clothing, so if they were caught outside their own region or without the required dress, they could be sent back or killed. This really astounded me, because I had thought it was a surviving piece of pre-colonial, indigenous tradition. I already knew that in North America, some of the indigenous customs many of us commonly assume are ancient were actually forced adaptations to colonialism. I suppose that after so many centuries of successful colonization it´s hard to tell what life was like before, but I´d really like to know. I´d also like to know how such a significant indigenous population survived in Guatemala (I think 40-60% of the total present population, I forget which), whereas the colonial genocide was nearly or totally completed in many other parts of the Americas.