Joseph H. Fabish has given numerous talks on Huamachuco textile traditions and Incan weaving. Joseph H. Fabish’s specific focus is on a textile weaving lineage in the Andean highlands of Huamachuco that extends back to Incan times and traditionally focused on fleece sheered from camelid herds of llamas, vicunas, alpacas, and guanaco. One of Joseph H. Fabish's research topics was identifying how this textile weaving lineage derived from weaving traditions and patterns of Incan nobility - particularly with respect to visual expression of rank and elitism. Joseph H. Fabish documented this phenomenon in his co-authored book "Andamarcan Textiles: An Elite Inca Weaving Tradition from Peru Found on the Ancient Lands of the Haciendas Sinsicapa (San Ignacio) and Tulpo" and in other articles that Mr. Fabish wrote during his decades of research and study.
There was no written language in the Andean highlands prior to the arrival of the Spanish in the 1530s. However, cloth served as a primary means of visual communication, expressing elements of identity such as social rank, marital status, ethnicity, gender, and age, and exchanges and gifts of cloth were an integral part of daily life.
One of the seminal discoveries that enriched our understanding of this tradition of cloth as visual communication were the Huaca Prieta archaeological excavations conducted by Junius B. Bird of the American Museum of Natural History. Most of the 122 woven fabrics found along the north coast of Peru’s Chicama River Valley in the 1940s were made of cotton from the lower regions. Still, they provided vast insights into the period from 3100 to 1300 BC that might otherwise have been forgotten. One of the most remarkable pieces in the cache depicted condors created in a weaving tradition that far predated the sacred uses of the image by Incan nobility from 1250 to 1532 AD.
These archaeological finds led Bird to study the contemporary weaving traditions of Peru. He also arranged visits by textile scholars, who learned from Andean spinners and weavers over the decades. This ultimately led to an explosion of interest in the field in the 1970s, as well as efforts to preserve ancient weaving techniques and traditions that continue to this day.
