Guna Women Wearing Molas

This image features Guna Women wearing molas, a traditional women's dress from their culture, while in the capital of Panama, Panama City. The Guna people are an indigenous group from Panama and Colombia. The mola is a handmade layered textile assembled using a reverse appliqué technique. In Dulegaya, the Guna's native language, mola means shirt or clothing. Their full Guna attire includes a skirt (saburet), headscarf (musue), arm and leg beads (wini), a gold nose and earrings (olasu), and a blouse (dulemor). The forms in the molas come from a tradition of body painting where women would use natural dyes to paint geometric patterns on themselves. After colonization by the Spanish and the introduction of missionaries, the patterns were translated onto cloth. Many molas are made with store-bought cotton fabrics and depict modern graphics from pop culture while mixing in themes from traditional Guna culture. Guna women learn how to make molas from an early age. Molas are quite durable as they are made for everyday dress. The Guna have a strong cultural identity linked to their traditional clothing. Guna women who dress in Western attire are the minority. The Panamanian government had attempted to westernize the Guna population by banning traditional attire but these efforts were met with resistance and a revolution in 1925. The Guna have worked to maintain their identity and attain the independent status of Guna Yala, an archipelago off the coast of Panama where a large Guna population lives. There is a demand for molas in the tourism industry with many produced to be sold to foreigners. Many Guna Women will go to the capital city to sell their works to tourists. The mola represents a blend of Guna tradition adapting and persevering in an industrialized world.