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In the mountains of Sierra Nevada Santa Marta live a couple of indigenous tribes. The Arhuaco and the Kankuamo are most famous here for their handcrafted textiles. They weave their spiritual stories into handcrafted items mainly with sheep wool. Although the Kankuamo also weave with figure a vegetal textile. Then there are also the famous Wayuu people who live further to the east of Colombia, in Guajira. They weave colorful designs with cotton. You'll find these mochila bags all over Colombia.
Each one carries a ancestral meaning. A lineage. A prayer woven into thread.
Mochilas are not “bags.”
They are ancient storytellers, crafted by hands that learned their rhythm from the mountains, the moon, and the silence of early morning fires. In Colombia, these sacred weavings carry the wisdom of generations, every stitch a whisper from the ancestors, every pattern a map back to the Earth. The girls learn the weaving techniques from their mothers and grandmothers.
Let’s step into the world of the three tribes behind our mochilas.
Not just what they make, but why they make it.
From the red sands of La Guajira live the Wayuu, a matriarchal tribe where weaving is more than skill.
The Wayuu say a girl learns to weave after she receives her first moon.
She goes into solitude, guided by her grandmother, where she dreams.
The patterns she sees in those dreams become the symbols she weaves for life.
Wayuu mochilas represent:
Each bag takes weeks sometimes months.
And the woman who weaves it passes her spirit into the threads: her mood, her strength, her story.
A Wayuu mochila is not an accessory.
It is a companion, a guardian, a piece of someone’s inner world carried into yours.
High in the mountains, where the clouds wrap around the trees like prayer scarves live the Arhuaco people, the sons and daughters of the snow-capped peaks.
To them, the Sierra Nevada is the heart of the Earth.
They call it “The Mother of the World.”
Arhuaco mochilas are always made from natural fibers:
cotton, wool, wild plants.
The colors are earthy, soft, quiet like the mountains themselves.
Their patterns are messages.
You will see woven designs of the mountain peaks, water and earth symbols, animals like a butterfly and lies representing the Path of Life. There are bags for women and for men.
The bag is also referred to as the womb of a woman, Mother Earth.
They represent:
When an Arhuaco elder weaves, they pray.
When they finish a mochila, they close it with intention.
It becomes a talisman of harmony.
To carry an Arhuaco bag is to carry a piece of the Earth’s heartbeat.
The Kankuamo are the quiet protectors of the Sierra Nevada.
Their traditions were once almost lost and now they weave not just for survival, but for revival.
Their mochilas are symbols of:
Their style is strong, grounded, powerful. No loud colors, no extra noise.
They weave the essence of who they are, with the intention to remember.
A Kankuamo mochila is for the woman who is coming home to herself.
For the one who seeks grounding, stability, and ancestral strength.
Each of these tribes carries their own philosophy, their own cosmology, their own way of reading the world. But all mochilas share one truth:
They are woven prayers.
For protection.
For balance.
For feminine power.
For harmony with the land.
When you choose a mochila, you don’t just pick a bag.
You choose a lineage.
You choose whose story, whose blessing, whose energy you want to carry into your own life.
This is why our selection is slow, intentional, and respectful.
We work with artisans who weave from tradition.
That's why our mochila's are limited items. The work put into one mochila represents its value.
With a mochila you invest in a natural bag crafted from slow fashion, an ode to Mother Earth and in support of the indigenous creators.
A reminder that you, too, are woven,
from earth, dreams, intuition, and the stories of those who came before you.
