A Corte is a traditional skirt used by indigenous women in 22 different native Mayan Communities. It is usually hand-woven on a foot loom by men, then it is taken on a rectangular panel of cloth and is sewed together to form a tube-shape, making it a wrap-around skirt. Certain Cortes, depending on the villages they belong to, have a “randa” a pattern which is used to decorate the seam. In other cases it is a simple machine or hand-sewn seam. A corte, or skirt, is usually attached firmly with a sash or belt. In certain areas of Coban, the skirts have a distinctively different form.

Traditionally in many Guatemalan villages, women wore a distinct corte or skirt that matched its own huipil. This kind of skirt was called “morga” which is woven from a heavy denim-like indigo blue or black material usually made of un-mercerized cotton. Depending on the variation, you can tell where someone is from, or living. A few villages had black and white morgas. Nowadays in many villages the morga has been replaced by “jaspe”. A Jaspe corte is made of cotton and has tie-died threads that make various patterns in the stripes of the skirt. There are also some cortes or skirts that have threads made of acrylic, metallic and other synthetic materials.

The cortes we provide are high-quality handmade textiles. You can wear them, or use them for your textile products design. Each item is unique, so if you are interested in buying one or more, please make sure to contact us so we can send you photos of what we have available. We have a good inventory of textiles and we will be happy to send you photos. Please provide us with any details you would like to see on the textile. Whether that be size, color, patterns, textures etc. So we can show you what best matches your expectations.