Análisis semiótico de la indumentaria matrimonial del pueblo Salasaca

Abstract

Indigenous ceremonial dress constitutes a system of non-verbal visual communication that encodes identity, worldview, and collective memory. The Salasaca people, settled in the Pelileo canton, province of Tungurahua, Ecuador, preserve a matrimonial attire with a profound symbolic load that has been scarcely documented from a semiotic perspective, creating an academic gap that directly threatens the intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge associated with these practices. The objective of the research that has been carried out revolves around conducting a semiotic analysis of the wedding dress or matrimonial attire of the Salasaca people, using the method of Roland Barthes for this purpose, as one of the ways to help preserve Andean intangible cultural heritage. For the study of this cultural object, a mixed approach of a qualitative descriptive-exploratory type justified by the inductive method has been used. The fieldwork consisted of the use of twelve semi-structured interviews with people from this community, one interview with a researcher specialized in Salasaca iconography, interviews with four craftswomen, three community leaders, and semiotic photographic observation sheets; in addition, an ethnographic photographic archive of the dress in the context of the ritual was built. The triangulation between the bibliographic review, the fieldwork, and the iconographic analysis served to guarantee the validity of the results. The Barthesian denotative, connotative, and mythical levels have been identified and systematized in eight garments and accessories of the wedding attire: the outer black bayeta, the blouse embroidered with a peacock, the mamachumbi, the black anaco, the white fachalina with tassels, the red fachalina, the multicolored ribbons of the cuichi, and the walcas. It is concluded that the matrimonial attire of the Salasaca people functions as a tripartite symbolic language that articulates body, territory, and collective memory, and whose semiotic systematization constitutes an active contribution to the preservation of Andean intangible cultural heritage.