Skip to main content

Sapara Clothing: A Tradition in Danger

Les vêtements d’Amazonie menacés

Location

Ecuador

Lancement

February 2019

Durée

10:09

Tags
  • Culture
  • Ecuador
  • Ethical Consumption
  • Indigenous Made Film
  • Indigenous Solutions
  • youth

For centuries, the Sapara people of the Ecuadorian Amazon made their clothes from the resistant and natural fabric that the forest grows for them. As people have become more used to commercial clothing, this tradition has been increasingly neglected.

By stripping the bark from the tree and beating it to soften the fibres, they tame the hard cortex of the llanchama tree and transform it into a textile material. It seems simple but requires a team of people and several days of work to develop this product that is currently undervalued in the market.

Arturo Santi from the Jandiayaku community, inheritor of this millenary knowledge, passes it on to young people so that they can preserve this ancient technique that may offer a sustainable alternative for the future and exemplifies their community’s historic and deep connection to their forest home. 

Producers

  • Profile
    TAWNA Equateur

    « Nous sommes TAWNA, un groupe originaire du cœur de l’Amazonie équatorienne. Notre rêve est de transmettre avec notre pagaie le...

  • Profile
    Samantha Castro Ecuador

    Femme, escaladeuse, journaliste indépendante, cinéaste autodidacte, activiste des défenses de la vie de la Pachamama ”Je crois en ...

Related films

  • Film
    6:41 mins
    Voices of Amerikua: Moretecocha, Ecuador Ecuadorian community fight off oil threats

    The community of Morete Cocha is located in the region of Pastaza Province in the Amazon region of Ecuador. Like many other communities Morete Cocha is under threat by interest of oil companies seeking to exploit crude in the communities land.  This is the story of community’s search for environmental and cultural preservation. The phrase […]

    UncategorizedEcuadorPartner film
  • Film
    11:46 mins
    Kofan, the people Grassroots indigenous activism in Ecuador

    Emergildo Criollo (Kofan nation) was just a child when the oil company Texaco arrived by helicopter in his peoples’ ancestral territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The ensuing decades of oil extraction and deliberate contamination dramatically altered the landscape of the region, impacting the Kofan people’s culture and resulting in a public health crisis. Emergildo fought […]

    UncategorizedEcuadorUncategorized
  • Film
    6:35 mins
    Amazon Alive for Humanity Consultation essential for Amazon Conservation

    Having lived for millennia in the forests of the ‘Amazonian Trapezoid’, today the Amacayacu National Park, indigenous communities there are now treated as an obstacle to conservation. Their rights have been systematically violated since the National Park was created in 1975. In April 2015 the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism signed an agreement to […]

    colombiaUncategorizedUncategorized
  • Film
    9:28 mins
    Week of Harvesting: inspiring the old, valuing the young Produce from the Amazon: local network and transparent supply chain flourishing

    Terra do Meio in it’s fifth year brings together indigenous and local communities. The network of cantinas is able to supply traditional produce from the Amazon in a way that supports local communities and protects the forest. The Xipaya, Curuáya, Xikrin, Yudjá and Arara peoples joined by the banks of the Rio Xingu Extractive Reserves, […]

    UncategorizedBrazilCulture