"Aguayos"

A aguayo is a rectangular garment used in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and northern Chile as a backpack, coat or adornment, particularly by women of indigenous descent.

Although it is native to the highlands, its use has extended to low areas such as Lima, Buenos Aires, Santa Cruz de la Sierra and the immigration of the inhabitants of the Andean highlands. In general, the aguayos are very colorful with stripes of colors that alternate and with stripes with simple figures.

In the Quechua language spoken in Lake Titicaca (Bolivia) the cloth is called awayo or llijlla.

For a fabric to be considered a aguayo, the contrast of shades between one line and another, and the alternative of different thicknesses, is fundamental. Very deep semantic studies, involving the revision of old historical sources, as well as the collection of current oral testimonies between the rivers and the islands of Lake Titicaca, showed that this situation of optical contrast extracts it from the native of a bird that inhabits the area, which is called allqamari, of definition white and black coloration