Mola

A word from Kuna 

Kuna, people from Panama, San Blas Islands

Mola, by Kuna Women and girls

Mola, for Kuna Women and their daughters

Mola

A blouse

A rectangular panel of appliqué

A cloth

Mola

Covers where the hearts are 

A blouse

begin with a pair of  panels

The front and the back

like a heart has two sides

Sewn together with two sleeves 

And a yoke on top

Before Mola

The world was painted

on naked body

After Mola

The world is layered 

in a rectangle

Mola

The palm fronds

Mola

The clouds

Mola

The skin

Mola

The feathers of birds

Every Mola is unique

Every Mola is a word

Mola

Mola Mola

Mola is its own world

Top: Kalu, Church or House. 35 x 51cm, 1994

Mola come from the kalu Tuipis.

It was a dangerous place

Where skilled scissor-user lived…

They were very beautiful women.

No man could enter this Kalu

Not even a shaman, a nele.

If a man approached it, a woman came out.

She seduced him, made him her husband.

Then sent him away before he had entered.

So people called on Olonaguedili,

Sister of a shaman, a nele.

She could enter the Kalu Tuipis.

She went in, she looked.

She was the first to see the mistresses of the trees,

Who looked like women.

She was the first to see this place

Covered with figures,

With changing image like clouds in the sky,

With leaves, trunks, and stones

Like pure drawings and writings.

She was the first to see mola patterns.

She saw the women who cut,

And others who stitched.

There was a table, large cloths…

On her return, Olonaguedili told her children:

“The patterns are done thus,” said she,

“The cloth is cut thus, is swen thus.”

Women asked her questions…

That is why she is called Mother today.

That is what she learned, in the fourth level.

Before, women dressed in leaves. 

(recounted by E.G. from Mulatupu [“Black Vulture”] Island, 1994)

Mola is only a century old.

The first Mola was documented in 1906

Before Mola, Kuna people paint patterns on their body

（It was Olokikadiriai, a god like woman, who taught the Kuna the art of painting bodies and clothing）

Mola was created only after the British and Americans bought materials such as cotton fabrics, manufactured thread, needles and steel scissors to Kuna people.

（Another god like woman, Nakekiriai, who then discovered the secret of molas by entering Tuipis）

The size of the mola relates to the body of a Kuna woman, which fits to the Kuna woman’s torso.

Complete Kuna woman dress includes a mola blouse, a wrap skirt, and a headscarf. TAnd the mola panels are only partially shown when wrap skirts are worn.

1919, the Panamanian government instituted a ban on Kuna women wearing molas.

1925 Kuna revolution happened, and Kuna people won their right for autonomy.

(Kuna women wear mola to protest.

 Mola became their “flag”)

1960s, with the tourism economic growth, molas that were specifically made for trade 

began to appear.

(Mola, from part of the dress, to a collectible object, a souvenir, became a tradable commodity. But the creativity of mola did not disappear because of treading. It only grows.)

My mother taught me when I was six years old.

“Make a little mola, see, like this…”

That is how I began, with my mother

And then with my sisters.

My first molas were ugly.

I unstitched them in order to begin again.

“Why do you sew so clumsily?”

Mama would scold.

“Do it like this, you’ll learn.”

And I undid the stitches again…

It was a lot of work.

As I grew up, I learned little by little,

I sewed molas for myself,

I stitched and stitched and stitched…

I finished them with my friends,

And then dared to wear them.

I began with surgeon mor,

Molas that have names: frog mola,

Hermit-crab path mola,,,

Thus my knowledge grew…

I taught my daughters likewise.

I made them undo it,

Because I don’t like lumpy molas

that look wrinkled!

Now they sew very well.

I do not invent much, I copy.

I have invented two-layer molas,

Never more.

But the ones I like best are surgeon,

I make molas for myself,

I like them too much to sell them,

It takes so long to make them!

I will always make molas.

Sometimes it goes fast, and is fun.

