Abstract The Paracas textile, dating from 300 to 200 BC and held in the British Museum, is one of our earliest examples of socially engaged or socially enacted cloth. It presents us with an insight into ritual, social value, and care at one of the most significant moments of a human life—one’s death. The highly intricate woven and stitched fragments form part of a mummy bundle, a decorative cloth swathed in layer upon layer of cotton fabric. This article will explore three moments in history across a timeline of nearly 2,000 years, beginning with the fragments that remain of the Paracas textile, remnants of an early Peruvian society. It will then move on to explore the patchwork quilts of the North American settlers and conclude with the signature textiles produced by civilian internees in the Far East internment camps in World War II. It will examine the active use of cloth and its ability to punctuate our human lives, drawing on archival sources and oral histories to explore this idea further.

中文翻译：

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关于生与死的问题

摘要 公元前 300 至 200 年的帕拉卡斯纺织品被收藏在大英博物馆，是我们最早的社会参与或社会制定的布料的例子之一。它让我们深入了解人类生命中最重要的时刻之一——一个人的死亡——仪式、社会价值和关怀。高度复杂的编织和缝合碎片形成了木乃伊束的一部分，木乃伊束是一层层包裹着棉织物的装饰布。本文将探讨跨越近 2000 年时间线的三个历史时刻，从帕拉卡斯纺织品的残片开始，这是早期秘鲁社会的遗迹。然后，它将继续探索北美定居者的拼布被子，并以二战中远东拘留营的平民被拘禁者生产的标志性纺织品结束。