Shipibo Textiles

I met Leonidas and two of her children one afternoon in Lima. I was attracted to a window display of a store, and as I got nearer I saw a woman inside stringing beads next to a makeshift bench. She encouraged me to enter with a smile, hand signals and friendly words. This is Leonidas, a Shipibo woman from Pucallpa. The Shipibo are an indigenous group from the Peruvian Amazon. She explained that she had travelled from Pucallpa to Lima to sell her textiles and jewelry. The owner of this store was sympathetic to her needs and gave her a small area to display her goods. The beads she was stringing were actually seeds from the rain forest- black, brown, red/black, cream. I spent a couple of hours sorting through the piles and selecting the best ones. The bracelets are $15 and the necklaces $20.