40 More Handy Tricks

Step 13 Peruvian Backpack Scarf

When Andrea Dunlap needs to carry a bunch of extra stuff, she just folds her wide scarf over and ties it in front like this, and uses it like a backpack.
She learned how to do this in Peru while filming indigenous agricultural practices.

Andrea says "In Peru they use their mantas to carry everything from babies to
their lunch to their tools. Their mantas are woven from wool (sometimes sheep,
sometimes alpaca) and the pattern that they have woven into them is usually a
local one, so people can recognize what area you are from by what your manta
looks like. And theirs are square and they put their stuff in the center, then
fold up the bottom and top corner and then tie the other corners around their
shoulders like I did with my long scarf. The square cloth actually works a little
better because of that bottom fold. I could show with a photo of a piece of paper
or something?"

Comments

[WonderWheeler]

We silly americans prefer to buy stuff made in china made of nylon with lots of straps, plastic buckels and velcro, when a folded scarf would work?