Sleeved Tunic

The Chancay (chan-kai) people of Peru’s central coast created one of the ancient Andes’s best-known textile legacies through artistically elaborate men’s tunics and loin cloths, women’s dresses and headcloths, and shawl-like mantles. Two traits indicate that this tunic is a high-prestige garment: its labor-intensive tapestry-woven technique and its substantial use of alpaca fiber imported from the adjacent highlands.