A mapuche lamngen said something that stuck with me the other day...
"when you look at someone wearing their traditional dress, know that it is costly, all the clothes are hand-made and tailored, from specific kinds of cloth that may be costly themselves or difficult to find, then on top you have all the beading and every silver element and accessory, chest pieces, bracelets, necklaces, earrings, head piece or hair ornaments. Often a lot of it is made by family members, or gifted, or passed down. It'd take a fortune, a literal fortune, to build one, buy one, for yourself from scratch"
And we tend to forget that, even among indigenous peoples! Because we know it's costly and difficult to make, and that is a given. But taking the effort to keep that in mind when looking at other indigenous women... doubles the beauty of what you're seeing because you're also acknowledging their effort. But it's not only their individual choice to make the effort to wear and honor tradition.
It's the work of entire families and communities that goes behind, that literally clothes in medicine, each individual present. There's a very profound teaching there.
