Oaxaca City is at the apex of three valleys: Tlacolula, Etla and Ocotlan. Each is separated by a mountain range, so you have to go through the city to get to each. Yesterday, a group of 12 gathered in the city to explore some of the artisans along the Ocotlan Highway where villages specialize in pottery, textiles, and alebrijes.
First, we stopped in San Bartolo Coyotepec where we know a very accomplished and traditional potter who works in traditional black clay. Her studio is not commercial and is off-the-beaten-path. Adelina is deeply rooted in the centuries old tradition of clay-making and her family is one of the most talented in the village. She is skilled not only in making decorative pottery, but also utilitarian pieces that are fired at much higher temperature to make them waterproof. If you missed this special Day of the Dead Tour, you might want to register for our Ocotlan Highway Tour offered any time during the year.
P.S. Not too late to join us November 1 to go to the Mitla cemetery and learn about how Day of the Dead is celebrated in this traditional Zapotec burial site. Send an email immediately if you want to come!
The black pottery is a ceremonial pre-Hispanic Zapotec tradition that is part of Day of the Dead. The waterproof jars are used for burials to ensure that the disfuntos have water to drink as they make their journey to the underworld. Traditionally, the tombs were in family homes, and many relics of this ancient period have been found as people build and add onto their houses.
Adelina explains that artisans were buried with their tools so they could continue to make their craft after they pass to the underworld. She says that the skulls remind us that we are only bones and skeletons. While the Spanish conquerors said that skeletons were evil, the Zapotecs believe this is a natural, normal part of life, and that life is a transition to living in the underworld. We celebrate death as we celebrate life, she says. We celebrate our our past and our ancestors. Her grandparents told her, as they aged to 100 years, that they are going to a new world. This gave the children tranquility and peace of mind.
Day of the Dead is a time to celebrate and remember. We are not sad, she says. The essence of the person comes back to visit us and enjoy the foods and drink we have put on the altar for them. For Adelina, it is important to preserve indigenous pre-Hispanic traditions.
Our next stop was a whirlwind tour of the Friday Ocotlan Market. Today, it was packed with local vendors selling all the decor and foods needed for the Day of the Dead celebrations. Home altars are a central part of the celebration and the centerpieces are marigolds, cockscomb, bread, chocolate, candles, and mezcal.
Before lunch, we made a visit to master folk art potter Don Jose Garcia and his wife Teresita. We have known them for twenty years. Now, they have many young helpers, and their children have joined in making these whimsical figures, many of them life-size. It is always a joy to see them again in San Antonino Castillo Velasco on the Ocotlan Highway.
Lunch was in the copal forest and plant sanctuary at Almu, in San Martin Tilcajete. This is a cocina de humo — an outdoor smoke kitchen, where all natural, organic ingredients are used. Almost all of us had either mole coloradito or mole estofado. It was the best!
At Almu, pottery from Mogote is also featured. You can buy plants from the nursery, too.
And, finally before heading back to the city, we spent the last hours of the afternoon with Waldo Hernandez, owner/founder of Alebrijes Casa Don Juan in San Martin Tilcajete. This tradition of carving copal wood into mythical, whimsical, fantasy figures that are brightly painted with intricate, pre-Hispanic designs is a recent innovation, about forty years old. Often, these are figures that combine the parts of different animals and reptiles. Some even combine animal and human forms.
The village has hundreds of wood carving studios. Eric chose to visit here because he worked with Waldo when he was the managing director of Andares del Arte Popular folk art gallery. Waldo is known for his intricate painting designs and finest quality admired by collectors.
Waldo shared with us that Day of the Dead is a very quiet celebration in San Martin Tilcajete. Visitors are not allowed to enter the cemetery. It is a time of reflection and remembrance to honor the lives of loved ones whose spirits return to visit family. He reminds us that visitors are more than welcome to celebrate at the grand fiesta in the village for Carnival, which is Fat Tuesday, before Lent.
The copal wood is carved soft, then it dries for a year on the shelves. Usually cracks develop and they are repaired with copal plugs, then cut, sanded smooth, sealed, and then painted. The studio has its specialists — carvers and painters.
It’s Muertos time in Oaxaca! The traffic is crazy. The streets are filled with parades of costumed revelers, bands, and visitors who crowd the sidewalks. It took us an hour and a half — almost twice as long — to make the return trip from San Martin Tilcajete to town. Whew. Sleeping with ear plugs is de rigueur.
Now, I’m in the quiet of Teotitlan del Valle, happy to be home.
P.S. Not too late to join us November 1 to go to the Mitla cemetery and learn about how Day of the Dead is celebrated in this traditional Zapotec burial site. Send an email immediately if you want to come!
