Weaving a niche in the economy.

• Author: Pedreira, Mauricio
• Position: Arraiolo rugs from Diamantina, Brazil

AS THE CENTURY of ever-advancing technology comes to an end, two thousand women with minimal formal education are reviving an ancient tradition in the interior of Brazil. Working together in an artesan cooperative, they recreate with their skilled hands the ancient art of arraiolo rug weaving. These rugs originally came from the small Portuguese village of Arraiolos, where Moors, who had been expelled from Lisbon, established weaving workshops during the fifteenth century.

Historians of Oriental rugs believe that the court of the Persian Empire was responsible for perfecting and promoting the well-known Persian rugs and for subsequently opening the markets in Europe. In a similar fashion, over the past twenty years, the Cooperativa Artesanal Regional de Diamantina (CARDI) has made the region around Diamantina famous for the production of the magnificent arraiolo rugs.

Diamantina was a center of European culture with a thriving economy during Brazil's colonial period. Incalculable fortunes in gold and diamonds were virtually plucked from the ground. Once the mines were depleted, all that remained was the beauty and mystique of the old colonial town. In due course, the economic activity of the region dwindled to little more than a trickle.

However, in recent years, the town has experienced an economic resurgence of a different type. Twenty years ago, when CARDI began the production of the arraiolo rugs, there were thirty women artisans. Today they number over two thousand, grouped in nuclei of 20 to 100 weavers throughout the 26 municipalities of the Jequitinhonha River Valley in the state of Minas Gerais. As members of the cooperative, the women weave the arraiolo rugs at home and are paid for their producr in addition to receiving medical benefits and social services.

In the early 1970s, a study carried out by the Planning Board of Minas Gerais, at the request of the Catholic Action group, recommended this domestic rug weaving activity as a way of integrating women of the region into the labor market. With a permanent salaried job, the women would be able to support the family while their husbands looked for jobs. The scope of this project was such that it brought together Ambassador Paulo Tarso Flecha de Lima, a descendent of one of the families of the region, and the Most Reverend Eugenio Sigaud, then bishop of Diamantina. Ambassador Flecha de Lima invited a Portuguese couple, Milton and Rosa Muniz, to Diamantina to teach the art of...