Credited to Paraguay. Popular legend gives the lace a pre-Hispanic Guarani origin. Josefina Pla and the Textile Research Centre trace the technique to Tenerife lace brought by Spanish settlers; the Paraguayan claim is to its local development, not to needle lace itself.
How it began
Nanduti means spider's web in Guarani. The writer Josefina Pla found no colonial record of exactly when the craft began. A hand cloth called nanduti is mentioned in the Jesuit annual letters of 1610, and the missionary Jose Sanchez Labrador, shortly before the Jesuits were expelled, described Spanish ladies in Asuncion teaching Indigenous women from a mission to make lace with suns. Pla concluded that the lace derives from Tenerife lace of the Canary Islands and took root in Paraguay.
How it works
A background cloth is stretched tightly on a frame and the whole pattern is drawn on it in pencil. The lace maker lays the radial threads of each round sun, then weaves motifs onto those taut spokes with a needle, without piercing the cloth. Each sun is made separately and the suns are joined into the shape of the piece. When the pattern is finished the background cloth is cut away, and the lace is washed, dried and stiffened with cassava starch. Fine cotton or silk thread is used.
How it spread
Pla argued that the missions were probably the main early centers of production, since churches needed lace for altar cloths and vestments. After the Jesuit expulsion the lace declined in the missions but spread through the colony into domestic garments. It also reached the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, where it is sold in Florianopolis and is known as Paraguayan lace, and where local tradition says it came from Paraguay.
Who pushed back
The origin is contested between European and Indigenous accounts. Popular legends give the lace a pre-Hispanic Guarani origin, with a young woman copying a spider's web, and none mention Spain. Pla held that the technique and basic designs are unmistakably those of Tenerife lace, while the name, the motifs and the practice became Paraguayan. The war of 1864 to 1870 nearly ended the craft: Itaugua was evacuated in 1868 and tradition says a single lace maker returned.
Where it stands today
Itaugua is regarded as the home of nanduti, and its revival after the war made the lace the emblem of the town, with the craft spreading to nearby towns such as Altos. Production grew again after 1950, helped by tourism. Many makers now use colored thread, though white or cream is traditional. A national nanduti day is held in Itaugua on the second Sunday of October. The Textile Research Centre in Leiden describes the lace as labor intensive and in danger of disappearing.