Whirlwind Day Two Shopping in Oaxaca — If it’s Friday, it must be Ocotlan
Sheri picked us up in her white van at the pre-determined 9 a.m. hour, early by Oaxaca standards, though the streets were already abuzz with honking vehicles. Our first stop was the ATM (exchange rate 13.12 pesos to the dollar) to stock up again for the day long adventure down the Ocotlan highway. We passed the airport and headed south along the valley highway that leads to some incredible crafts villages, stopping for gas at Pemex the state-owned oil company. The earlier the better along this road because the Ocotlan market attracts people from throughout the region whose motivations are to shop for the sheer pleasure of it or for survival needs of buying and selling everything from oilcloth table coverings, hammocks, woven baskets, pipes and gaskets, kitchen utensils, leather belts, children’s plastic shoes and everything else under the sun, including live turkeys raised for market, feet bound in twine so as not to escape. The van boasted New Mexico license plates, a good fit for around these parts, although vehicles are brought down from every state in north America to be bought, sold and traded.
We circumvented the hubbub, stopping first at the three Aguilar sisters whose shops you might miss if you didn’t pay attention. They are on the right side of the road heading into Ocotlan, about three blocks before arriving at the zocalo, market central. This is true folk art at its best. Josefina sits with legs tucked under her on a padded blanket in the courtyard of her home and sales area forming figures out of soft clay that will later be fired in a kiln that may not reach more than eight hundred degrees. Grandchildren dart around playing with kittens. Sons and daughters participate in the clay forming and painting. Tourists from all corners of the earth stream in and out. This is a famous stopping place for collecting Oaxaca art, yet the prices of the pieces match the humble working and living space: smaller figures range in price from one hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty pesos. That translates from about twelve to twenty dollars each. Collectors and dealers buy, pack and resell these figures in the U.S. for triple or quadruple the cost.
Next door, sister Irene sculpts hot women of the night and paints their hair yellow, applying blue glitter to create a dress, bosom prominent, one arm on hip, the other akimbo sporting a cigarette, a snake boa wrapped to cover cleavage (just barely). Imagination flies. A muerta, not yet painted, bares her skeletal teeth and she flaunts a haughty lilt of the head topped with a wide-brimmed hat to shade her from the strong sun. How will I get these home? I ask myself as I consider a purchase. Oh, don’t think about it, I answer silently. Go for it anyway, and I do, and because of my magic packing suitcase, everything arrives undamaged. My prize possession from Guillermina is a skeletal crone whose flowing dress is painted black. The hem is adorned with cream colored skulls, a red spider crawls along the folds of her skirt, a black shawl frames the sinister face. Dia de los Muertos is characterized by underworld forms.
Forgive me if I repeat myself. The impressions of Oaxaca are continuous revelations in memory. As we head back out of town, we make a left turn almost immediately onto the side road leading to San Antonino, where I want to relocate Don Jose Garcia, the blind potter. We go down a ways, turn right, make an immediate left at the next street and look for the clay animals that hang over the door to the courtyard that signals we have arrived. A dog barks. The door is ajar. We ring the bell and step inside to be welcomed by the family. Life-size clay figures cluster around the patio, are tucked haphazardly into corners, are laying on their sides — humans, animals, children. We are greeted by Don Jose and his wife who guide us into the workshop packed with more sculpture, wall to wall, like the clay soldiers of Xian, men, women, and children stand or kneel side by side, almost alive, waiting to be adopted and taken home.
These pieces are glorious, primitive, raw clay, unglazed. Some are rough. Some are polished. Each with a unique expression that conveys individuality and personality, a special quality that Don Jose has breathed life into as he forms the clay, braids the hair, fashions the nose, tilts the neck, arches the brow or mustache. These are heavy pieces, primitive. To ship them would require a crate and an investment of hundreds of dollars. We admire and take our leave.
Hungry, our next stop is at Azucena where Jacobo Angeles operates a fine restaurant that caters to tourists and tour buses, Elderhostel, and other forms of non-adventure travel. This is good for San Martin Tilcajete business, since Jacobo represents many of the finest carvers in the village. On this day, there is a special exhibition of regional folk art on the grounds of the restaurant and gallery, a perfect opportunity to pick up another carving, to eat and drink well, and to make a necessary bathroom stop.
We backtrack to Santo Tomas Jalieza to visit Abigail Mendoza and her family at Nicolas Bravo #1. On backstrap looms, they weave fine cloth with intricate figures that are fashioned into handbags, belts, wrist bands, table runners, and placemats. Abigail does the finish work for the rugs woven by Arnulfo Mendoza and Tito Mendoza. This is among the finest quality backstrap loom weaving you will find anywhere in the Oaxaca valley.
By now, it is five o’clock in the afternoon and the light is beginning to wane. We travel along the highway back to Oaxaca with a trunk full of goodies, ready for a fresh mango margarita and guacamole at La Olla. Descanse.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary, Travel & Tourism
Tagged Abigail Mendoza, backstrap loom, Jacobo Angeles, Ocotlan, San Martin Tilcajete, Santo Tomas Jalieza