Maria Cuc Jiatz
Guatemalan back strap weaver
Spokane, WA
Maria Cuc Jiatz, a Mayan weaver from Sololá, Guatemala, began to weave at the age of ten.
From their mother, she and her older sisters learned the art of backstrap weaving. Cuc
Jiatz worked her way through middle and secondary school, and was the only child out of
six in her family to receive a formal education. After completing her studies, she assisted
several grass-roots organizations with community development projects to help improve the
lives of fellow Mayans. She worked with isolated, rural communities around Lake Atitlán,
and made time to study Economics at the University of San Carlos, Sololá, for two more
years. She moved to Spokane, Washington in 2003, with her two daughters to work with her
husband to expand their importing business, a business which supports Mayan artists by
promoting and selling their hand-woven textiles and crafts.
A recipient of a 2007 Folk Arts Apprenticeship grant, Cuc Jiatz received 2007 and 2008
WSAC Folk Arts Apprenticeship awards to train her daughters, Lesly Sub Cuc and Ingrid Sub
Cuc, in the traditional art of backstrap weaving. Her apprentices have learned how to
assemble a loom, prepare balls of thread using a spindle, prepare the warp (the lengthwise
threads of a weaving) using a warp board, and perform other tasks for this type of
weaving. Cuc Jiatz believes that it is her responsibility as a Mayan woman to pass on t
his art form to her family. She hopes that her daughters will instill the values of Mayan
culture and carry on this tradition with their own children in the future.