Vicuna, the Rarest Fiber - 10/16/2007 As a knitter of some thirty-five years I have touched, caressed and knit with an incredible number of different natural fibers. I’ve tried them in their pure forms and in blends. I have tried to understand their properties and to use them appropriately before I judged them. But there was always one fiber that eluded me and that I thought I might never knit – vicuna. So what is vicuna fiber? Vicuna is the rarest and finest hair fiber available. It is lighter, softer and warmer than any other hair fiber. This includes the hair fibers qiviut and cashmere. The fact that vicunas only produce about one pound of fiber per year of which only half is useful also adds to the rarity of the fiber. Most vicuna yarn is woven into material for luxury apparel and home fashion. Vicuna fabric can range from $1,800 to $3,000 per yard. Vicuna wool is sensitive to chemical treatment so it is left in its natural color – a spicy cinnamon. So if that’s the fiber, what about the animal? The vicuna is the wild ancestor of the alpaca. It lives in herds on the slopes of the Andes Mountains at elevations between 12,000 and 18,000 thousand feet. It is physically much smaller than the alpaca: average length of head and body is 5 ft and average shoulder height is 3 ft. They weigh less than 150 lbs. Their coats are dense and woolly, a necessary protection against the frigid nighttime temperatures of their habitat. The vicuna is very shy and because of this the animal is left in a semi-wild state. Their defense against predators is their speed – they can run 30 miles an hour. Their worst predator is man who has hunted this graceful animal to near extinction to order to obtain their fleece – a fleece first prized by Inca royalty. It is an Inca legend that the vicuna is the reincarnation of a beautiful young maiden who was courted by an ugly, old king. She would only agree to his advances if he gave her a coat of pure gold – the coat now worn by the vicuna. It is not a legend but historical fact that the vicuna was considered sacred by the Incas and that its fleece could only be worn by royalty. Anyone else caught with a vicuna fleece was executed. Today the vicuna herds are growing due to government conservation in the countries of Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. Before 1974 when the vicuna was declared endangered only 6,000 animals were left. Now the vicuna has recovered to about 125,000. These governments now certify that vicuna fiber is obtained through a communal effort called chacu. Large numbers of people herd the vicuna into funnel traps where they are sheared and then released back into the wild. The animals cannot be sheared again for at least another 2 years. Shearing the vicuna protects them against poachers who kill the animal for its fleece. The governments see that the communities, some of the poorest, that conduct the chacu receive the majority of the profits from the sale of the fleeces. My knitting life’s quest – to find, savor and knit vicuna – is almost fulfilled. I feel like the Knights of the Round Table, Indiana Jones and Robert Langdon of the Da Vinci Code in that I have found my holy grail. All that is left to my quest is to “drink in” the wonders of my vicuna as I cast on and knit.	Pure Vicuna Yarn The Vicuna The Vicuna\'s Face A Herd of Vicunas