Ruana

The word ruana is of unknown origin but likely comes from the Spanish language "ruana" meaning woolen cloth, ragged, or street-related. However, albeit dubious, according to ProColombia (former Proexport), the official Colombian agency in charge of international tourism, foreign investment, and non-traditional exports, the word ruana comes from the Chibcha ruana meaning "Land of Blankets", used to refer to the woolen fabrics manufactured by the Muisca and timoto-cuicas natives.[2]

The ruanas worn by the native Muisca (Chibcha) were apparently made of wool and knee-long, well-suited to the cold temperatures of the region where they were used not only as a piece of garment but also as a blanket for use in bed or to sit on as a cushion of sorts. Many ruanas are handcrafted with sheep's virgin wool. An 1856 watercolor shows an indigenous man in the Cordillera Occidental of Colombia weaving a ruana using a large foot-pedaled loom.[3]

Nevertheless, the pre-Columbian local origin hypothesis of the ruana is widely unacknowledged among Colombian scholars, noting that although pre-Columbian Muisca (also known as Chibcha) peoples wore garments similar to the ruana, the modern ruana doesn't seem to have evolved from these nor it shows continuity from the regional pre-hispanic garments,[4] rather the ruana appears to have been introduced after the Spanish conquest by the uprooted foreign Quechua yanakuna[5] slave-servants belonging to the defunct Inca Empire who were brought by the local Spanish hacendados in order to work the lands during the early Colonial period.

The ruana has a long history. It does not seem to be a local adaptation of the (pre-hispanic) Chibcha blankets, as Don Liborio Zerda wanted, but rather an imitation of the poncho introduced by the Quechua Yanaconas during the 16th and 17th centuries.[6]

— Colombian Institute of Anthropology

There is no evidence available to show... the transformation from the chibcha blanket to the ruana, and Liborio Zerda did not present it. On the contrary, there is an assertion in the chronicles that points out how difficult such a transition is. Antonio de Herrera observed in his "Décadas" that when the Chibchas "ripped the blankets and put them around their necks... they took it as a thing of great infamy". Today the wearing of a ruana is no longer interpreted as a "thing of great infamy", although there is still the cultural (and even natural) residue of ripping as an insult. But it is hard to believe that the local Indians made this cultural change internally. It seems that the Chibchas adopted the ruana from the poncho brought by the Quechua Yanaconas. The poncho was a foreign piece, of new style, which although it forced the wearer to run his head through the torn or open part, did not carry any stigma. The Chibchas (Muiscas) re-interpreted their own elements and held on to the poncho, ruana and bayeton with evident taste. In the 18th century, says Basilio Vicente de Oviedo, the manufacture of ruanas was already a major industry in many towns of Boyacá.[7]

— Orlando Fals-Borda, Antología

XIX century, venezuelan hunters wearing ruanas or "cobijas"

In Venezuela it is the typical attire of the Merida mountain range, becoming the characteristic clothing of the "gochos". In Venezuela, before the "Andean hegemony", the ruana or blanket was used by the entire population as a garment to protect themselves from the sun in the hot lands or as a garment to protect themselves from the cold in the highlands, as noted by Ramón Páez in "Wild Scenes in South America; or life in the Venezuelan llanos" and Captain Vowels in "las sabanas de Barinas"

«...Usaban una gruesa cobija de lana para mantener el cuerpo fresco y húmedo durante el día y caliente por la noche (...) lo usual era vestirse con una cobija doble, lo que hoy llamamos reversible, formada con telas superpuestas: azul oscuro y rojo intenso. Para los días húmedos usaban hacia afuera el color azul; y en los días muy soleados, volteaban la ruana para que el color rojo quedara hacia afuera.»

— Ramón Páez

«...Se le da a este abrigo el nombre de cobija o chamarra, la cual consiste en un cuadrado de bayeta, de doble tapa encarnada y azul, con el cuello en el centro»

— Captain Vowel

XIX century, venezuelan llaneros wearing ruanas.

In the Venezuelan Andes they were used without discrimination by all the population, which fascinated the German painter Ferdinand Bellermann. According to the information of the time, the ruana was composed of a single color, and in the Andes they were handcrafted from animal fabrics to protect themselves from the cold, while in the plains it was lighter to protect themselves from the heat. This garment has lost its daily use and now it is only wore culturally or in the upper regions of the Merida mountain range.

«También llevan muchas cobijas marrones pequeñas, los hombres van casi siempre envueltos en cobijas y llevan sombreros guarnecidos de telas enceradas de todos colores; a caballo llevan puestos pantalones de montar de pieles de tigre o de osos...»

— Ferdinand Bellermann

• Aguayo
• Cape
• Cloak
• Poncho
• Sarape

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Ruana.

• Official Proexport site with information about ruanas