FREE: Vintage Decorative Fabric for Pillow or Framing

These panels ARE from very creative and talented people! The San Blas indian women do not use patterns to make these panels and they do all of this work entirely by hand!!! This is how the women of the San Blas tribes support their families, while their men fish to bring food to their tables. They are still a primitive tribe. The women's dresses are made of these same designs and bright colors, while the men still wear loin cloths. Up to the age of puberty, the children wear minimal clothes, such as loin cloths for the older boys and skirts for the young girls. Their infants and toddlers go totally naked. The mothers carry their infants on their backs with long pieces of cloth that is wrapped like sling in the primitive traditions. Their homes are mostly open huts made of natural things like trees and thatched grasses and large palm leaves. The adults sleep on the ground on pallets, while the children sleep in hammocks, as do infants and toddlers. It is very safe for the babies because they cannot get out of the hammock by themselves. They also make the hammocks out of a twine and rope that they make from grasses and fibers from trees and other plants. They also farm and grow food like corn and a form of root vegetables. They grind their corn and the dried root vegetables by hand on a flat stone, using another rounded stone to grind the grains with. Their oven is an earthen oven with the fire in a chamber on the bottom and a cooking chamber above it. They bake their bread on the round top of this stove. They eat their food served on large leaves from mostly the banana tree and eat with their fingers. They are an amazing and proud people who live on the San Blas Islands just off the coast of Panama. I really enjoyed learning about them when we lived there. Just thought you would enjoy learning a little more about them and how they live, too. Thanks for listening to my stories!

My pleasure! I found these people to be very interesting, especially in how they continue to live in their traditional style on these island paradises! I'm so glad you enjoyed hearing about them and that I have piqued your interest enough that you now want to learn more about them. Thank you so much for your interest and your appreciation of my little history lesson!

Ty bobbiespinks7 for sharing your info. You know your stuff!!!This is a VERY special piece Jo1327 & am in the mood for a bidding war on this. It would be a privilege to preserve this way of life in the US for times & things that are forgotten in this "right now electronic world" we live in

I was awestruck when I saw this piece. The first thing I thought was that it was a Phoenix. I am inspired by the tale of the Phoenix and I love the fact that the Phoenix dives into the fire toward certain death, only to rise again victorious. I too will be bidding. This is a precious work of art. F&W

Many Thanks to bobbiespinks7 for the Tutorial & Many thanks to Jo1327 for listing this wonderful handcrafted offering ;0)

This is a handcrafted block done by the San Blas indians of Panama. We bought many of them while we were stationed in the Canal Zone from 1973-1978. They are indicative of their primitive art and each piece has a meaning, though I never learned what the meanings of each animal and symbol are. I hope this helps you understand what you have. We framed ours and used them for wall decoration.

this art also resembles huichol mexican art too. nicce auction