Shipibo Weaving and Song

From Indigenous

The Shipibo Indians in the Amazon Rainforest are known for their amazing, psychedelic textiles. Did you know that these textiles are actually musical?


From The Generative Song & Sound Pattern Matrixes of the Shipibo Indians:

The intricate linear geometric and symmetrical artworks of the Shepibo Indians, a large tribe of the Peruvian Amazon, act as visual music maps – scores notating the chants and songs (Icaros) associated with Ayahasca healing ceremonies.

The textiles and embroidery, all crafted by women, contain recursive and self-reflective motifs, including geometric configurations common to those generated computationally by iterative functions. A characteristic recurring visual system found in the textiles are bilaterally generated cellular patterns containing space-filling curves.

Here's a shaman singing the music as "read" from the textile.