Other times, it takes much work

and is boring…

But I will grow old thus,

Always stitching and stitching…

Only when I’m dead will I stop sewing.

Because making molas is our way of life,

We cannot stop,

Only women who go blind stop.

If the eyes hold out, you carry on…

(Rcounted by G.A., Ustupu Island, 1992)

A mola gets old

and a mola retires

A retired mola retained

So the young daughters can copy

A retired mola will be removed from blouses

So the mola join other old molas to form large rectangles

Sometimes the mola will go to line the walls of huts

Sometimes the mola will just stay on the floors

For Kuna babies to lie upon

What does a mola mean?

Every Mola is a word,

A word of bird

A word of bird become demon

A word of a man

A word of a man meets mermaids

A word of an herb

A word of an herb that is shy

Sometimes, mola is a word of stars

A word of stars that only Kuna chief know where they are

Sometimes, mola is a word of things from other lands

A match box with a parrot 

A coin from 1820s

A corn grinder, that looks like a sun from top

Sometimes mola is just a word of an open maze

A maze for your eyes to trip

A maze that echos your dream

“A fisherman can disappear at sea,

Victim of a mermaid:

If he dreams of a young girl,

If he makes love with her

And if he feels nauseous, if he is anxious,

He must be bathed in a drug.

Otherwise, he will die at sea

Because he is antsÜnai,

Victim of a mermaid.”

(Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999, page 28.)

Example of mola blouse collected prior to 1925 compared to Panamanian coat of arms. (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 5.)

Example of mola blouse collected after 1925 showing a close replication of the Parrot Safety; matchbox label, on right. Panel width is 58.5 cm. 1941. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (204532 E); Matchbox label ≈ 9 cm wide (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 8.)

This mola has been identified as depicting the chute of a mechanical corn grinder looking from above. There also appear to be many small pieces of corn. Panel width is 66.5 cm. 1922. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (166358 E); On the right: mechanical grinder in current use, side view. Island of Ustupu, Kuna Yala, 2010.(Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 6.)

Some of the six circular objects on this mola appear to be old Colombian coins, ca. 1820. Panel width is 60.5 cm. 1932; Obverse and reverse of an 1820 Colombian silver coin (two real), ≈25 mm diameter. (Diana Marks, 2014, The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, DOI: 10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021, figure 9.)

An old mola

Like a word that used repeatedly

Loses its meaning

But the secret of a mola

Is always there

Behind the layers

Under the earth there are several layers, pillis.

In each layer lives spirits with their chiefs.

Only a nele, shaman, is able to visit them.

In the second layer, things are the same as here,

Except that its mountains are not so high.

The third layer is also like our world

Except that the landscape is flat.

Father than that the shaman cannot penetrate.

Only shamans of the past saw the fourth layer.

Beneath the eighth layer,

There is still another world.

(from Nordenskiöld 1938, pp. 84, 281, 356)

1. Layering

layers of fabric, mostly cotton fabric from all over the world by trading, and each layer are different colors, mostly saturated black, red, yellow, orange.

2. Reverse appliqué

A technique of sewing precisely cutted layers of fabric together to reveal the layer beneath.

Reason for doing reverse appliqué “the compactness ensures the various layers of cloth will not come apart after repeat washing” (Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999).

3. Appliqué

 A technique of sewing cutted fabrics on top of another layer of fabric to form an image or pattern. 

(The thread color will match the fabric and the fine stitching will blend with the designs.)

4. Embroidery

A technique of using needles to apply thread and yarn or other materials on top of the fabric.

Resources: 

1. Perrin, Michel. Magnificent Molas: the Art of the Kuna Indians. Paris: Flammarion, 1999

2. Diana Marks (2015) From Part to Whole: Developing an Appreciation of Kuna

https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2015.1045196

3. Diana Marks (2014) The Kuna Mola, Dress, 40:1, 17-30, Molas as Collectibles, Textile, 13:2, 152-175

https://doi.org/10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021

Classification:

Mola, weaving, clothing, costume, appliqué, reverse appliqué, embroidery