Embroidered Garment
date: label: Accession Date
content: 25 May 1932
name: label: Donor Name
content: Bureau Of American Ethnology
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Represents animal motifs in color designs of applique embroidery and patchwork."
label: Notes
content: Molas include right facing and left facing swastika designs. Note: in 1925, the Guna revolted against Panamanian suppression of their culture, and were granted autonomy in 1930; the flag they adopted at that time is based on the swastika shape, and remains the official flag of Kuna Yala. The swastika is an ancient symbol in Guna culture. It symbolizes the octopus that created the universe; its four tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points, which gave rise to the rainbow, the sun, the moon and the stars.
label: Notes
content: Illus. Fig. 9, p. 27 in Marks, Diana, 2014, "The Kuna Mola: Dress, Politics and Cultural Survival," Dress (The Journal of the Costume Society of America) 40(1):17-30, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0361211214Z.00000000021. Described pp. 27-28: "Both sides of the mola blouse shown in figure 9 appear to show six coins, some of which quite closely resemble old Colombian coins minted in 1820, called "Santa Marta" coins. These coins have the letters "S" and "M" clearly stamped on them and have sawtooth-edged shapes inside the circumference, imitated on the mola on a number of the coin-like shapes. … This is another example of Kuna women basing a mola design on a small object, part of their everyday life, in this case often part of their dress ensemble, and enlarging it on the mola. Most likely the mola would be worn together with a coin necklace and thereby increase the meaning of the design to the wearer, reinforcing her identity." Footnote 38, p. 28 notes: "Kuna women have been photographed wearing strings of old coins as necklaces. Pittier noted that these were old Columbian coins. National Geographic XXIII, no. 7 (July 1912): 657. DeSmidt claims that these could be Panamanian, Columbian and US currency valued up to $75-$100 (US). See Among the San Blas Indians of Panama (Troy, NY: s.n., 1948), 45." Marks also notes about this blouse that "… one side incorporates what appears to denote a flag pole with a swastika at the top, signifying the Kuna flag and on the other side there is a swastika as a filler element. It would seem that the inclusion of the flag confirms that this blouse was made after the Kuna Revolution [of 1925]." "… [This] links the swastika symbol, the emblem on their flag since 1925, with Kuna identity. As displayed by Kuna women when wearing these blouses, the symbol can be interpreted as reinforcing and asserting the autonomy attained by the whole community as a result of the Kuna Revolution."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 26 Jul 2025
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Southeast, Panama, Central America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Tule (Kuna, Guna)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 119515
label: USNM Number
content: E364248-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Blouse